Introduction: Read This First
On the LSAT, 4 questions can be worth $150,000.
That’s not a metaphor. The gap between a 164 and a 168 is about 4 questions. I’ve watched those 4 questions decide whether a student pays full tuition at a top-30 law school or attends the same school on a full ride. Same classrooms, same professors, same degree. One graduate starts her career with a payment that looks like a mortgage. The other starts free. So look at what you’re holding. It looks like a test prep book. Underneath, it’s a money book. Your LSAT score is one of the most valuable numbers you’ll ever produce, and this book treats it that way.
Now the part most prep books won’t say out loud.
If you’ve been studying for months and your score won’t move, you don’t have an effort problem. You have a review problem. Nobody taught you how to learn from the questions you miss, because almost everyone in this industry gets paid to sell you volume: more questions, more videos, another 500-page book about 1 section of a test with 3 scored sections. Part 1 gets into whose fault that actually is, and it isn’t yours.
And here’s the part the title means literally. The method in this book doesn’t care what your diagnostic was. I’ve watched it work from the high 170s down into the 140s, because it isn’t a gift you either have or don’t. It’s a set of moves, and moves can be taught to anyone willing to do the reps. I won’t promise you a specific number from here, because I don’t know you yet. What I’ll promise is narrower and more useful: the ceiling you think you have is almost always the contaminated one, set on a test you took without these tools.
Quick introduction. I’m Steve. I’ve been coaching the LSAT since 2005: thousands of students, plus the LSAT Unplugged YouTube channel. The first time I took this test I scored a 152. I’d gone to an Ivy League school. I thought I was good at tests. The LSAT disagreed. A year later I scored a 175, and the method that got me there is the method in this book. It’s also the reason this became my career.
This book exists for 2 reasons, and you get them straight.
Reason 1: to raise your score. The complete method is on these pages. I’m not holding chapters hostage for a paid course. Reason 2: I own an LSAT coaching company. Some of you will work through this book and decide you want a coach in the room while you do it. When that day comes, I’d like to be the obvious call. That’s the whole business model: give you everything, then trust that some of you will want help going faster.
I’m telling you this on page 1 so you never have to squint at my motives. Nothing in here is a teaser. The method is complete on the page. What you do with it is up to you.
A few things this book is not. It’s not a 1,500-page tour of every question type ever administered. It’s not a bag of tricks. It’s a book about the few moves that actually produce points, sized by its reps instead of its theory, and written for busy people: college students, recent grads, anyone studying at 11pm after a full day. It took me a year because I did everything wrong first. Done right, this is a 3-to-6-month project.
The route runs in 3 parts.
Part 1 figures out where you are. The 3 traps that eat most students’ prep, why none of them are your fault, and a check-in that tells you honestly what to do next.
Part 2 is the method. The Socratic Review Method, which turns the questions you miss into points you keep, and you’ll run it on a real question of your own before the part ends. Then the 2 sections it feeds: Logical Reasoning, which is 2/3 of your score (your study schedule should know that), and Reading Comprehension. Part 3 puts it on the calendar and cashes it out. The LASER plan that organizes your entire prep (Learning, Accuracy, Sections, Exams/Endurance, Review), the test-day playbook, and the chapter that turns your score into scholarship money. (Retakers get a chapter of their own in there too.)
And the back of the book works for a living: 15 straight answers to the questions students actually ask, an appendix with every instrument assembled, and a drill bank holding 58 original reps for the muscles Part 2 builds. Every printable instrument in here also lives in 1 free companion workbook. Tell us where to send it at unpluggedprep.com/books, and it lands in your inbox, next to you while you work. The book points at the right sheet as you reach it.
•••
Skimming? Here’s the whole book in 3 points.
- The LSAT rewards review, not volume. Drilling measures you. Review changes you. Almost nobody reviews properly, and that’s the entire gap between you and a top scorer.
- Logical Reasoning is 2/3 of your score. 2 of your 3 scored sections. Put your hours where the points live.
- Every point is money. A handful of questions separates full tuition from a full ride. Don’t study for the score that gets you in. Study for the score that gets you paid.
Everything else in this book is detail in service of those 3 sentences.
•••
If this is your first round with the LSAT, read straight through. The book is built in order. (Tempted to jump straight to the method in chapter 6? I get it, and I’d rather you didn’t: chapter 3 is where you find out which trap is currently eating your hours, and the method lands harder once you’ve seen yours.) If you’re a retaker carrying scar tissue from a previous attempt, you’ve earned a shortcut: take the check-in at the end of Part 1, then head straight for chapter 11, which was written for you. One request before you start. Read this book with a pen. It’s going to ask you to write things down, and the writing isn’t decoration. Students who do the exercises on paper improve. The ones who do them in their head stay stuck. You’ll see exactly why in Part 2.
Last thing. I built a free LSAT cheat sheet that pairs with this book. Grab it at unpluggedprep.com/cheatsheet and keep it next to you while you work.
That’s everything you need before page 1.
Let’s go get your points.
Steve Schwartz
Founder, LSAT Unplugged P.S. Yes, Reason 2 means some of you will eventually work with us. But if you squeeze this book dry and never spend a dollar with me, that’s a win too. I wrote it for you either way.
