Why Is the LSAT So Difficult Even Though It’s Not Complicated?

Yes, it’s a loaded question.  Not complicated?  Well, I guess you can make it as Byzantine as you like, and many LSAT takers complexify to no end.

But here’s the thing.  There are only about 20 question types that appear on the LSAT.  Seven types of analytical reasoning questions—just seven—and a few of those haven’t been used for several years.  You need to understand and be ready for those dormant types, since they can always reappear but even when you include them, there are just seven types.  There are a total of about thirteen reading comprehension and logical reasoning questions, most of them common to both sections, a few unique to either logical reasoning or reading comprehension.

That’s why the LSAT isn’t complex.  There are approximately 100 graded questions per LSAT but they’re really variations on a maximum of 20 questions.  Once or twice on most LSATs, there will be questions that are combinations of the 20 main types, so those questions look a little different but aren’t.  In addition, even some of those distinct question types are susceptible to the same methods of analysis and answer, which makes the LSAT even less complicated.

So, why is the LSAT hard?  There are a lot of reasons, only a few of which I’ll talk about here.  I’ll also focus exclusively on content and question types, leaving out test-taking stresses and patterns, which are often more than half the battle for LSAT takers and explain why takers’ actual scores are so often significantly below their best practice scores.

Why so hard?  First, many LSAT takers do tend to overcomplicate the exam.  Some (not all) LSAT prep courses, guides and LSAT tutors exacerbate this problem, suggesting that there are 50 or more question types that you have to understand, and even more methods that you must use, to successfully take the LSAT.  If you take that approach, you’ll make the LSAT a lot harder than it is.  Unless you’re a genius (and if you’re that smart, you’re also smart enough to see that you can simplify), you can’t remember all the question types, much less apply all the techniques, when you sit down to take your real LSAT.  As a result, you very likely won’t be able to get your highest LSAT score.  You’ll also be diverted from what really does make the LSAT difficult.

Second, a lot of LSAT takers don’t focus their practice by question type.  It isn’t enough to just take LSAT after LSAT.  To obtain your best LSAT score, you need to understand your strengths and weaknesses and changes in them over time.  And you must focus on the right question types at the right time.  That’s at the heart of what my clients and I do in terms of LSAT content, and why each Advise-In client’s program is different.

Third, many LSAT takers don’t approach the LSAT with a clear conception of the LSAT’s theory of argument.  That theory of argument, like the LSAT itself, isn’t complicated but understanding it thoroughly is crucial to being able to see what the right answer can (and cannot) be, especially in logical reasoning and reading comprehension.

Fourth, a lot of LSAT takers resist accepting a simple principle (again, especially in logical reasoning and reading comprehension).  Here’s the principle:  If you disagree with the LSAT’s preferred answer, it’s right and you’re wrong.  That’s a difficult thing for a lot of people to accept, not so much intellectually but in their hearts.  People who want to go to law school often tend to be argumentative.  That’s sometimes useful for lawyers.  It doesn’t work in LSAT prep.  On the LSAT, your job is to understand how the LSAT got the answers it did.  And it’s the job of your instructors and advisors to help make clear why the LSAT’s answer to any given question is better than yours, with specific reference to why you got the different answer you did.

For some LSAT takers, that’s a challenge.  Often, an LSAT taker’s instinctive style of thought simply isn’t in line with the LSAT’s approach.  Or argumentativeness takes over, and LSAT takers irritatedly dismiss the right answer as inferior to their own.  Etc.

The obvious practical reason why fighting with the LSAT is a mistake is simple.  The LSAT, not the 100,000+ takers, gets to decide what the right answer is.  That makes the LSAT right.  Period.  There’s also a less arbitrary reason.  On average, a question on the LSAT has gone through several years of testing and tweaking before it shows up as a graded LSAT question.  The people who write the LSAT are simply excellent at what they do.

Having accepted the error of your ways on any question, the next step is to understand why you’re wrong.  That’s often difficult.  I didn’t have a trusted advisor or instructor when I took the LSAT and sometimes figuring out why the LSAT was right and I wasn’t took a long time.  But it was always worth the effort because it gave me insight into the difference between the LSAT’s (correct) and my (incorrect) way of thinking, which helped me correct my mistake the next time around.

Of all the questions I missed on old LSATs during my preparation (and despite my 180 score, there were a lot of missteps), there was one—just one—for which I think I had a better answer.  Since I took the LSAT, I’ve reviewed every available LSAT and some that aren’t publicly available anymore.  Thousands of questions.  The number I think the LSAT may have gotten wrong?  Still one.  They are superb question-and-answer writers.

And that’s why the LSAT is hard.  There may only be 20 questions but their drafters have devised a nearly infinite number of ways to ask them, to subtly bend answer choices to make it more likely that people will make the wrong choice (especially under pressure), to phrase the correct answer so subtly as to make it a less obvious choice, to emphasize or deemphasize question types over time, to find an uncharacteristic way of phrasing those 20 questions so they can be hard to recognize, and so on, and so on, and so on.  They have made an uncomplicated exam structure very difficult for a very long time.

It’s those subtleties that LSAT takers need to focus on to obtain their highest LSAT scores rather than fishing for the red herrings of an allegedly complicated structure.  To get your best LSAT score, you have to know what the real difficulties are and, more important, what they aren’t.

~ by Kyle Pasewark at Advise-in Solutions on August 3, 2010.