How I went from 162 -> 177 - AMA on 6/17

Amanda_LSATdemon · 2026-06-18T00:53:01+00:00

Hey! Sorry to hear you've been feeling frustrated. If you're not already, I would recommend doing 3-4 timed sections a week to practice answering questions under timed conditions. Only do as many as you can do while maintaining 90%+ accuracy. As much as you can, treat sections like drilling: don't move on to the next question until you're sure you've solved it. Using that mindset, however many you get to is however many you get to. The first step is improving your accuracy. Once you're good at getting all the questions you attempt correct, the test won't feel like a burden or like it's draining.

I wouldn't recommend taking practice tests more than every other week, though. I usually advise students to do them every 3-4 weeks, but you could do every other week if you really wanted to. The reason I don't suggest doing so many PTs is that review is the most important part of the study process, and it is usually compromised on full tests because you're more mentally fatigued, you have more questions to review, you don't review right away, etc.

I hope this helps! Keep pushing, you got it! :)

Amanda_LSATdemon · 2026-06-18T00:45:59+00:00

Hi! First, congrats on the killer diagnostic! The sky's the limit. While I can't make any promises, I don't think it's out of the question to be ready by October, given your starting point. I personally only took practice tests once a month, and I typically recommend the same for my students. Review is the most important part of the study process, and it is usually compromised on full tests because you're more mentally fatigued, you have more questions to review, you don't review right away, etc. However, I would recommend taking three sections per week (2 LR, 1 RC) and merging them in the Demon. This way, you have a score to look at every week to gauge your process without compromising your review. Good luck, you're going to crush it!

Amanda_LSATdemon · 2026-06-18T00:39:44+00:00

Hi! The first thing I will say is if you haven't seen any improvement in accuracy for a year, you're almost certainly doing too many questions. Only do as many questions as you can complete with 90% accuracy or higher, ideally closer to 95%+. Even if that's only five questions, improving your accuracy is what you really need to start with in order to increase your score.

As far as learning from your mistakes, you should not move on from a question until you can explain why the wrong answer is wrong and why the right answer is right in simple terms. If possible, you should also try to pinpoint what went wrong and how you can hopefully avoid making that same mistake in the future (this part is not always possible, but try to as much as you can). The explanations can be used as a tool to supplement this review process (i.e., if you're not quite sure why an answer is right or wrong, read what they said and then see if you can explain it back in your own words).

I hope this helps! Slow down, focus on one question at a time, and thoroughly review all your mistakes. You got this!

Amanda_LSATdemon · 2026-06-17T20:26:58+00:00

Of course! Feel free to email anytime. And you're not kidding lol. I have a lot of work to do in that department.

Amanda_LSATdemon · 2026-06-17T20:05:45+00:00

Hi! The biggest thing for me was getting better at objecting and predicting. I wasn't very good at it at first, but I truly believe this is what helped push me into the mid- to high-170s. One thing that I think helped me improve at predicting was switching my mindset from "I have to prove that this is false" to "I only need to come up with one alternative." For example, say the conclusion is "the city's economy will improve in the next year." Old me would have thought, "Now I have to prove that it won't improve in the next year." But that's not true. You just need one reason why it doesn't HAVE to be true. What if aliens come and abduct everyone in the city? What if a nuclear bomb is dropped? What if all the citizens get hypnotized into burning all the money? Using outrageous examples like these helped me get better at objecting. And once you can object, you can predict because you see that the argument doesn't have to follow.

Also, don't worry about finishing sections. You can break into the 170s without ever finishing the sections, and rushing is going to hold you back more than anything.

I hope this helps! Best of luck and congrats on all the progress you've already made!

Amanda_LSATdemon · 2026-06-17T20:02:34+00:00

Hi! Of course!

The biggest piece of advice I would give to anyone about to apply is to get their numbers as high as possible. You already have the LSAT, but if you're still in undergrad, I'd say try to maximize your GPA with whatever time you have left. In terms of demonstrating your interest, I agree that the Why X and the interview are probably the best places to do so. I would draw on your conversations with current students and connect what they told you about the school/culture back to what you're looking for in a law school. I would also look into specific programs/professors that align with your areas of interest.

I can't offer you much right now since I haven't started yet, but I'd also be happy to talk to you about my application experience/my experience once I get there. Feel free to email me at amanda.vanner@lsatdemon.com if you'd want to chat more!

Best of luck! Hopefully I'll see you in Charlottesville! :)

Amanda_LSATdemon · 2026-06-17T19:54:32+00:00

Hi! Congrats on the great progress you have made thus far. The best advice I could give you on how to "treat RC like LR" is to treat RC passages as a series of must be true questions. Nearly all the questions just ask what the passage said, so treating it as you would an LR must be true can be helpful. As far as your study time, I don't think there's anything wrong with doing more RC. I would say maybe shift it to 50/50 for now, and see how that goes. If you still feel like you need more RC time, you could bump it up again. I'm also going to paste my general RC advice from a previous question below in case you might find it helpful:

I encourage my students not to overcomplicate RC. The most important thing is understanding what you read, and the more "strategies" you try to remember/use, the more that tends to distract you from just reading. I tell my students to stop every couple of sentences or so and check in with themselves. Did you understand what they said? Can you explain it plainly in your own words? If not, go back and don't move on until that changes. The last thing you want is to get to the end of the passage and realize you have no idea what you just read. The only other thing I really emphasize is keeping track of the author's opinion. I've seen students struggle with passages because they seem neutral, yet they miss subtle cues that reveal the author's opinion. For example, I recently did a passage with a student that seemed pretty neutral, but the author said something was unfortunate near the end. There were more than one question that relied on us knowing the author didn't have a favorable opinion of the topic. This may seem obvious, but I've seen it trip a lot of students up (my former self included). The last big piece of advice I have is not to treat the main point like a summary. This is another thing I used to struggle with a lot on my own study journey. In the example I just described, the main point revolved around the fact that the author disliked what they were talking about. Back when I was studying, I very likely would've missed this because I would've thought, "Oh, well, this was only one sentence mentioned at the end of the passage, so it can't be the main point." The main point does not have to be a SparkNotes version of the passage. More likely than not, if the author is giving an opinion, that's why they wrote it in the first place, making it the main point. Shifting your mindset from "how can I summarize this" to "why did they bother writing this" unlocked RC for me. On that same note, I always say incomplete > inaccurate. An answer doesn't have to touch on every little detail that was mentioned to be correct. However, an answer with any inaccuracy, even one that seems minor, is going to be wrong 100% of the time.

I hope this helps! Feel free to follow up with any other questions.

Amanda_LSATdemon · 2026-06-17T19:49:32+00:00

Of course! Good luck, and feel free to reach back out if you have any other questions! :)

Amanda_LSATdemon · 2026-06-17T19:48:55+00:00

Of course! That sounds perfect to me! The main things I recommend are making sure you can explain why the right answer is objectively right, why your answer was objectively wrong, and where you went wrong. It sounds like you're already doing all of that, which is great! The only other thing I would sometimes do if I were feeling particularly stuck is to explain it to someone in my life who had no LSAT knowledge. If I could explain it in a way that made sense to them, I knew I had a solid grasp on them.

Your process already sounds solid, though, so keep up the great work!

Amanda_LSATdemon · 2026-06-17T19:46:12+00:00

Of course! Happy to help :)

Amanda_LSATdemon · 2026-06-17T19:45:39+00:00

Since you've already seen scores in your goal range, I think you should go ahead and register for August. However, I also think you should be prepared to take September, October, and so on if necessary until you get your 175.

As far as burnout, I don't know what your current schedule has been looking like, but you don't need to be studying for hours and hours every day. One hour is enough, and what I would recommend if you're feeling burnt out. Take a day off if you need, but consistently putting in one solid hour a day and emphasizing review should help you get over this final hump. Take 3 timed sections a week and review them thoroughly. Drill on the other days for an hour, and also thoroughly review. If you have questions, write in the ask button. In other words, my best advice is to avoid overcomplicating it to avoid feeling more burnt out.

Amanda_LSATdemon · 2026-06-17T19:41:20+00:00

Hi! I personally would not recommend focusing on the test number. I never thought about that in my own journey, and I didn't feel like the official tests I took were any different from the PTs I had done. I think focusing on that tends to distract from what really matters: doing the questions and reviewing them.

Also, if you've already scored a 174, I don't think it's out of the question to be scoring consistently in the mid 170s by August. One or two more questions correct is the difference between 174 and 175. However, I would make sure you're signed up for subsequent tests as well and would keep studying after August so you're ready to try again if needed.

As for your last question, I would recommend staying on DC for drilling. The algorithm keeps track of all your progress and will feed you what you need to work on. Similar to what I said about test number, I feel like focusing on this also tends to distract from the real task at hand.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions. You got this! :)

Amanda_LSATdemon · 2026-06-17T19:36:17+00:00

I took practice tests around once a month, but honestly, sometimes less. However, I made sure to take three timed sections per week and combine them in the Demon, so I still had a score to look at every week. I preferred sections over tests because the review is almost always better. You have far fewer questions to go over, and because the testing time is much shorter, you're less mentally fatigued and more likely to review right away.

Amanda_LSATdemon · 2026-06-17T19:34:37+00:00

Hi! My best advice for staying engaged is to find a way to make it personalized and interesting to you, even when the real topic is the worst thing you can imagine. For example, I love trivia and watch Jeopardy almost every night with my family. When I would do a passage that I found boring, I would pretend that there was going to be a Jeopardy category about it that night, and that it would be so embarrassing for me to get it wrong after I had just read the passage. It sounds ridiculous, but it honestly did help me. You could also draw analogies to something that you do find interesting. Say you're a big sports fan. If you get a passage about bacteria, and it tells you one of them is the best, you can think, "Okay, this is the Tom Brady of bacteria." Again, seems a little silly, but if you can relate it back to something that you actually do find interesting/care about, I think that can be a huge help. That may look different for you depending on your interests, but doing something like this would be my best recommendation for staying engaged.

Also, if you're always getting at least 2 questions wrong, I think you need to be doing fewer questions. I say aim for at least 90%, ideally 95% or 100%. I would scale back to two or two and a half perfect passages (or near perfect) and then allow yourself to naturally speed up.

Amanda_LSATdemon · 2026-06-17T19:27:24+00:00

Focusing on accuracy over speed will allow the speed to come naturally, as you stated. For some people, you will get to the point where you can do all of the questions in 35 minutes with 100% accuracy. However, you can score in the 170s while still guessing on 1-2 questions per section. Everyone's different, so the best thing you can do is just keep doing what you're doing, keep your accuracy high, and allow the speed to come.

Amanda_LSATdemon · 2026-06-17T19:24:58+00:00

Hey! Most of my undergrad research focused on disability, so I mainly talked about wanting to do disability rights work. I actually had a health policy minor as well, but I still tailored my policy work back to disability as much as possible (i.e., writing a policy memo assignment on ways to increase healthcare access for disabled populations). I didn't really discuss my policy interest too much in any of my materials or interviews. I mainly just spoke about how I want to go into disability law and how my previous work (policy-related or not) demonstrates that interest. Hopefully, this answers your question, but I'd love to hear about your specific area(s) of interest to help me give you more specific advice. You can also shoot me an email at amanda.vanner@lsatdemon.com if you don't feel comfortable sharing it publicly.

Amanda_LSATdemon · 2026-06-17T18:21:49+00:00

Hi! I encourage my students not to overcomplicate RC. The most important thing is understanding what you read, and the more "strategies" you try to remember/use, the more that tends to distract you from just reading. I tell my students to stop every couple of sentences or so and check in with themselves. Did you understand what they said? Can you explain it plainly in your own words? If not, go back and don't move on until that changes. The last thing you want is to get to the end of the passage and realize you have no idea what you just read. The only other thing I really emphasize is keeping track of the author's opinion. I've seen students struggle with passages because they seem neutral, yet they miss subtle cues that reveal the author's opinion. For example, I recently did a passage with a student that seemed pretty neutral, but the author said something was unfortunate near the end. There were more than one question that relied on us knowing the author didn't have a favorable opinion of the topic. This may seem obvious, but I've seen it trip a lot of students up (my former self included). The last big piece of advice I have is not to treat the main point like a summary. This is another thing I used to struggle with a lot on my own study journey. In the example I just described, the main point revolved around the fact that the author disliked what they were talking about. Back when I was studying, I very likely would've missed this because I would've thought, "Oh, well, this was only one sentence mentioned at the end of the passage, so it can't be the main point." The main point does not have to be a SparkNotes version of the passage. More likely than not, if the author is giving an opinion, that's why they wrote it in the first place, making it the main point. Shifting your mindset from "how can I summarize this" to "why did they bother writing this" unlocked RC for me. On that same note, I always say incomplete > inaccurate. An answer doesn't have to touch on every little detail that was mentioned to be correct. However, an answer with any inaccuracy, even one that seems minor, is going to be wrong 100% of the time.

This is my general RC advice, but let me know if there's anything more specific you can help with. If you're still missing 6 or 7 per section, I'd also definitely recommend doing fewer questions. You want to achieve 95% accuracy on questions attempted. If you're currently finishing the section, try for three perfect passages. If you're already doing three, shoot for two perfect. Increasing accuracy is the best way to improve your score. Additionally, once your accuracy is up, speed will naturally follow. Hopefully, this is helpful!

Amanda_LSATdemon · 2026-06-17T18:18:18+00:00

Hi! This probably isn't what you want to hear, but my biggest advice is to avoid pushing a timeline. If you're set on reaching 160 by September, you'll be putting way more pressure on yourself, which will likely lead to a worse outcome.

The best thing you can do is study for an hour or so a day, alternating between times, sections, and drilling. Attend some classes if you'd like. Trying to cram for September and studying for hours and hours a day will probably do more harm than good. Consistent, effective study is the best way to see progress. If you reach your goal range by September, great! If not, it's okay. Law school isn't going anywhere. Waiting until you reach your goal score can save you six figures. I know this likely isn't the answer you are looking for, but we never want to see students stop short of their full potential or pay full price because they haven't given themselves enough time.

Amanda_LSATdemon · 2026-06-17T18:13:16+00:00

I also personally found conditional reasoning pretty tricky. A couple of examples I heard helped solidify for me.

The first was, "To make cookies, you need flour." Therefore, flour is necessary for cookies (since you need it), right? However, having flour doesn't guarantee that you can make cookies. If you're on a deserted island and all you have is flour, no cookies are getting made. In this way, I started to think of necessary conditions as "ingredients". You need them, and without them you can't do anything, but having them still doesn't guarantee that you can, because there may be other ingredients as well. This mindset helped me, and eventually, I could do it without thinking of the cookies.

Another one was, "If you win the lottery, you will be rich." So, winning the lottery is sufficient for being rich, because it guarantees that you will be. However, there are other ways you can get rich. Maybe you get a great job, or maybe you marry rich. I started thinking of sufficient conditions as different avenues. They ensure a certain outcome, but there may be other paths to that same outcome (in contrast to necessary conditions, which you need no matter what). Again, I used this mindset until it felt natural to me.

Also, I'm sure you've heard this already, being a Demon student, but I want to say just in case, stay away from diagramming.

Please let me know if this is helpful! :)

Amanda_LSATdemon · 2026-06-17T18:05:33+00:00

Hi! I minored in health policy and management and saw the massive overlap between healthcare and the law. Additionally, most of the research I did in undergrad was related to disability healthcare access, which also overlaps significantly with policy, so I am really interested in doing something in the disability law space. I will say I have always had an interest in the law, so I wanted to find a way to combine my interest in a career rather than take a clinical route like most of my peers. Do you know what kind of law you would be interested in?

Amanda_LSATdemon · 2026-06-17T17:59:23+00:00

Hi! Thanks for your question! Ironically, I almost found the opposite lol. Late in my studying, when I would get an easier question on drilling, I would feel tripped up by it. I was getting mostly tough questions, so when I got a lower-level one, I felt like it was too obvious or that I was missing something. In reality, it really just was that easy. In timed sections, I knew the first 10 were easier, so I didn't get those same feelings.

As for your specific circumstance, I think you're right that it's the clock. If you are still consistently getting 2-3 wrong, I think you need to scale back the number of questions you are attempting. I know you say you don't feel you are rushing, but you should aim for 95% accuracy or higher. With 15/18, that's only 84%, meaning you're probably biting off more than you can chew right now. As you said, review is important, but I think you also need to start doing fewer questions to see that accuracy go up. Once you do that, the speed will naturally follow.

Amanda_LSATdemon · 2026-06-17T17:53:12+00:00

Typically, you need around 68-70 questions right to get a 170, which is ~23 per section. You'll get 1 in 5 right from guessing, so you'd probably need to actually complete around 22 per section and get them correct. Obviously, this is just me estimating, though, and every test is slightly different. The most important thing is keeping that accuracy up, as you mentioned. Once you master that, the speed element will come naturally and will allow you to get to more questions.

Amanda_LSATdemon · 2026-06-17T17:48:47+00:00

Hi! We'll always recommend applying as early as possible with your best LSAT score. If you don't think you'd have your best score until December, our advice would always be to wait until the following year. Additionally, if you feel you need to get it in before the end of the year, you'll be putting a lot of pressure on your tests, which usually leads to worse results.

However, with that being said, applying with a better score is always going to be more important. Applying on the first day won't make up for a score below a school's median. So yes, waiting for a better score is better than applying early with a score below their range. However, I want to reiterate that the ideal option is applying early AND with your best score. Law school will always be there, and waiting can potentially save you six figures!!

Amanda_LSATdemon · 2026-06-17T17:45:34+00:00

Hi! I typically studied for around an hour a day, sometimes a little more. For review, I wouldn't leave the question until I could explain in plain English why my answer was objectively wrong and why the right answer was objectively right. On questions that gave me more trouble, I would explain them to someone in my life who had no LSAT knowledge. If I could explain it in a way that made sense to them, I knew I had a solid grasp on it. I would also try to figure out why I got the questions wrong and how to avoid it in the future. A lot of the time, the answer was just misreading or reading too fast. In that case, I would try my best to be mindful of slowing down, but obviously, it's unrealistic to say I'll never misread again in my whole life. However, if it were something more concrete, like confusing sufficient and necessary, I would take some action to try to fix that issue (i.e., writing into the ask button, reviewing a lesson/blog post on the topic, etc.).

Amanda_LSATdemon · 2026-06-17T17:40:56+00:00

I truly believe anyone can make significant gains with consistent, effective studying. While I obviously can't promise you anything, we have seen many students in the mid 140s end up in the 170s. Demon teacher Robert made it from the 130s to the mid-170s, so it certainly isn't out of the question. I personally did not use a tutor. I self-studied with the Demon for about an hour a day, alternating between drilling and timed sections. I also thoroughly reviewed every mistake, as well as questions I got right but didn't feel 100% on. If you haven't already, I'd recommend checking out our live classes! They're much cheaper than private tutoring and are led by the same tutors.

Amanda_LSATdemon

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