Nina, 161 and working toward 175: a live LSAT coaching session
This is what LSAT Unplugged coaching looks like. Nina came in at 161, aiming for 175 on the June LSAT LSAT. Steve Schwartz coached her live for about 36 minutes on both, and the whole session and transcript are below.
The numbers here are where Nina started and the goal we set together in this session. Individual results vary.
- Student: Nina
- Score when recorded: 161
- Goal: 175
- Target test: June LSAT
- Situation: Works a 9 to 5 job Monday through Friday, has only been studying about 6 hours a week (up to 11 on a long weekend day), has 2 and a half months until test day, and has repeatedly fallen off her study routine due to work and personal life; considering applying for testing accommodations because a timer disrupts her focus.
- Focus: both
- Worked on: most strongly supported, inference
What we fixed in this session
Nobody gets a 175 by accident. This test is pattern recognition, and your score is a function of the number of questions you complete multiplied by the depth of your review.
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 Nina that 6 hours a week is not enough for a 175 in 2.5 months. That matters because competitors aiming for that score are putting in at least double that, and pushed her toward 12 to 18 hours a week.
Her review spreadsheet consolidated too much into 1 column and told her to split it into separate columns for stimulus, question stem, tempting wrong answer and why it's wrong, and the unappealing right answer and why it's correct, to get hyper specific takeaways.
The plan: I diagnosed that most of her practice has been untimed while her actual weak point is applying reading comprehension and logical reasoning skills under time pressure, and said she needs to transition to more timed work and resolve her accommodations question soon so she can simulate real test day conditions.
I pointed out she is about 80% accurate overall (missing roughly 2 of every 10). That shows real potential above her 161, and tied her recurring misreads (like confusing a stimulus's group with a different group in an answer choice) to not slowing down enough on the stimulus before reading the choices.
Where the session landed: Nina says her biggest takeaway is that she needs to put in more work and figure out how to channel her motivation and discipline, and I schedules a check in a week later to see how she's doing.
If your prep looks like Nina's did, that's fixable in one session.
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In Nina's words
I think I carry a lot of shame around my current prep, because I would want to dedicate more time than I have.
Nina
It's hard for me to just start, but then once I'm doing it, I get into the swing of it.
Nina
I need to figure out how to channel my motivation a bit more, that's my biggest takeaway.
Nina
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 Nina's case: Nina that 6 hours a week is not enough for a 175 in 2.
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: must be true questions, paradox questions, Reading Comprehension.
Student reviews and finished results.
Full session transcript
Recorded December 2025.
Steve: 6 hours a week is not going to be enough if you only have 2 and a half months and you want the 175. Your competition who wants the 175, they're putting in at least minimum double that. This is Nina and she's looking to improve from a 161 to a 175 studying only 6 hours a week over the next 2 and a half months. My name is Steve Schwartz and I've been teaching the LSAT for the past 20 years. Today, Nina is going to bring me her biggest LSAT challenges, and I'll help her address them as she looks to improve by at least 14 points.
Steve: Tell me a little bit about where you're at right now. What's your most recent practice test score?
Nina: Most recently I got a 161, which I was really excited about, but I've put off applying for so long that I figured I might as well see how far I can go before the next application cycle. Getting a little delusional, as I like to say, thinking maybe I can break the 170s like other people have done.
Steve: Of course, why not shoot for it. I saw in your application you're looking for a 175, so ideally you're shooting for a top score.
Nina: Yeah, honestly anything over 170 I'd be over the moon with.
Steve: Let's see what we can do to make it happen. When are you planning on taking the test?
Nina: I've rescheduled it for June.
Steve: Okay, so we've got about 2 and a half months. How many hours per week are you able to put into your LSAT prep between now and then?
Nina: At least 6 hours a week at the very least, up to maybe 11 max if I did a longer session on a Saturday or Sunday.
Steve: So minimum 6 hours over 7 days, but you could potentially double that?
Nina: Yes. I work 9 to 5, so I get in at least an hour of studying a day during the week, that's where the minimum comes from, plus giving myself a rest day.
Steve: All right, we'll dig more into that. We want a maximum score, so we're going to want to put in a little more than the minimum, and we'll see where we can carve out time. What's your work schedule like?
Nina: Monday through Friday, 9am to 5pm.
Steve: So we've got maybe some time after work, some time on the weekends. You mentioned 161 was your most recent score. What were your practice test scores before that?
Nina: It would range from a 154 to a 157.
Steve: So the mid 150s was where you were prior, and now we have this outlier recent result that indicates promise and potential. We want to ride that wave.
Steve: A common trap for high achievers on the LSAT: you know the material but you're still getting questions wrong. You read the explanation, nod along, say "that makes sense," then 3 days later make the exact same mistake on a similar question. There's a big gap between intellectual understanding and execution on test day, under a timer with your palm sweating. If you feel like you know the LSAT cold but your score isn't improving, it's probably about training your decision-making under pressure, not knowing more. We look at how students react under test day conditions: are you rushing the first 5 questions because they're easy, then missing one on a silly misread? Spending 3 minutes staring at the same reading comp paragraph? Changing answers at the last second because you don't trust your gut? None of that is a content problem, those are performance problems, and they're fixable once you stop focusing on learning more and start practicing smarter.
Steve: Any particular weak areas on the test you might want to dive into?
Nina: Most strongly supported and inference questions are where I get things wrong more often than not. More than anything, my timing is where I struggle, and my reading comprehension under the time constraint. I always thought I was a good reader, but the more I studied for this test, the more I realized how I take words for granted while reading. In my private sessions with my tutor, they'll ask, does it say can or does it say could, and I'll realize I misinterpreted what an answer choice was saying.
Steve: So reading comprehension and not making assumptions. Is that in reading comp specifically, or logical reasoning too, or across the board?
Nina: Both, I take things for granted reading across the board, or I'll read so fast I'll miss key things.
Steve: And in logical reasoning, most strongly supported and inference, are those the 2 biggest areas you struggle with?
Nina: Those are the ones I've been noticing lately.
Steve: Let's clear something up. Your LSAT score is not a moral judgment, you're not a better person because you got a 175, you're not a failure because you scored a 151, you are not your score. But your score does reflect your strategy, your timing, your review process, and your test day execution, and those are all things you can improve. When a score drops or plateaus, the first instinct is to take it personally, why can't I get this, what's wrong with me, and that spirals into studying from guilt and anxiety instead of growth and curiosity, which kills progress. Instead of asking why am I stuck at this score, ask what system got me to this score and how do I adjust it. Maybe your pacing's off by 3 minutes, maybe you're reviewing answers but not reviewing why you were attracted to the wrong ones. Treat your LSAT prep like a lab experiment, not a courtroom trial, you're not here to be judged, you're here to iterate, try something, measure the result, adjust.
Steve: Would you say the issue is more accuracy or timing, or both?
Nina: Probably both. I tend to be more accurate when I don't give myself any time constraints, and then once you put a timer on it, that's where I make more mistakes.
Steve: We've got to make sure you're getting them right, but also getting them right under test day conditions. What's the breakdown of your untimed work versus timed work in terms of where you allocate your study time?
Nina: I've been doing a lot of untimed stuff so far. I've started thinking more about timing, like trying to do every question under a minute and a half in a shorter drill, but the majority of my practice has been untimed.
Steve: Are you planning to transition to more timed work as we get closer to the test?
Nina: I'll definitely need to eventually. Full transparency, I've also been considering applying for an accommodation. I don't want it if I don't need it, but from conversations with my doctors, they think it could be helpful. I'm almost 30 and didn't need it throughout primary or higher education, I was able to get through, I just struggle with staying focused, and when you put a timer in front of my face, the countdown and pressure is all I can think about, not the question. I'll read it again and again and won't be able to focus. It takes a bit of a warm-up to engage, and I'll get the first two wrong, but then I do a lot better as the section goes on.
Steve: So a little trouble getting warmed up, and the timer and time constraint can pose an issue, accommodations might help with that. Let's get that ironed out sooner rather than later so you can study with whatever your timing is ultimately going to be. To simulate test day, we've got to know what test day is going to look like, standard timing or time and a half, double time, breaks or no breaks.
Steve: Confidence on the LSAT isn't a vibe you either have or don't have, it's a skill, and like any other LSAT skill, spotting flaws, pacing, diagramming, it can be built and trained. With students who've hit a plateau, what we often find isn't a lack of intelligence or motivation, it's that their mindset hasn't caught up with their progress, they're still approaching every question like "I hope I survive this" instead of "let's go find the flaw and crush it." That confidence shift usually doesn't come from another 20 hours of studying, it comes from noticing your own wins, sitting down after a timed section and saying, I got 22 out of 25 right and finished on time, that's a win. You don't need to fake confidence, you need to prove it to yourself one pattern at a time.
Steve: How are you tracking your progress with all the work you're doing? I saw your review sheet, I'm excited to dig into that. But aside from the review spreadsheet, what about tracking accuracy or practice test scores?
Nina: I got a subscription to 7Sage, I like their module. They have all the answer choices, kind of like LawHub, but they show you the distribution of answers on each question and give a full explanation and breakdown for each answer choice. That's where I've been tracking, I'll see what the accuracy was on a particular set, grouped by question type, and I can see my history on the practice tests I've taken.
Steve: In tracking your progress, what have you revealed, any insights on where you stand accuracy-wise?
Nina: In general, out of a set of 10, I'll miss maybe 2 per section, that's probably my average.
Steve: So that means you're roughly at 80% accuracy overall, which is pretty good, that definitely indicates potential to go beyond that 161. If we can help you get more accurate on reading comprehension, fully understanding the stimulus or the passage, and get improvement on most supported and inference questions specifically, I'm excited to see where we could take it.
Steve: When you come back to LSAT prep after a break, you sit down, crack open a practice test, and within 5 minutes you're wondering if your brain leaked out during the time off. That's totally normal, expect to feel rusty, that's not a sign you're falling behind. What people get wrong is treating rust like failure, spiraling and thinking "I lost it." You didn't lose it, you just haven't used it in a while, like going back to the gym after vacation, you don't expect a personal record your first day back. If you're coming off a break: start light with short drills instead of full sections cold, review your old mistakes to jog your memory rather than punish yourself, track small wins even if it's just finishing 5 questions in 10 minutes without panicking, and give it 2 weeks to get back up to speed.
Steve: Aside from that, in reading comprehension, are there certain passage topics or question types you have more trouble with?
Nina: Typically the legal ones, unfortunately, but somewhat predictably.
Steve: In reading comp, what's your overall approach to a passage?
Nina: I try to read for structure, understanding how the author has structured the passage and why. I keep in mind where I first see their argument, is it in the first paragraph or delayed until the last, are they giving one viewpoint then a contrasting one, presenting background then a solution. I try to understand the structure as I go through my initial read, and flag key details and author attitude signifiers.
Steve: Good, so you're reading for the key structural elements. When transitioning from reading the passage to solving the questions, are you taking notes, highlighting, underlining, or is it all happening in your head?
Nina: I typically highlight, I don't take notes, but I highlight if I see conclusions or major hints as to the author's attitude, since there's a good chance those will come up. I use the highlighting tool in LawHub and it works well for me.
Nina: I want to be fully honest, I think I carry a lot of shame around my current prep, because I'd want to dedicate more time than I have. I've been doing this for years and it feels silly. I question how you became obsessed with the LSAT, I like reading what you discuss in your emails, I find it motivating, but I struggle to internally shift myself into that same mindset. It's not for lack of wanting to be an attorney, that's what I want to do long term, it's that the actual test itself is such a hurdle in my mind. I need to take it seriously, I'll get really into it for a week and then get fatigued or something happens at work or in my personal life and I'll fall off. My biggest hurdle is overcoming all the external factors so that I can prioritize my time with the test, because I know it takes a lot of time to see small improvements, and it's one thing to know that and another to do it.
Nina: How do you get into that obsessive mindset, how do you train your brain to focus and make that your central priority?
Steve: That's a great question, and I think it's a larger meta issue, because if we can solve this everything else will fall into place, you'll just put in the time and do what needs to be done. I'll tell you honestly, 6 hours a week is not going to be enough for the 175 in 2 and a half months, because your competition who wants the 175 is putting in at least double that, nobody gets a 175 by accident. But you are able to carve out the time, you just haven't chosen to because other things come up, and that's okay, we can work around that.
Steve: As for becoming obsessed with things, I think in part it's a personality trait from what your parents told you about what you have to achieve to be good enough, we all have different triggers and different childhood things we bring to the table. I happen to be the kind of person who gets obsessed with things, so I run with it. Have you ever been obsessed with anything outside the LSAT where you were driven to put in the time?
Nina: Yeah, I get special interests. Part of the issue is the LSAT is hard. The hobbies I've spent extra time diving into, I've gotten into because I found them fun and interesting. Not that I don't find the LSAT interesting, but it's hard for me, it's not as fun as reading about mushrooms or learning how to care for my plants.
Steve: I hear you, it's hard, maybe not as accessible, makes you feel dumb to get stuff wrong. But there are things that appeal to me about the LSAT that give you an access point to become obsessed. There's a set number of released exams, 101 to 158 in the new format without logic games in LawHub, so like Pokemon or Beanie Babies, the collectibles idea, could you collect all the exams by completing them, just like there are a set number of mushroom varieties you could try to learn and collect. You can track yourself, I've completed X out of 58.
Steve: For some people it's athletics, can I beat my previous time, lift more than before. So can you complete the exams, can you beat your previous accuracy number, your previous time, your previous raw score. If you track the data with the review sheet, you collect data to motivate yourself to reach the next level, and you know your baseline, can you beat your previous personal best, or at least match your previous average from the last 3 to 5 attempts. If you go below it, that's a problem you look into, but you're always looking to do better.
Steve: Or think about wanting to binge a show, that completionist aspect, you want to consume an entire series that's sitting right there, you just have to get through it, and you don't need to motivate yourself because you like it. Can you find something interesting about the LSAT, or at least feign interest, fake it till you make it, that passage topic was so ridiculous or absurd, that logical reasoning topic was actually weirdly hilarious. Become a collector of LSAT trivia.
Steve: There's a moment in almost every LSAT student's journey where you've been studying a while, done the drills, seen improvement, then you hit a wall and your score stalls, and your brain whispers, what if I peaked already. That voice is a liar. When students hit a plateau, it's almost never because they're done improving, it's because they're at the edge of a breakthrough and their brain is throwing a tantrum. You've learned the basics, gotten faster, stopped falling for the obvious trap answers, but the questions that remain are the subtle ones testing your instincts, pacing, endurance, and ability to stay calm under pressure. Those get solved with strategy and refinement, not more review of the material. If you're stuck in the low 160s, what moves the needle isn't obsessing over obscure question types, it's getting 5% faster on the easy logical reasoning questions, learning to guess intelligently and move on without spiraling, and holding your focus on the last passage in reading comp when your brain wants a nap. That's not flashy, but it works. A plateau is a normal part of the path, not a permanent ceiling.
Steve: I became friends with a guy who used to write actual LSAT questions, I've interviewed him on the YouTube channel a couple times. He talks about the tricks and traps they lay in the questions, and there's a degree of fun in it, can I avoid falling for the tricks and also appreciate the cleverness of it, like an escape room or a crossword puzzle.
Nina: I like that suggestion, that's helpful. I find myself enjoying reading the passages in reading comp in the moment, I think they can be really interesting. But it's the act and discipline of it, the heaviest weight at the gym is the door, same thing with the LSAT, the hardest thing is just sitting down and starting. But once I'm doing it I get into the swing of it, at least in my experience. It's hard for me to just start.
Steve: That's the concept of don't break the chain, do a little something every single day to build the habit. By the end of one week the habit's somewhat established, and by the end of 2 weeks you can't not do it anymore. Things will come up in life that seem more pressing, but if you say to yourself, I will do one passage a day at minimum, or even one question a day at minimum, it maintains the chain, and you'll feel antsy if you haven't done it yet that day. Then you'll say, I'm here anyway, might as well do a full section, and you do one more than you did the previous day, and before you know it you have momentum.
Nina: That's something I talked about with my tutor, the one a day thing, at least do something. I have an app where I can pull up questions and force myself to do it from my phone if I'm out and about. It maintains the habit, but it isn't translating into real gains efficiently, or it's going to take a lot longer than 2 and a half months.
Steve: That's fair, doing a question on your phone might be sufficient to not break the chain, but it's not a substitute for real studying, at a desk, head down, at least 30 minutes of focused effort, that's what lets you get the insights out of your review and make forward progress. One more thing on motivation: don't be too invested in getting things wrong. With athletics, every effort you put in is rewarded in some way, it's usually not negative. But the LSAT is either green or red, right or wrong, and you feel dumb getting things wrong. Instead, look at it as every question you get wrong now is a chance to learn something new so you don't get it wrong on test day, and if you were only getting things right, it would mean the questions were too easy.
Nina: That's true, it's a good mindset shift.
Steve: Let's get honest for a second. You bomb the first section of a practice test and think, there goes the whole thing, you're off today, might as well coast through the rest. That voice is lying to you and it's costing you points. One bad section does not mean the whole test is ruined, you can bomb the first section and still get a top score if you don't sabotage the next 3 with negative self talk. The ones who bounce back after a rough patch have trained for it, they prep their emotional discipline too. Reframe failure during the test, say to yourself, that was the throwaway experimental section, I'm going to crush the next one, and don't look back. Literally simulate bad sections on purpose in practice and see how you respond, train that reflex to bounce back. It's like poker, you don't fold just because your last hand was garbage, you stay in the game and play smart.
Steve: Let's look at your review document. This looks great, one of the better ones I've seen. You have question from the exam, question type, what you chose, the right answer, what went wrong, that's a really key column to have. And here from the Socratic Review method document, you've got these, but I would make each of these a separate column: stimulus or passage, question stem, the tempting wrong answer, what makes it ultimately wrong, the unappealing right answer, and what ultimately makes it correct. That's at least 6 different columns stemming out of what you have consolidated into 1 column. If you multiply that out, you'll actually get those key takeaways, and the key takeaways are what you need.
Steve: So to summarize, if you're going to get 14, 15 points in the next 2 and a half months: 1, flesh out this review document with additional separate columns to get hyper specific on why something goes wrong, was it in the stimulus, the question stem, or the choices, and if it was in the choices, where. 2, if we can channel that obsessive compulsion in a positive way to help you go from 6 hours a week to 12, 15, maybe 18, carving out 2 hours a day on weekdays and a lot more on weekends for a short-term sacrifice in the next 2 and a half months, giving you the time to apply this review, I think everything else will fall into place.
Nina: So the biggest thing is spending more time fleshing out my answer explanations, analyzing why I got an answer wrong, spending more time with the test in general, collecting the answers and familiarizing myself with everything that's out there.
Steve: Exactly, like your analogy of the heaviest weight being the door, if we can open that door and get you in there, put in the reps, get exposure to the patterns of the test, that's what gets you results, because this test is pattern recognition, and your score is a function of the number of questions you complete multiplied by the depth of your review. The only difference between me and you is I've been doing this for far longer, so I've had more opportunity to see all the patterns, methods of reasoning, tricks, and traps, so when I see a new question I can bucket it into a category I already recognize, where for someone newer it's like a new vocabulary word for the first time. Get the reps and you're on that same path.
Nina: With reviewing and explanations, sometimes I really won't understand where I'm going wrong, and that's when I've appreciated the private tutoring sessions, because that's where I notice I've misunderstood exactly what the author was saying in a specific answer choice, thought it was saying one thing but it was really saying another. How do you keep that open mind, how do you avoid getting into situations where you're misunderstanding what they're saying? Should I work on my vocabulary, is it probably just more exposure?
Steve: What you're really asking is how do I avoid getting burned, how do I avoid making assumptions, how do I avoid falling for the tricks and reading beyond what's literally written in the text. I think about Charlie Brown and Lucy with the football, she pulls it away at the last second and he falls over every time, we don't want to be like Charlie Brown, we want to learn from our mistakes, get fooled once, not get fooled again. When you engage in the review process, you're honing in on exactly which tricks and traps you were most likely to fall for, or did fall for, and emphasizing the key takeaways during review makes you less likely to fall for that same mistake again. Talk it over with your coach during sessions, join live classes to get additional at bats and hear other students' biggest mistakes, you'll see what other people fall for that you don't, and what you fall for that they don't.
Steve: Two big things to look for in logical reasoning: the degree of certainty in the conclusion, always versus never versus sometimes versus the majority of the time, and the category of things being discussed, all people versus some people versus some people who study for the LSAT, narrowing the scope. A lot of the time the trick is that they're being more vague than we think, and we assume more certainty than is actually there, it's a flaw of the human mind to look for certainty when there's actually a lot more ambiguity. Recognize the ambiguity, be comfortable with it, understand you cannot infer as much as you might like to, because they're playing tricks of language to lead you to assume more than you should. Part of the exposure and pattern recognition is seeing all the different ways they can burn you, then getting laser focused on the small nuances of the language, and slowing down to thoroughly understand the stimulus or passage before going to the choices.
Nina: I notice I have to slow down because the stimulus will talk about one particular group and an answer choice will sound great but mention a different group, not the one talked about in the stimulus, like candidates versus members, not the same thing, but I'll read it so quickly and think it agreed with the stimulus when it was talking about something different. That's helpful.
Steve: Here's something that might feel counterintuitive: it's okay not to know, especially on a test designed to make you feel like you don't know. The LSAT thrives on ambiguity. Sometimes your brain just goes blank halfway through a question or the third paragraph of a passage, and that's when most students panic, rereading the stimulus 5 times, doubting their gut, and there goes 4 minutes and their confidence. The better move is don't fight the fog, just move on, you can always come back, and 9 times out of 10 your brain has quietly kept working on the problem in the background and it suddenly makes sense with a fresh perspective. It's not about finishing every question in order, it's about maximizing the points you can gain. When your brain locks up, take one stab at it with your best effort, if you can't get it, flag it, move on, and circle back when your mind is clearer. What separates top scorers isn't that they always know the answer, it's that they know what to do when they don't.
Steve: Before we sign off, Nina, what would you say is the biggest insight you got from our call today?
Nina: My biggest insight is knowing that I need to put in more work, amping up that discipline, because I'm not naive to the fact that there are more people out there dedicating every free moment to LSAT prep, and I think I need to figure out how to channel my motivation a bit more.
Steve: Awesome, well let's make it happen, we'll check in in a week and see how you're doing. If you have any questions in the meantime, just shoot me an email or a text and I'll be happy to help.
Nina: Thank you so much, Steve, I appreciate your time.
Steve: Of course, have a good one.
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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