Brian, 154 and working toward 174: a live LSAT coaching session

This is what LSAT Unplugged coaching looks like. Brian came in at 154, aiming for 174. Steve Schwartz coached him live for about 36 minutes on both, and the whole session and transcript are below.

The numbers here are where Brian started and the goal we set together in this session. Individual results vary.

• Student: Brian
• Score when recorded: 154
• Goal: 174
• Target test: September (moving from a 6 week to a 10 week timeline)
• Situation: Working full time, finishing job training, planning to push his LSAT registration from August to September to get 10 weeks instead of 6, has fallen behind on his personalized study plan due to work schedule conflicts
• Focus: both
• Worked on: necessary versus sufficient conditions, strengthen questions, flaw questions, must be true questions

Jump to the full transcript

What we fixed in this session

It's better to fully learn 70 percent of the material than half learn 100 percent, slow down, learn deeply, and go narrow before you go wide.

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 diagnosed that Brian was highlighting about 70 percent of each reading comp passage on LawHub Advantage. That is too much and creates a time cost from a glitchy, imprecise highlighting tool.

I corrected Brian's lack of a reading order strategy in logical reasoning by recommending he read the question stem before the stimulus so he knows what he is looking for.

The plan: I corrected Brian's approach of trying to memorize every difficult word by narrowing his focus to a small cheat sheet of 10 to 15 recurring abstract logic terms like necessary, sufficient, and affirming the consequent.

Where the session landed: Brian says he now plans to extend his plan to 10 weeks, spend the first 3 weeks understanding LSAT questions, the next 3 on sections, and the final 4 on timing and fatigue management.

If your prep looks like Brian's did, that's fixable in one session.

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In Brian's words

I've been using the LawHub Advantage platform to do it, I use the highlighter they provide, and I think I'm overusing it.

Brian

I would probably say like 70 percent.

Brian

I really appreciate you sharing the importance of going over each and every aspect of the LSAT, not skipping over things even if I miss it.

Brian

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 Brian's case: Brian was highlighting about 70 percent of each reading comp passage on LawHub Advantage.

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: flaw questions, weaken and strengthen questions, must be true questions.

Student reviews and finished results.

Full session transcript

Recorded September 2025.

Steve: A 20 point jump on the LSAT is not a fantasy. It's real, it's possible, but it doesn't happen by accident. This is Brian, and he's looking to improve his LSAT score from a 154 to a 174 in the next two and a half months. My name is Steve Schwartz and I've been teaching the LSAT for the past 20 years, and I'll help him address that as he looks to improve by 20 points. So where are you scoring right now?

Brian: I've only ever taken one practice test, that's my diagnostic. I took it about 2 weeks ago. I was at a 154.

Steve: And what are you hoping to achieve?

Brian: My goal is 174. That's the median of the schools I want to get into.

Steve: Okay, so you're looking for T14.

Brian: That's right.

Steve: How much time do you have before test day?

Brian: I'm currently signed up for August. I'm thinking of cancelling that and getting in for September.

Steve: Okay, got it. So that would be moving us from having 6 weeks before the test to having 10 weeks before the test. And how many hours per week are you able to devote to your prep between now and the test?

Brian: I'm hoping for a minimum of 10 hours a week. I just need the structure to have a schedule.

Steve: Okay, got it. And we've created for you a personalized study plan, right?

Brian: That's right. To be honest with you, I've been following it, due to finishing training at my current job and just schedule conflicts, but I hope to get on it this upcoming week.

Steve: Let's get one thing out of the way. A 20 point jump on the LSAT is not a fantasy, not a myth, and not reserved for geniuses. It's real, it's possible, but it doesn't happen by accident. If you're starting in the low to mid 150s and dreaming of a 170 plus score, that's ambitious, and I love that. But you've got to approach it with strategy, not desperation. Here's the trap most people fall into: they see a gap that big and think "I just need to do more." More drilling, more full length exams, more hours. That's not how the test works. It's about building the right skills in the right order.

The first step is to fix your accuracy first. If you're missing a bunch of questions even with unlimited time, you've got a logic problem, not a timing problem, and no amount of full length exams will fix that. Slow down, strip out the clock, and focus on solving 5 to 10 questions at a time perfectly. You want to get to the point where you're not just getting them right, you're explaining why every other answer is wrong. That's your foundation.

Your second step is to train for speed strategically. Once your accuracy is strong, then you introduce timing, but don't jump straight into full sections. Use sprints: 3 logical reasoning questions in 3 minutes, or 10 reading comp questions in 12 minutes. That gets your brain used to thinking faster without letting accuracy collapse.

Your third step is to build endurance, and this is where you bring in full length timed exams. But the key is reviewing them like a scientist. We call it the Socratic review method: not just what did I get wrong, but why did I fall for that trap, what was tempting about that answer, what pattern did I miss.

Step four is to trust the process. Your score won't rise in a straight line. You'll plateau, you'll dip, and that's normal. Big score jumps come from small breakthroughs that compound: the moment you finally understand necessary versus sufficient, the day you stop falling for correlation causation traps, or when you realize you can finish a reading comp passage without rereading every paragraph twice. So yes, you can go from a 154 to a 174, but not by studying harder. You get there by studying smarter: fixing accuracy first, training speed second, and treating review like it's the real test.

Brian: When it comes to the schedule, would it be okay to start from where I have it now? Like, would I have to go back and complete the old content before going on to what's scheduled for today?

Steve: Got it. So the question is, because you've fallen behind in the study plan due to other obligations like work, you're wondering if you should skip over what you haven't done and jump into today's assignments.

Brian: Yeah.

Steve: That's a fair question. It always becomes a challenge because we have test day coming up, and we have to get ready for that target date, unless we move the target date, in which case we can redo the plan for you. If you do decide to push back your exam by 4 weeks, we can redo your plan entirely. But directly to your question: we can't skip over things just because we missed them, because what we skip might be important. Not all parts of the plan are equally important though, so if there are lower priority areas you never get to because of time constraints, we can help you rank order and prioritize what's most important, and skip what's least important if we don't have the time.

Falling behind on your study plan isn't the problem. The problem is what happens next, when you try to catch up by skipping key lessons hoping it won't matter. It matters. The LSAT is not modular, you can't hopscotch through the curriculum and expect to absorb it. Each lesson builds on the last. If you skip necessary versus sufficient, you'll get wrecked on strengthen, weaken, flaw, parallel, basically half the test.

So here's what to do instead. First, pause, reset, and recalibrate. Open your study plan and draw a line where you actually are, that's your new day one. Then prioritize the non-negotiables: what are the core skills you need to be ready for the test. If you're a month out, maybe you don't need to rewatch every theory video, but you do need to master the question types that appear most often. We help students who've fallen off track build a new custom study plan, mapped out day by day. You don't want to skip things just to feel caught up, that's emotional logic and it'll cost you points. The rule: it's better to fully learn 70% of the material than half learn 100%. Slow down, learn deeply, and go narrow before you go wide, because the LSAT only cares how well you can think under pressure. Now, what would you say are your biggest weak areas right now?

Brian: For me, the biggest areas I was struggling with, especially on that practice test, were timing and fatigue. I think given enough time I can get most questions right. I feel like I spend too long on RC passages. I'll read it once, not really get the point, try to answer questions, and then have to reread it again.

Steve: Got it. So you're reading it, but because you're not absorbing all the information, you're then getting questions wrong.

Brian: Right.

Steve: Now, what is your actual approach to reading comp look like right now?

Brian: I don't have a specific strategy. I know the questions follow a similar format, author's point, looking at a specific sentence in the passage, that sort of thing. So I just read it over once and then go through the questions hoping to find an answer that I predicted.

Steve: Okay, but what about your initial read?

Brian: I've been using the LawHub Advantage platform. I use the highlighter they provide. I highlight the aspects I think are the most important things, author's perspective, main points, that sort of thing.

Steve: Okay, and how's that working for you?

Brian: The tool helps me outline exactly what I think is important. I think I'm overusing it though.

Steve: So maybe highlighting a bit too much.

Brian: Yeah.

Steve: So what percentage of the passage would you say you're highlighting?

Brian: I would probably say like 70%.

Steve: Yeah, that's a lot. It's almost like what you haven't highlighted is going to draw more attention. You have time to experiment with 10 weeks before your test. Maybe try highlighting nothing on some passages, and on others only highlight 2 or 3 sentences max, and see how that goes. There's a time cost to clicking around and fiddling with the highlighting tool, and I don't know if this has been your experience, but it's been mine and other students' that it's a little glitchy and imprecise. Have you had that experience?

Brian: Yeah, if you highlight part of a word it does the whole word, it's really finicky.

Steve: Yeah, so that's going to have a real time cost on test day, because the software will be the same and you don't want to waste time frustrated with a finicky tool. In contrast, notes you take by hand on scratch paper aren't subject to the same glitches. You might try transitioning to taking only a few notes, writing down only a few words, and see if that helps crystallize your understanding of the main idea. If the author could leave you with only one thought or one thesis statement, what would that be? That's going to help you knock out any of those general global questions.

Brian: Yeah, that's a good tip. I'll make sure to implement that.

Steve: Let's talk about what most people are doing wrong without realizing it: over highlighting. You open a passage, start reading, and your highlighter turns into a paint roller. Yellow, blue, pink. You're not analyzing anymore, you're decorating, and by the time you finish you've color coded the entire thing and still don't know what the author's point was. Highlighting is not the same as understanding. Most people highlight because they're anxious, they don't know what's important so they highlight everything hoping they'll figure it out later. That's not a strategy.

Here's how to fix it. Ditch the highlighter for a while, go cold turkey, force yourself to read a passage with zero highlighting. It'll feel uncomfortable, and that's good, discomfort means you're finally thinking. Then ask better questions while you read: after each paragraph, pause and ask what was that paragraph about, how does it connect to the previous one, and what does the author think about it. Then create simple mental tags instead of coloring up the passage: paragraph 1 is the problem, paragraph 2 gives the background, paragraph 3 is a new solution. When we work with students who struggle with reading comp, and a lot of high scorers do, the first thing we check is how they're interacting with the passage, because 90% of the time they're doing too much, not too little. So here's the new rule: highlight with purpose, not out of panic. Only mark something if you know why it matters, otherwise skip it.

Aside from reading comp, what about logical reasoning? Any particular struggles there?

Brian: I feel like I understand a lot of the questions just from taking intro to logic in undergrad. I understand premises, how arguments work, so I'm able to figure out each question after some time. Some of the ones with words I've never seen before, or layers of logic I don't quite follow, take me a lot longer. When I did a drill set, I noticed the ones I got wrong were the higher level ones, level fours, and not so much the level twos or threes.

Steve: When you mention unfamiliar vocabulary, are these random difficult words or are they showing up consistently?

Brian: Just random ones that appear in the passage, things I can't follow quite well in my head, different argument mappings. I can't remember the exact question.

Steve: Okay, I'm wondering if this is abstract argument related terminology, like affirming the consequent, antecedent, precedent, things like that.

Brian: Yeah, those words sound familiar.

Steve: Yeah, those are words worth learning because they show up repeatedly on the LSAT. I'm not going to say go get a list of difficult English vocabulary, the English language is vast. But abstract formal logic terms do show up repeatedly, and there will be certain questions, maybe later in the section, where all 5 choices contain those kinds of abstract phrases. Those are worth learning. Even for the wrong answers, look up what each choice means and get examples of what that might look like in practice. You'll see those most often in method of reasoning questions or role of statement questions.

Let's talk about weird terminology. You open a logical reasoning question and it says something like which one of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the author's conflation of sufficient and necessary conditions. You're not missing anything, the LSAT just loves to sound fancy. You don't need to memorize every obscure logic term, you just need to understand what the test is actually asking. Necessary means you need it but it doesn't guarantee anything, sufficient means if you have it you're good, it's enough. For example, if it's raining, the ground is wet: rain is sufficient to get the ground wet but not necessary, because someone could have used a hose.

Here's what to do instead of memorizing every term: make a list of every phrase that's confused you, not all logic terms, just the ones you've actually seen and thought "wait, what." Look up a plain English definition, then write your own version in your own words. Build a little cheat sheet, not a hundred terms, just maybe 10 to 15. That decodes about 95% of what the LSAT throws at you. When we work with students aiming for 170 or above, we say let's make sure that when the test says something fancy, you actually know what it means. The questions aren't that complicated, the language just makes it look that way. They're testing the same 5 to 6 logic ideas over and over with different phrasing.

What else, other particular struggles in logical reasoning?

Brian: In LR I don't really have a strategy going into it. I really just read, highlight what I think is important, and then go to the question. I don't remember, what is your recommendation when it comes to LR?

Steve: I personally like to read the question first because it gives me the framing going in of what to look for. For example, a strengthen question: we know we're going to be looking at an argument with a gap of some kind. In contrast, for a must be true question we might be looking at a fact set, and even if it's an argument we're not coming at it looking to poke holes, we're looking for what else must be true based on the stimulus. For a flaw question, we know there's a gap and we're looking to poke holes in it. There are top scorers who like reading the stimulus first, and that's fine too, I'm not dogmatic about it. You have 10 weeks, so experiment and see what feels more natural.

But think also about pacing. The nice thing about logical reasoning is there's a general order of difficulty, questions get tougher as the section goes on. You mentioned having trouble more with level 4, level 5 questions. It would make sense to spend more time on the harder questions because they require more time. Speed through the easier questions, build up a time bank to apply to the tougher ones later. My benchmark: first 10 questions, knock them out in 10 minutes because they're easier, don't second guess yourself on those, trust your gut. You'll have more time than average for the tougher ones that truly need it.

Read the question stem first. Most people read the stimulus first, dive into the paragraph, and they're halfway through before they realize "wait, what am I even supposed to do with this." They reread the whole thing 2 or 3 times, confused and already down 2 minutes before they even look at the choices. The fix: read the question stem first. That one line tells you exactly what the test wants. If it says strengthen, you're looking for a boost to the argument, even a small one. If it says flaw, you're hunting for bad logic, what assumption did they make, where's the leap. If it says must be true, you're not dealing with arguments at all, it's pure logic, what has to follow based on what they gave you. When you know what kind of task you're doing, you read the argument with a specific purpose. Some people end up loving question first, others like reading the stimulus first, and both can work fine, but try it both ways.

Brian: In terms of timing, when do you recommend taking timed sections, or should I for the time being stick on untimed?

Steve: Good question. Assuming the 10 weeks we have from now till your test, we could divide it into roughly 3, 3, 4: 3 weeks on accuracy and drilling, the next 3 weeks on pacing with individual sections, and the final 4 weeks on endurance doing full length timed exams. I'm not saying wait until week 6 or 7 to do full exams though, you want to sprinkle some in earlier, but the overall focus of each phase should be drilling, then sections, then exams.

Brian: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think my biggest thing right now is actually sitting down and getting it done. What kind of accountability tools do you offer here at LSAT Unplugged?

Steve: The big one is that day by day study plan, we'll redo it for you based on your new time frame, targeting the exam in 10 weeks rather than 6. I'd also be looking at where you can carve out time in your day to put in at least 2 hours a day. Is that waking up early before work, during lunch, after work, or on the weekends? Use a planner or a Google calendar and block off the time so it actually happens and nothing else gets in the way. You also have access to those semi-private sessions 4 nights a week, so you could block off an hour to watch the videos.

Brian: One thing I noticed that you did ask, that I am not doing right now, is journaling my questions. What program do you normally recommend using for that? Just Excel?

Steve: Excel is great. A lot of students like Google Sheets, or Google Docs, or even a physical notebook. I like Sheets and Docs because you can more easily have templates, different columns for different elements of the question: the stimulus, the question stem, the wrong answer, the right answer. For every question you're reviewing, lay out your analysis, and have a column for key takeaways. Because it's templated, you're consistent in mapping out your thoughts. You can drill down on what gave you trouble, where you spent too much time, where you could have been more efficient. I would devote at least 20% of your study time to that alone, because you want to highlight the key takeaways to make sure you've truly learned the lesson, since every question you get wrong is an opportunity to learn something new. If you don't learn the lesson, you'll just repeat it, because the exam repeats itself.

If you're hitting reading comp and thinking why am I suddenly exhausted, here's what's probably happening. You read slow, try to remember everything, highlight every other sentence, and then you hit the questions and none of it stuck. You panic, reread, and now you're frustrated and behind on time. That's silent burnout, it's not that you're overstudying, it's that you're mentally exhausted while studying. The key shift: you're not reading to remember, you're reading to navigate. Reading comp is not a memory test, it's a navigation test. You just need a rough outline of the passage, where the main idea is, where the author's opinion comes in, where the contrasting viewpoints show up.

So here's how to read smarter without burning out. First, set a purpose before you read: I'm reading to find the main idea, the author's attitude, and the structure. Then tag each paragraph mentally, pause after each one and ask what did I just read and why does that matter. Maybe paragraph 1 introduces an old theory, paragraph 2 criticizes it, paragraph 3 offers a new approach, that's a map. Then stop rereading unless you know exactly what you're looking for, only go back when a question sends you to a specific detail you already know the location of. When we work with students who struggle with reading comp fatigue, and that's a huge chunk of people in the 150 to 165 range, it's not about reading faster, it's about reading more efficiently. Once you stop trying to memorize the whole passage and start reading with a clear goal, you protect your energy, and you walk into passage 3 still feeling sharp.

Brian: Besides the things we spoke about today, how do you think I can position myself to put my best foot forward on the LSAT?

Steve: I think it's looking at the highest yield areas, the areas giving you the most trouble. Reading comp is an entire third of the test, and when you said you don't feel like you have a good approach for it, that's a major red flag, but we can fix that. We have 10 weeks. If that means we stop highlighting 70% of the passage and instead highlight nothing, or only a little, that might save you valuable time you can devote to the questions. If you start reviewing your mistakes, you avoid making them again, and reviewing may lead you to look more critically at your wrong answers and determine your major weak points. There are usually particular question types or patterns in trap answers you're falling for, but if we're not collecting the data, we don't know where to focus. Once you log it in a mistake journal, you may find that even after reviewing only 10 to 20 questions a pattern starts to emerge. If a plurality are one particular question type, that's a sign to spend more time there, go back to fundamentals on that area, and you'll see a boost from that alone.

Most people's review process looks like this: check the answer key, shrug when you get it wrong, maybe read the explanation, move on. That's not review, that's answer checking. The whole point of review is to turn mistakes into growth. The value of a practice test is not in the score, it's in the mistakes you don't repeat next time. Here's how to review well. Log every single miss with brutal honesty: the question type, the right answer, the wrong answer you picked, why you picked it, and why it was wrong. Then spot your patterns after 10 to 15 mistakes, you'll start seeing repeat offenders, maybe you keep misreading must be true questions, or fall for trap answers, or rush questions with percentages in them. Then resolve the same question without time pressure, no clock, no guessing, walk through the logic from scratch. And keep a journal of your aha moments: if you realize "I always fall for vague answer choices on strengthening questions," write it down. When students in our program make huge jumps, 10, 20, even 30 points, it's because they stopped doing more and started learning more from what they already did.

When it comes to the rest of my law school application, I know it's a little different than undergrad. It looks like applications aren't even open at this point, I can't see prompts. What is the timeline that you usually see for students submitting to T14s?

Applications typically open September 1st or September 15th for any law school, and they publish in advance when they're going to open. You'll be able to see this cycle's essay prompts. You should be able to see last year's though with some creative Googling, they don't typically change much from year to year, so you could look at last year's and start working on rough drafts. It really just requires changing the hook a little to adjust for whatever the new prompt might be. Ultimately you're sharing a personal story, communicating your reasons for wanting to go to law school. If you're taking the LSAT in September, you'll still have 2 to 3 weeks before scores come back, and during that gap you can shift your focus to working on the essays. But getting that 175 is the biggest and best thing you could do in the short term. What would you say is the biggest insight you got from our call today?

Brian: I really appreciate you sharing the importance of going over each and every aspect of the LSAT, not skipping over things even if I miss it, I think that's really important. And also the idea of taking it week by week. If I'm able to extend to 10 weeks, which I should be able to, I'll be able to focus the first 3 weeks on really understanding the LSAT questions, then splitting up the next 3, and then 4, focusing on timing and fatigue management. All of that insight has been really great.

Steve: Awesome, great, Brian. It was a pleasure, keep at it. If you need anything, just reach out and let me know.

Brian: Sounds good, Steve.

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.

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