A student, 155 and working toward 170: a live LSAT coaching session
This is what LSAT Unplugged coaching looks like. A student came in at 155, aiming for 170 on the January (retake) LSAT. Steve Schwartz coached him live for about 8 minutes on Logical Reasoning, and the whole session and transcript are below.
The numbers here are where A student started and the goal we set together in this session. Individual results vary.
- Student: A student
- Score when recorded: 155
- Goal: 170
- Target test: January (retake)
- Situation: has about three and a half months to prepare and is working through a study plan on the LSAT Unplugged platform
- Focus: Logical Reasoning
- Worked on: necessary assumption, sufficient assumption, must be true, most strongly supported
What we fixed in this session
You get faster at anything by getting better at it. There's never truly anything new on the LSAT.
Steve Schwartz
This is one session, in the middle of the work. I've been coaching the LSAT since 2005, and every session runs the same way: find the real problem, fix the process, reset the plan.
I told the student to deprioritize parallel reasoning for now since it is time consuming but worth the same as any other question, and to focus instead on necessary assumption and inference. That appear far more often.
The student was not comfortable with negation and walked through how to negate a statement to test necessary assumption answer choices, including negating quantity words like always.
The plan: I told the student to stop timing herself for now, drill for accuracy first using older practice tests from the 120s and 130s, and only add timing later once accuracy improves.
If your prep looks like A student's did, that's fixable in one session.
Book your free LSAT tutoring lesson
In the student's words
I'm pretty evenly scoring low on assumption, and then inference and parallel.
A student
I'm currently not really, not well.
A student
Timing was one of my issues, running out of time and guessing on the rest.
A student
Questions people ask about LSAT Unplugged coaching
What happens in an LSAT Unplugged coaching session?
The coach finds the specific habit that's costing points, fixes the process, and sets the plan for the weeks ahead. In A student's case: the student to deprioritize parallel reasoning for now since it is time consuming but worth the same as any other question.
Who runs the sessions?
Steve Schwartz recorded this one. Every LSAT Unplugged coach scored 170 or higher on an official LSAT, and students are matched to a coach on learning style and weak areas.
Where can I see finished results?
On the student reviews page at unpluggedprep.com/reviews, with video interviews and official scores.
Learn the fixes yourself: necessary assumption questions, sufficient assumption questions, must be true questions.
Student reviews and finished results.
Full session transcript
Recorded December 2025.
Student: I'm currently at a 155 and I want to take it again in January.
Steve: Okay, 155, taking it in January, we've got three and a half months. What's your goal?
Student: My goal is 170.
Steve: So 15 to 20 points or so, but with three and a half months it's pretty doable. What's your biggest area of struggle right now?
Student: Right now I'm working a lot on assumption questions, but I'm also pretty evenly scoring low on assumption, then inference and parallel.
Steve: Gotcha, three biggest areas of struggle. Everybody hates parallel questions because they're so long and time consuming, but since every question is worth the same regardless of type, difficulty, or where it appears, my thought is let's put parallel on the back burner and focus more on necessary assumption and inference, since those are far more common and higher leverage. Two distinctions: within assumption you have necessary and sufficient, asking for different things, necessary is more common so focus there. Within inference you have must be true and most strongly supported. Get clear on those distinctions, the LSAT is all about nuance.
Steve: In the study plan we laid out, we start with necessary assumption and inference earlier, parallel comes later. Follow that, drill the categorized question lists we gave you, don't time yourself yet, just focus on accuracy, timing comes later once you're better at allocating time within a section.
Student: Okay, thank you.
Steve: Are you comfortable with negation?
Student: Not really, not well.
Steve: I'd focus on negation first for necessary assumption, it's one of the best ways to determine the answer. Necessary assumption asks what needs to be the case for the argument to work, so if that thing weren't true, the conclusion would fall apart. You go through each choice and ask, if I negate this, does it destroy the argument? The correct answer, negated, destroys the argument. If we had "it is sunny today," you'd say "it is not sunny today." It gets harder with quantity words, "it is always sunny" negates to "it is not always sunny," meaning at least one day might not be sunny. If an exception negates it, it destroys the argument. Practice negation, we have drills and lessons on it, that's the number one tool for necessary assumption. Funny thing is necessary assumption questions are actually a specific kind of must be true question, which ties into inference, where you also want to look for what's already required or guaranteed by the stimulus. Big difference: necessary assumption deals with an argument, inference questions like must be true and most supported sometimes deal with just a fact set, no argument, but you're still looking for what you can infer from the stimulus.
Steve: For now just drill. We have the LASER approach: learning, accuracy, sections, exams, and review. With three and a half months for a 15 point jump, I'd start with learning and accuracy. Learning is going through the foundation lessons on the LSAT Unplugged platform, accuracy is drilling questions from actual previously administered exams. Start with the older ones, you've got time to work through the most recent 20 or 30 tests, so don't do the exams in the 150s now, those are newest. Start around the 130s or even 120s and work old to new.
Student: What else, any other challenges?
Student: Timing was one of my issues, running out of time and guessing on the rest, though based on the method I'll probably start working on that later, but it's another concern.
Steve: Timing will come, I wouldn't worry about it yet, that's the third phase, the S in LASER. The L and A come first, so don't run before you can walk, focus on accuracy and understanding the proper perspective for each section and question type. Pacing comes once you've raised your baseline for accuracy. You get faster at anything by getting better at it, it becomes automatic, subconscious, you build the muscle memory and pattern recognition so a new question gets bucketed into a category based on what you've seen before. I can solve LSAT questions fast because when I see a new question, even if the surface topic is different, the underlying method of reasoning relates back to dozens of exams from the past. There's never truly anything new. If you understood even 10 exams inside out, you'd have seen it all before. For now: go through the lessons, then drill, focusing on necessary assumption and inference.
Student: Among assumption questions I struggle most with sufficient assumption, but I know that appears less than necessary. Should I study those together, or target them one by one?
Steve: Target them separately, they're asking for very different things. The only time I'd mix them is as a drill to practice distinguishing between the two. A lot of students lump them together, there's no such thing as "an assumption question," there's necessary assumption and sufficient assumption. If you want to practice distinguishing them, mix a set together and ID each one, then drill them in isolation. The key is the word or phrase in the question: necessary assumption uses "depends upon," "requires," "assumes." Sufficient assumption uses "allows," "enables," "properly inferred if assumed," "logically follows if assumed." Sufficient assumption also has more formal logic involved, diagramming can help at first, but I'd move away from it eventually.
Student: Okay, thank you.
Steve: Of course. If anything else comes up, email me, text me, I'm always happy to help.
More coaching sessions: Zabdi, 141 to 155, Abigail, 147 to 160, Leah, 153 to 170, Dominic, Alina, 157 to 170. Student results and reviews.
I've written free explanations for every question in LSAT PrepTest 159, 158, 157, 156, 155 and 154, with the right answer and why each wrong answer fails. All LSAT explanations are here.
Enough reading. Try a question. Free LSAT drills, 1 at a time, explained the second you answer. Start free drills
