A student, 161 and working toward 170: a live LSAT coaching session
This is what LSAT Unplugged coaching looks like. A student came in at 161, aiming for 170 plus, ideally 172 or 173 on the September 6 LSAT. Steve Schwartz coached him live for about 34 minutes on Logical Reasoning (flaw, parallel reasoning), Reading Comprehension, 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: 161
- Goal: 170 plus, ideally 172 or 173
- Target test: September 6
- Situation: Studies about 1.5 hours every morning before his day job, taking practice tests roughly every two weeks and planning to move to weekly; a splitter applicant with a GPA below the median hoping a high LSAT score offsets it.
- Focus: Logical Reasoning (flaw, parallel reasoning), Reading Comprehension
- Worked on: Flaw, Parallel Reasoning, Strengthen, Weaken
What we fixed in this session
The LSAT is not about perfection, it's about consistency. You just need to be reliable across the board and avoid blow-ups.
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 had him prioritize flaw questions over parallel reasoning as the higher ROI target. That matters because flaw is far more common on the test, worth an estimated 7 raw score points versus about 2 for parallel.
I had him cut or minimize highlighting and underlining in reading comp to save time, after confirming his passage-to-question time allocation was already reasonable.
The plan: I had him reorder reading comp questions, global and main idea questions first, then detail questions, then inference questions last, going easy to hard instead of answering in the order presented.
Where the session landed: He leaves with a prioritized 3-month plan: master flaw first, then tighten reading comp efficiency, then move to parallel reasoning, targeting the high 160s before the lower yield areas.
If your prep looks like A student's did, that's fixable in one session.
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In the student's words
What hurt me was doing it on my own.
A student
That's what I'm trying to sharpen, finding the main point of the passage and moving forward from there.
A student
The way you explained it just simplified it for me, like for flaw questions there's only going to be one standout flaw that's the correct answer.
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: him prioritize flaw questions over parallel reasoning as the higher ROI target.
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 October 2025.
Steve: You're doing the work, watching the videos, taking the tests, and your score just sits there. Maybe it even goes down. You're not broken, I call it the plateau, it's when your brain's learning but you don't see the results yet, and surviving it is a requirement if you want a top score. This is Chica, and he's looking to go from a 161 to a 173 in the next 3 months. My name is Steve Schwartz, and I've been teaching the LSAT since 2005. Today, Chica is going to bring me his biggest LSAT challenges, and I'll help him address them as he looks to improve by more than 10 points. Tell me, how's everything been going so far?
Student: Been going good. I'm getting to the end of the logical reasoning videos, the theory and method behind tackling the questions, in the first part of the Unplugged course. I've been studying for about an hour and 30 minutes every morning before my day job, and trying to take a practice test at least once every two weeks, though I might bump that up to once a week since I take the exam September 6th. My practice has been going well, I feel like I'm learning the material. Mistakes are going to happen, so I'm giving myself grace to know I'm learning slowly but surely.
Steve: Awesome, sounds like things are going good, and yeah, ramping up the frequency of your practice tests to once a week makes sense, since we're now exactly 3 months before your test. What is your goal for the test 3 months from now?
Student: I'm shooting for like a 170 plus, probably a 172 or 173. My GPA in college wasn't at the median of most of the schools I'm applying to, so I'm hoping a really good LSAT score will balance it out.
Steve: Okay, cool, so you're what's called a splitter applicant, GPA below the median, LSAT above the median to balance that out, and you're shooting for that 170 plus.
Student: Exactly, yes.
Steve: Where are you scoring right now, would you say?
Student: I'm scoring in the low 160s, I got a 161 on my most recent one, trying to get closer to the higher 160s by at least August so I'm within range of that 170 plus.
Steve: So we have an intermediate goal of about 7 or 8 points in the next 2 months, and then 10 plus points in 3 months, right?
Student: Yes.
Steve: And how many hours per week could you put into your prep over the next 3 months?
Student: As many as possible honestly, but it's less about amount of time and more about focus time, working smarter not harder, focusing on exactly what I need to improve on and what question types.
Steve: Exactly, we want you working efficiently. Most LSAT students believe if they're not improving they just need to study harder, so they double their hours, add another prep book, another practice test, another app, and still no improvement. Hard work is not enough on the LSAT, because it isn't testing how much time you put in, it's testing how well you think. So if you've been grinding and your score isn't moving, that's a strategy problem, not a motivation problem.
First, focus on what's breaking, not just what's next. Most students drill LR, get 15 out of 25, and just drill another set without asking why they're missing those questions: is it the stimulus, the question stem, the wrong answer traps? That's where improvement lives. Nobody's bad at the LSAT overall, they're struggling with specific things inside it, and you've got to identify those to fix them.
Second, cut the fake productivity. Watching another video isn't the same as mastering the skill, same with rereading explanations without writing anything down, or drilling questions without reviewing them deeply. It feels like studying but it's not learning. Every study session should have a goal, a process, and a reflection: a goal like spot argument gaps in weaken questions, a process like pause after every argument and predict the flaw, a reflection like what trap got me and how do I spot it next time. Measure success by insights, not hours. A two hour session with zero insights is a waste, a 20 minute session where you realize "I always fall for comparisons in strengthening questions," that's gold.
Third, build your LSAT engine: strategy, execution, review. Strategy is knowing what to do for each question type, execution is doing it under pressure, review is learning from what's not working. Most people focus only on execution, but strategy and review are where the real breakthroughs happen. Building the engine is front loaded, hard and slow at first, but once it's running everything compounds: speed increases, confidence builds, wrong answers become rare and specific. We never tell students to just do more, we help them get clarity on what's actually holding them back, because effort without strategy is wasted energy, but effort with the right plan is how you go from stuck in the 150s to scoring in the 170s. What has been the nature of your prep, both before and after joining the program?
Student: Before, I'd do practice tests and see what questions I got wrong and focus on those. What hurt me was doing it on my own. The structure of LSAT Unplugged helps because it's tailored toward focusing on a specific type of question and learning that type, going through a course, someone guiding you through the study process instead of just saying "logical reasoning today, reading comp tomorrow."
Steve: Milk it for all it's worth, take full advantage, join all the workshops, book all the coaching sessions. We're not holding your hand, because we're not going to be there with you on test day, we want to empower you and develop the skills and confidence within you so you can execute on test day. That's where the review process comes in, right?
Student: Exactly.
Steve: Now, the most frustrating part of LSAT prep: you're doing the work, watching the videos, taking the tests, and your score sits there, maybe even goes down, which feels like a slap in the face. The good news is you're not broken, you're just in a phase nobody talks about enough, the plateau. Your brain is learning but you don't see results yet, like going to the gym for three weeks and the scale doesn't budge, but under the surface you're building strength and capacity. On the LSAT, you're learning to spot common argument patterns, predict answers instead of react, and avoid trap choices that sound right but aren't, you just haven't connected all the dots yet.
This is the most dangerous point in prep, because it's when most people quit, telling themselves they're just not a good test taker or they've hit their ceiling. None of that's true, your brain is working on a delay, absorbing the strategies, and one day it snaps into place. We've seen a reading comp section that used to take 40 minutes suddenly take 27, with 23 out of 27 correct.
During the plateau, double down on what works: keep reviewing the why behind every mistake, explaining aloud or in writing why the others are wrong, not just seeing the right answer. Track what's improving even if the score isn't, reading faster, spotting trap language, predicting before the answers, those are early signs of mastery. Trust the process, if you're working off a real structured study plan, your improvement is inevitable, it just hasn't shown up yet. Plateaus are real, and surviving them is a requirement if you want a top score. So don't back off, lean in, focus more, review smarter, that jump is probably closer than you think.
Are there certain question types where you feel like you're not totally clear on what exactly they're asking?
Student: Yes, flaw questions are definitely hard to see, parallel reasoning ones are also difficult. I haven't really started reading comp, but my reading comp sections have usually been pretty strong.
Steve: Good to know. So I have a general heuristic for deciding where to devote your effort, and it comes down to biggest ROI. Say hypothetically flaw accuracy is low and parallel reasoning accuracy is also low, flaw questions are way more common, so even if your accuracy is lower on parallels, master flaw first because there are way more of those. If we master flaw for you, that might increase your raw score by 7 points, whereas mastering parallels might increase it by 2. And reading comp is a third of the test, logical reasoning is two thirds, so I generally like to start in logical reasoning unless you're totally lost in reading comp, which it doesn't sound like you are. Let's kick it off with flaw.
Let me guess what your LR section sounds like: A might be right, but B also kind of makes sense, you've already spent 90 seconds, so you just pick B and move on. If that sounds familiar, here's the truth: speed is not your problem, clarity is. If your accuracy is shaky, going faster just means getting more questions wrong in less time, that's not a flex, that's a disaster. Speed doesn't come from reading faster, it comes from knowing what to look for before you start reading, recognizing patterns so you don't overthink, and trusting your process instead of second-guessing every answer, which reduces the number of decisions you make per question.
When we help students stuck in that rush-panic-guess loop, we slow things down first, because if you can't get a question right in 2 minutes, you're not going to get it right in 90 seconds. You need to be right before you need to be fast. Try timed sections at a reduced pace for a week, give yourself 40 minutes instead of 35 and see what happens to accuracy. Write out your predictions before the choices, just a short idea of what the right answer should say. Set bailout checkpoints, if you're 45 seconds into a question and still don't know what it's asking, skip it and come back later. Your confidence goes up, your decision making gets tighter, and your speed improves, because the LSAT rewards focus, not frantic. You can't rush your way to 170, you can only think your way there. And how would you typically approach flaw questions right now?
Student: I usually look for a gap in the argument, identify the conclusion first, then the support for the conclusion. Where I struggle is identifying which flaw is the most apparent one, because sometimes there's an answer that's strong, but not as strong as another one.
Steve: Got it, I get what you're saying, that maybe there are multiple things wrong with the argument and you want to find the biggest one. Is that where you're going?
Student: Yes, yes, yes.
Steve: I could see why you'd say that, because the question stem says the argument is most vulnerable to criticism on which one of the following grounds, which suggests there could be multiple areas where it's vulnerable and you want the biggest one.
Student: Right, exactly.
Steve: But what LSAC is doing there, frankly, is covering their bases, so if there were multiple problems they could say this was the biggest of them, but in practice there's usually one big thing and nothing else comes close. Same with strengthen and weaken questions, they'll say which one most strengthens or weakens, but in reality one choice does and the other four don't. Very rarely one weakens a little and another weakens way more, but it's typically one big thing the vast majority of the time. Same for flaw, find the massive glaring problem staring you in the face and go for that. You could work by elimination, but I recommend going in with your own idea of what the problem is.
Student: So it's kind of like a real world scenario where a guy murdered someone but before that he jaywalked, you could get him on jaywalking, but the murder is the way bigger thing. So here it's, what is the massive glaring problem with this argument, have that in mind, then go into the choices looking for that.
Steve: Exactly, and that's where familiarity with classic logical fallacies comes into play too.
Student: Okay, that makes sense, definitely helpful moving forward for identifying the flaw in flaw questions.
Steve: For sure, so start by refreshing yourself on the classic fallacies: correlation versus causation, ad hominem, confusing necessary and sufficient, things like that. There's about a dozen that show up a lot, and you'll see those inside the lessons in the program, we have a bunch of in-depth workshops, I've done four or five myself and the instructors have done many more. Go into those first so you have a better idea going in of the most likely things you'll see.
Student: Are all the sessions recorded?
Steve: Yeah, everything is, we've got hundreds inside the platform, organized by topic and difficulty level, and a lot are linked in your study plan. If you need more, you can browse around or just email us and we'll send you the links, for example if you want my workshops on flaws specifically.
Student: Gotcha, okay.
Steve: So start with that. Don't even touch parallels until you've mastered flaws, since getting clear on flaw is going to get you at least 6 or 7 raw score points. Then if you're feeling any uncertainty around reading comp, that might be the next area to look at.
The LSAT is not like school, it's not about memorizing terms or studying hard and hoping for an A. The LSAT is a skill, not a subject, and you've got to train for it like one, like learning free throws or piano or boxing, you need reps, feedback, deliberate practice. If you're not improving, it's probably because you're focused on volume instead of precision. I once had a student doing three full LR sections a day, 75 questions daily for weeks, and their score barely moved, because they were making the same mistakes over and over without fixing the problem. When we cut that down to one section a day with deep review, asking why they picked an answer, what trap language got them, what the argument structure was, how they'd teach it to somebody else, their accuracy jumped within 2 weeks. That's how skill building works, not by doing more, but by learning more from what you're already doing.
So stop studying and start training. Go from "I did a bunch of questions today" to "I always miss causation traps in strengthening questions." From "I reviewed my answers" to "I spotted the trick in this flaw question and rewrote it in my own words." From "I drilled logical reasoning" to "I'm 80% accurate on must be true but only 40% on necessary assumption, so that's what I'm focusing on this week." One is passive, one is active. You're learning a new language, the language of the LSAT, and just like any language, you learn it by practicing, repeating, and getting feedback. Do you feel like you have a clear approach for reading comp?
Student: Yes, my approach has been reading the passage, trying to find the conclusion or main point, what's the author trying to tell me, and using that to base my understanding of the questions. Not sure if it's right or wrong, but that's how I've been doing it, I'd love your input.
Steve: How long are you spending between the passage and the questions?
Student: I'd say 2 to 3 minutes reading the passage to find the main point, then about a minute each on the questions.
Steve: That's actually a pretty good allocation of time. What about note-taking or highlighting?
Student: Not sure, that adds extra time, I've never really been instructed to notetake, but I try to highlight things like counter-arguments the author presents, or alternative views, since that helps understand what the author's saying, and keywords, adjectives that amplify what the author is trying to say.
Steve: Overall that sounds good, I'm not seeing any glaring issues. Generally I don't like highlighting or underlining, since it takes time, so I probably wouldn't highlight counter-arguments or keywords either. You still have 3 months, so you could experiment: do a handful of passages with your current light-highlighting approach, then a handful with zero highlighting, and see which feels better and, more importantly, which gets you more points.
Student: Exactly, and I think that's a good approach going forward, since highlighting and underlining take a lot of time. The only thing I might still highlight is the one-sentence argument the author's trying to sell, as a reference point instead of rereading the whole thing.
Steve: Exactly. The other thing I'd look at is the order you approach questions in, do you feel like you're doing that efficiently, or just going in order?
Student: I just do them in order, to be honest. I don't like bouncing from the passage to the question because it might take time.
Steve: It's not a bad approach. Some people find it more efficient to jump around within the question set, since they're presented in a random order, but you can instead choose a strategic order based on question type. What I like to do, and a lot of others do too, is knock out the general global questions first, main idea, primary purpose, title, tone, author's opinion, then the detail-oriented questions that reference specific parts of the passage, and save the more inferential questions, reading between the lines, for last. That's going from easy to hard, so by the toughest questions you've already built a deeper understanding of the passage.
Have you ever reviewed a section and said, "I knew that, I just second-guessed myself"? If so, you're not alone. But it's not the LSAT that's the problem, it's your review process. Most students just glance at the answer key, get a question wrong, say "oh right, I get it," and move on, that's passive acknowledgement, not review, it doesn't build skill or help you get it right under pressure.
We teach students the Socratic review method: interrogating your thinking. Ask "why did I choose that answer," was it a guess, did it feel right, or did you predict it. Ask "what made me eliminate the right one," most of your learning is in that moment. Ask "what trap language got me," look for patterns, comparison, causation, necessary versus sufficient. And ask "what would I do differently next time," something tactical, like pause after each stimulus and predict the flaw, or underline key modifiers in answer choices.
Track the pattern, not just the single question. If you're missing strengthening questions, that's a trend. If you keep getting stuck on inference questions, that's a pattern. Become a detective: how often is this happening, where else is it showing up. We build our students personal error logs, highlight repeated traps, and turn every missed question into a learning opportunity. If you're missing the same kinds of questions week after week, that's the LSAT giving you a hint to fix it now, and when you treat every miss like a case study instead of a failure, that's when your score jumps, because you're actually getting smarter, not just trying harder.
As far as reading comp, anything else we didn't touch on?
Student: When they reference a line, like line 33 says the word "pernicious," and it's inferring based on the word what you think the author meant by using it, those can be challenging because you have to guess based on the tone of the passage.
Steve: For those it's plug and play, take each choice, plug it into that spot, and see which one feels most natural given the surrounding tone. Look at a sentence or two above and below and see which one most naturally segues in.
Student: Gotcha, okay, that makes sense.
Steve: Those aren't super common though. I'd focus more on getting crystal clear on the general global questions first, since that sets the tone for everything else and gives you the thesis statement or main point, which makes a lot of other things clearer. Even for the toughest passages, there's a famous cakewalk passage, and a Chinese talk story passage, you can Google the exact PrepTest numbers, but I've found that out of the seven questions on a passage, typically at least three are hitting on the exact same point. There are 450 words and so many things they could ask, but they don't need to repeat themselves, and they do. So if you get clear on the main idea, so many other things, even meaning in context, will fall into place, they're getting at the same concept from multiple angles.
Student: That makes sense, that's why finding the main point helps with answering a lot of questions, since they reference it. That's what I'm trying to sharpen, finding the main point of the passage and moving forward from there.
Steve: For sure. One more thought, just like for flaw questions, go in with your prephrase, your own idea of what the main idea is, because it's easier to recognize LSAT's articulation, which is admittedly pretty terrible, once you already have your own better wording for the concept. You go in with your prediction, look for it in the choices, find the best fit, though sometimes it's more elimination in reading comp, since the right answer is often the best of the worst because the phrasing isn't good by design. Once you have their phrasing it can add color to what you had, since they've had a lot longer to think about it than you have under time pressure. Also make sure you're looking for a choice that reflects the entirety of the passage, not just one specific part, not just what's literally true, but what's also broadly encompassing the whole passage.
Student: Right, right, yeah, okay, that's good to know, that definitely helps my strategy on reading comp, thank you.
Steve: Let's talk about one of the most common complaints in LSAT prep, "I'm always running out of time." That feels like a timing issue, but nine times out of ten it's not your speed, it's your strategy, you're doing too much thinking in the wrong places. Most students spend 80% of their energy deciphering the stimulus, 10% second-guessing two choices, and then speed through the last five questions in a panic, burned out by question 17, gassed by the time reading comp hits.
High-scoring students don't read faster, they make fewer decisions, they know exactly what to look for, spot argument structures instantly, and don't fall into predictable traps. It's about building an internal GPS instead of shaving 10 seconds off each question. Three fixes: first, predict before you read the choices, pause after the stimulus and say "this is a flawed argument because it assumes X," then scan for the match. Second, pre-tag the paragraphs in reading comp, 2 seconds per paragraph, paragraph 1 introduces theory, paragraph 2 gives an example, paragraph 3 critiques it, so when a question asks about the example you know exactly where to look. Third, decide how long each question is actually worth, not all are equal, if you're stuck on question 17 for 2 minutes and haven't even looked at 18 to 25, you've already lost, so flag it, skip it, come back later. Time pressure isn't just about the clock, it's cognitive overload, and once you fix that you stop feeling rushed and start anticipating what's next.
So, in terms of action plan going forward, we've got 3 months till your test. As we said, an intermediate goal of 7 to 8 points in two months, then 10 plus points in the full three months, to get you to the 170s. Of the three areas you mentioned, flaw, parallel, and reading comp, start with flaw, since it's a common type in logical reasoning, that should get you roughly 7 raw score points given there's 3 or 4 of those per section. Then look at reading comp, improving efficiency by changing the order you approach questions, reducing the highlighting, and getting clearer on main idea questions. Once you've done both, that alone should bring you into the high 160s, then switch gears to parallels and the other less common LR types. Does that feel like a plan?
Student: Yeah, that feels like a great plan, definitely helpful, I'll keep that in mind for these next crucial 3 months. Thank you so much for that.
Steve: If you've ever told yourself "I just need to make fewer stupid mistakes" or "if I could get every question right my score would be amazing," I get it, but that mindset is killing your progress. The LSAT isn't about perfection, it's about consistency, you don't need to ace every section, you just need to be reliable across the board and avoid blow-ups. Say you take a practice test and get minus 9 in reading comp, minus 3 in one LR section, and minus 4 in the other, your total tanks not because you're bad at reading comp, but because one section dragged the whole thing down. If you'd scored minus 5 in reading comp instead of minus 9, that could be the difference between a 162 and a 168, and this happens all the time.
What matters is your floor, the lowest score you can count on even on a bad day, not your ceiling, that one-time 172. So build your floor: make your worst section less bad, stabilize your timing, fix the repeatable errors, that's how you raise your score permanently. Next time you finish a test, ask, did any one section undo all my progress? If yes, you know where to focus. Before we sign off, what would you say is the biggest insight you got from our call today?
Student: Sounds like you have a very straightforward approach, and I think that's what it is, because it's a straightforward question, and sometimes things can get overcomplicated, especially on the test. The way you explained it just simplified it for me, like for flaw questions there's only going to be one standout flaw that's the correct answer, and for strengthen questions the same, one really strengthens and most of them don't. Different ways of thinking about the question and how to attack it, that's what stood out to me, along with how we talked about reading comp. Thank you for that.
Steve: For sure, awesome, keep at it, you're doing great. If you have any questions or need anything, always feel free to shoot me an email or text and I'll be happy to help.
Student: Perfect, and I really appreciate you taking this call, thank you so much.
Steve: My pleasure, have a great weekend.
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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