Don’t Just Prep for the LSAT, Think! (Or, getting to “ohhhh!”)
The hardest thing about LSAT prep is that you may just have to undo some of the things you’ve learned in school. Most of us figured out shortcuts that made high school and college much more bearable: Sparknotes, cramming, skimming, writing baloney papers about how the Simpsons represent the pressing issues in the modern US family (that was my high school AP psychology paper – not only was it horrible, I forgot about Lisa). And then the LSAT comes along and wants to know if we can think crisply and cleanly—in other words, if we can think critically. For those of us addicted to thinking “creatively,” it can be a rude awakening.
Let me give you an example: is it true that some of the people reading this blog post are breathing? “That’s ridiculous” the normal brain thinks: everyone reading this is breathing. Well, that’s no doubt true, but isn’t it also true that some
LSAT Interact - designed to make you THINK!
of those folks are breathing? Yes, some of them are. (On the LSAT, “some” means an amount greater than zero, which can technically include all.)
It’s not easy to shift to a more legalistic type of thinking, and that’s why boring LSAT prep can be really frustrating. Folks, we’re not studying for an anatomy exam. You can’t simply jam this stuff into your head, you have to actually think in a different way. One way to accomplish this is to compare what you think against what you’re supposed to think. A good teacher will stop you in your tracks, so your brain goes “whaaa?” and then says “ohhh!” We could call the “whaaa?” part cognitive dissonance and the “ohhh!” part learning something new (or a geek-eureka).
This is one of the reasons we put in a lot of freezes in LSAT Interact. A freeze? Let me explain: there are tons of moments when the teachers ask a question and then freezes, waiting for you to think what’s coming next. When you click on the button, you hear the teacher continue, as only an LSAT geek can, and then you get to compare and go through your “whaa” and “ohhh.”
As you can see, I’m still super-jazzed about the recent release of LSAT Interact. For a bit longer, the ladies and gents in marketing are letting folks sample it—funny how the first taste is always free!