Episode 161: Bad Lsat Score? How To Move On.

Episode 161: Bad Lsat Score? How To Move On. - Online Custom Essay Writing Service

Episode 161: Bad LSAT Score? How to Move On.

hello and welcome to episode 161 of the thinking LSAT podcast in Vienna Virginia this is Ben Olsen with me as Nathan Fox in Los Angeles how's it going nation awesome man I'm excited for another excellent episode what are we talking about today we're gonna be talking about some I guess another we have another email about a disappointing LSAT score from the September LSAT and how to move forward from that we have some more dumb emails from law schools some snail mail to apparently we're going to go over a flaw question from the June 2007 LSAT. that's a logical reasoning question and we're parently gonna roast a white law school essay yeah we are Wow okay good you all can always email us at help at thinking LSAT calm we will not see those emails but Sarah will and she can help you out or annalisa will as well if you have not joined the facebook group the facebook group now has nine hundred and thirty nine members there's a lot of chatter over there people asking all sorts of questions all the time. it's a great resource I which I never shut up I'm gonna have to filter those emails out of my inbox I get. many notifications now from the thinking LSAT podcast we've already put you wait you get facebook emails I might add stupid for that I used to get those and I was like stop this ridiculousness like I'm just go into the app yeah I mean well basically I just don't go into the app very often but I enjoy I mean in fact the only thing I ever do on Facebook now is the thinking else that podcast group because you know there are like buddies in there and they're laughing about our stupid jokes. it's fun to check in and see what they're talking about we're getting a lot of the content from the show now for the show from the Facebook group. that that actually is really good. I like those notifications for that purpose but yeah it does seem a little bit oppressive when it's like every single comment that every person makes and you get email notifications for Nathan if you want to blow up Nathan's inbox continue posting posting of anything else that podcast group yeah and make sure to tag him yeah you can always tweet us at thinking Elsa you can tweet Nathan and Fox and Mia Olson Benjamin we both provide Elsa classes and tutoring and online courses I am at strategy prep comm Nathan is at Fox Elsa calm I'm in DC Nathan is in LA and San Francisco we also have a joint project it's the Elsa demon you can go to LSAT demon comm basically it's a tool to practice LSAT questions on the go and get our explanations both of our explanations are in there and the demon tracks your progress and tries to figure out what questions it should give you based on how well you're doing. the difficulty can go up and down as you work through those questions speaking of joint projects we also have a class coming up in Chicago October 20th and 21st by the time you listen to this it's probably almost close of registration for that wouldn't you say Ben yeah it is getting close that's gonna be exciting and then you said some cool places that we were gonna go for eating and I already forgot them but I'm excited to go and I will just depend on you to tell me where to go when we arrive yeah all and I'll announce that via the Facebook group and an email out everybody sometime before we go. that everybody knows where we're gonna meet up for beers on Friday night yeah and that's where is that again the class the class is at DePaul University Lincoln Park campus it's a cool part of town on the north side up by Wrigleyville the Cubs are in a one-game wildcard playoff. the Cubs may or may not be in the playoffs I'm hoping that the Cubs are gonna still be sticking around in the playoffs because it'll be super fun to be in that part of the world while the Cubs are in the playoffs yeah that's cool yeah if you are familiar with your pre-law Society or connected to it in any way please have them connect with us the email is odd cast at thinking LSAT calm again that's podcast at thinking LSAT calm it's also for like newsletter like if you have a pre-law newsletter or sometimes like maybe your political science department has a newsletter that goes out that's popular or maybe you just have a an advisor a pre-law advisor who you think could benefit from knowing us please email podcast at thinking LSAT calm and we will send them some goodies. that we can introduce ourselves yeah we've received a lot of reviews on iTunes we have three hundred and forty four ratings and ninety six reviews we appreciate it very much if you liked the show just head over to iTunes hit five stars tell people why you like the show the last five reviews are all good too we got like five good ones in a row. it's been one yeah we need one of those you know those like workplace it's 210 days since the last like decapitation or whatever signs that they have you know yeah yeah sure wow that would Wow that would be disturbing okay we've got like we've got like two months since our last bad review on iTunes. I'll try to say something super offensive today we'll get that back to zero all right yeah thank you I appreciate that yeah how many days yeah that's what we have two new staff that we should have on here. right now it's two weeks I think it's more like two months yes now we're like baiting people to go in there okay you can also listen to the podcast on YouTube if that's your thing right now there are 385 subscribers on YouTube unfortunately you will not see either of us on YouTube you will just see a nice thinking LSAT logo which is a kid in red glasses by the way that image is just a random stock photography image that we found at the very beginning of the show when we had no idea that people would actually subscribe to us. hope you like that image but I hope you liked our theme music which is also a random stock sound clip that we bought for like $10 I got I picked it because I thought it sounded like dr. dre and I'm a fan. that's there you go okay cool we have 191 followers on Instagram that is just our handle is that what they say that our Instagram username is thinking LSAT and ELISA posts cool things there she's becoming more active on that I noticed the other day and it's really neat. thank you Anna Lisa you can also find me on instagram at innovator Ben or Nathan at Fox LSAT we have 36 patrons donated on patreon one hundred and forty three dollars every month that's very helpful thank you. much that covers 14% of our monthly costs we have now hit oh I this is a new stat I like this 1 million 28,000 630 downloads. by the way does this count all downloads across all platforms are just iTunes I think it's all downloads across all platforms hmm and then we have to do the multiplier how many f-bombs per show say four f-bombs per show yeah and we need to divide that by host I think. it's uh it's yeah good because that means you get half of them and I that decreases my actual number. I would say four I wasn't saying automatically I was saying like divide out the data right. oh you want to know anything f-bombs and bent f-bombs that would be good it's gonna be something like 3 to 4 million Nathan f-bombs and more like let's see you've probably said it four times total well no way I think it is more than that and you'll see if we had a graph it would be this like plateau of zero forever for no huge spike in yeah it's a form of cheap therapy you know to deal with life changes all right. then if you're into LinkedIn there is a LinkedIn thinking else that podcast group it has 70 members and it's moderated by Ezra who is the infamous author of the man with kind eyes. if you'd like to chat it up with Ezra go to the Facebook group or LinkedIn and check it out beautiful yeah all right man we didn't I didn't know I don't know what's going on in your life we just jumped into those stats but I'm sure I'll find out as we talk about these things for example I just learned that you get email notifications from Facebook yeah I I don't know man what's going on with me I I just I have a very busy month of travel coming up I'm flying to New Orleans tomorrow to go to my friend Nicky and Danielle's wedding in New Orleans on Thursday. there's gonna be a lot of boozing that's gonna happen on the next three or four days of my life okay I well then I've got the next three weekends after that our San Francisco Chicago San Francisco for me. I've got four weekends in a row of flying around all over the place other than that I am super super into dungeons dragons like super into it like check this out my mom and my niece came and visited me I think I mentioned that on the last show yeah and on Friday night we were looking for something to do just kind of bumming around after dinner and I started a little Dungeons & Dragons game with my mom and my niece as the players and I was like master and my niece went apeshit she lost her mind about how awesome Dungeons & Dragons is and then we ended up playing a little bit more on Saturday and a little bit more on Sunday Wow wait how old is your niece again she's like 11 11 yeah okay when you talk about Dungeons & Dragons I think about my friend who ran a shop when we were in high school that sold those kind of cards there's cars right or something yeah you might be thinking a magic oh shoot okay nevermind that's okay yeah he's magic it says it's it's all nerd shit it's fine it's all I've never played magic but DNG is the just greatest game of all time it's. if you like dee dee is like an old game it is but it's it's also like very popular people it's having a resurgence or even popular all along I defy you to find someone who plays who has played D&D and doesn't like it it's just like everybody that I I was at the bar this like super cool like hipster bar here in Los Feliz the other day with my friend and we were geeking out sitting at the bar talking about Dungeons & Dragons and the super cool hipster like looks like punk-rock bartender is like hey you guys talking about Dungeons and Dragons yeah I write for a Dungeons & Dragons newsletter it's like immediately like giving us a free shot because of how we were talking about Dungeons & Dragons at the bar yeah okay cool man yeah what's up with you Oh life is good I was just playing some basketball whoa and by myself I didn't know you were a baller I don't know that I am I just have a hoop in my driveway. and I have a basketball. sometimes I go out there and shoot hoops were you practicing your sweet post moves well okay apparently I'm not a baller because I'm not sure what you mean by that don't worry about it don't worry about it come on tell me I got to learn at least one new word post post move if you're practicing your post moves you would be like sort of standing a few feet away from the basket maybe with your back to the basket and practicing like a little little Negron step little turn around a little crab job yeah all the little they have kids do the little drills you know. that you can practice like okay from this block I'm gonna make this move and from this block well you need to have all the moves if you're gonna be a true true baller but yeah you can I could show you a couple maybe maybe if we find a man that'd be sweet if we found a basketball hoop in Chicago yeah okay the little pickup game with the class that would be interesting that'd be hilarious do that yeah. I was just practicing shooting and then I was trying to do that before I came to the podcast you know uh-huh and you can't end on a missed shot correct. then I kept trying to shoot fast and of course I kept missing and I'm like this is kind of like the LSAT I guess I'm just rushing here yeah I slowed down and I after like 30 misses. you're shooting resources or 3-pointers or what I just kind of read them all over the place I am I'm not that bad of a shot really I'd say I make half of them and I'm shooting from pretty far away but um yeah it was really bad at the end because I wanted to come inside but I couldn't come in after missing that's why you have to quit early that's why you have to that's why you have to end on a good one right yeah you make make one or make a couple in a row and then just be like yep and then walk off I'm done yeah well uh do you want read this first snail mail it looks like well okay. I wanted to talk about there I put a bullet point about how to move forward from a disappointing September 2018 LSAT there's no email for this one it's just an agenda item that I wanted to talk about yeah how many phone calls and emails are you getting right now with people asking you what they should do Oh a good number yeah yeah like. many everybody this time of year I mean we have some people who are celebrating like yeah I killed the damn rails at my school or came back and I'm ready to go to school now it's okay good good for you yep but we also are hearing like oh shit I fucked up what do I do. I'm sure we've talked about this a million times but I just want to make sure we cover it again right now because it's timely but yeah the September test was a released LSAT yeah if you took the test you got your test back when they sent you your score you probably didn't even look at it that's what most people do they look at the score and that's it yeah. what should they do they should dig in and figure out where they got questions wrong and why they think they got them wrong yeah it's it's like people want to like reach out and go where do I go from here and I'm like well tell me what you were struggling with on that test why did you miss points on that test and it's funny how often they will have like oh I don't know at all yeah or they'll have just a broad like well I missed six on reading comprehension and I missed a total of twelve on logical reasoning and I missed an entire game yep and then it's like okay good a step in the right direction but why did you miss those points what specifically like let's talk about okay logical reasoning what questions did you miss when when you looked back at them when you reviewed them is it do you remember what you were thinking or like can you get it right now or like is there a certain question type you're missing a lot of or what's going on why did you miss that question and I just it's super consistent I get there's something in human nature that people just don't want to do that review and that is the clear and really only first step if you if you're trying to figure out how to move forward from a September crash yeah what happened did you miss the points and throughout the section or did you miss them all at the end those sort of things can tell you a little bit about how you took the test officially a lot of times when you're talking about crash you're talking about someone who scored lower or even sometimes a lot lower on the official test then their practice test scores led them to believe they would score. I can understand why they're panicking but it's it's it's just another test. you just need to go in and do some investigation and figure out what it was about test day that led you astray and like you said if you redo these questions because else AK does give you the whole test and you don't find them that challenging now then most likely you just rushed or did you even miss Bob well I mean I had someone who was scoring between 158 and 162 and she got a 142 which is. off that it's like hold on you you can't just say you can't do the test or there is something like maybe you miss bubbled do you have any idea and like you're saying she had not looked at it at all it just they just look at the score and that's it yeah. I wanted to make a pitch here for private tutoring actually if you're struggling to figure out why you had such a September LSAT that is a perfect opportunity you know maybe you need a little bit of motivation maybe you can't bear to face it on your own one tutoring session to go over that one test it has the potential to be transformative there's no guarantee but it's possible that if you sit down with Ben and look at that test I mean it's almost guaranteed that you sit down and look at that test and Ben is gonna tell you something that you're gonna be you know change your thinking about the test yeah and likewise if you work with me or likewise if you work with one of our tutors. consider doing that if you want a book with me it's Fox LSAT you can book me and you'll be able to put yourself right on to my calendar I do have openings for one-on-one tutoring. if you'd like to you know get crackin right now on your November retake or on your January retake or whatever it is let's sit down and do that and Ben if they want to reach out to you about tutoring how do they do that just a strategy prep calm and follow the stuff for tutoring yeah I mean especially if your practice test scores were higher and you did them timed you just need to figure out how to think about the test or your approach as you're taking the test officially fix it and bam you can take the next test you don't have to do as much as people think they do I think sometimes right yeah I you hear a lot of like well I I just think November's too soon. I'm gonna put it off till January yeah and I'm like wait I thought you were ready to take the test in September if you were ready to take the test in September I understand it didn't work out for you but if you were ready if your practice test scores were indicating that you're ready then you should also be ready to take it in November I mean yeah chip away at it a little bit every day like we're always talking about okay anyway I want to move on yep okay cool. what is this who is this this is amazing and we can post these in the newsletter because this first one Meghan already posted it on the Facebook group I assume if she can post it on the Facebook group we could post it out into the newsletter yeah or on thinking else that calm but this they sent her I oh I guess that's not snail mail I guess that's just an email it looks like oh really I thought this was snail mail. this is like a pamphlet or something this email okay well because that business card really confused me anyway what we're looking at here there's two images yeah and even is this the first one is a it's from Falkner law which apparently is in Montgomery Alabama and it has makin her first and last name and then it says attorney at law and then it says her last name and law office calm and it's a business card it was a fake business card yeah I don't know they that's it that's a stock photography they didn't actually send that to her that's it that's just a like a randomly generated oh no no I don't think that the the business card was sent to her I just think this this may be been was printed oh and then she photographed it yeah I'm see I'm seeing the top of the page there I think either way it's just such a stupid little gimmick come to Faulkner law and you could have a business card that looks like this people on the Facebook group we're busting on it including the fact that it doesn't say Esquire which probably any attorney would have on their business card yeah then the second thing is far more confusing yeah it's is that her holding it. now I think that that might be a photograph of her holding this thing yeah which they sent her a pamphlet or a flyer which looks like a door to an office home again but then it has the Faulkner law logo on it. then that ruins the illusion that it's a door like an office door that doesn't look like an office door if it says Faulkner law school of law on it and then the slogan at the bottom with open your door of opportunity work lever open your door of opportunity exclamation point oh shit and they gave her a custom URL Wow babe they really boy they went the marketing department at fucking our laws just going for it how much does all this cost well what do you think they're charging. much tuition for yeah I mean that's what you're getting for your money because you're certainly not getting like actual you know services you're it's I don't know boy just feels like a big Ponzi scheme huh big some weird big pyramid yeah I mean they figure if they can get one more student they've paid for all this marketing effort yeah absolutely yeah one person who's like dumb enough to be like can you imagine being dumb enough to be like holy shit I could have a business card and an office door like that with my name on it I'm gonna go to Falkner law just there they're gonna give me what I want I want to be a lawyer yeah I'm gonna be a big fancy lawyer with a business card and it and door and everything okay. that's one thing that they were laughing about on the Facebook group then the other thing is this next one from Andrew posted it on the Facebook group which is a entering class profile for Florida State University College of the law yeah and I just thought some of these stats were were pretty funny yeah they were specifically they were laughing about eight hundred ninety seven years of combined total years of work experience in the incoming class total I don't never understand that like when people say oh come work with our team we have a combined combined experience of over 50 years it's like what is okay like all there's 50 people here and they've all been working on this project for a year you know that's not super helpful how long the individuals have experienced anyways sorry now there's also what has to be an error on here it says first generation law 15% yeah that's crazy what 85% of your class are second generation law students eighty-five percent of the class is yeah coming from their mom and dad are lawyers there's no way yeah. what does that mean they're first generation like in this country our first generation graduate you know like getting a graduate degree or something I don't know I thought that it could be that 15% of them are first-generation undergrads yes yeah that's one thing that it could mean but there's no way in hell it's first generation because if it's if it's what we were saying the first instance which I think everybody would normally read it as oh wow. 85% of the class has family that are lawyers or parents right but there's no way that that's possibly the case that would be read a very depressing notion that would be yeah okay anyway there's some just random shit that law law schools think they want to send you yeah 31% have traveled abroad I know already saw that too I was laughing about that who's like 31% went to spring break in Cabo alright yeah though I don't I don't get it yeah I don't get it okay moving on yeah let's move on oh we got a LSAT question hell yeah all right let's do this oh I guess I'll read this I love how it's got some words I know I know I won't be able to pronounce where is this from this is from the June 2007 LSAT you can find that by just googling June 2007 that will pop up as a free PDF from El sack then we're in section 3 and we're looking at question 25 this is a logical reasoning question if you want if you're not driving stop and go do this question and then follow on yep okay. here's what it says some anthropologists argue that the human species could not have survived prehistoric times if the species had not evolved the ability to cope with diverse natural environments okay. all right now I'm thinking to myself this is what some anthropologists argue in other words that's what some other people think and I think that we wouldn't have made it if we didn't have this ability to cope with diverse natural environments which to me just means a variety of different kinds of weather or something like that hot cold dangerous not dangerous I wish I wish I could this is a good test for people I think like do you know what's coming next do you have an idea what's coming next because I feel something coming I feel something coming too I mean by starting out with this sentence some anthropologists argue yada yada it's possible that this person could say and they're right and here's why but in most cases they're gonna probably say I think they're wrong and here's why I think they're wrong yeah and I think smart asses will point out that the very next word is however. it's like well yeah there's the butt right there Nathan like who you know what's your point but my point is that you should if you're tuned in you should feel that coming it's a good test of whether you're you're doing this correctly because because you should you should have a pretty good idea that that's what's gonna happen next yeah okay cool. the next sentence however there is considerable evidence that I'm not even going to pronounce it. let's go Australopithecus Australopithecus perfect I see yeah I'm not is this is where I struggle and then the next word is something that starts with a. I'm just gonna say a a afarensis oh that's great dude a a there's considerable evidence that a a comma a prehistoric species related to early humans hmm okay. this this new species that we were introduced to is a prehistoric species that were related to early humans also thrived in a diverse array of environments but became extinct okay. they's they thrived in a random set of environments we survived or thrived in a random set of environments but these guys became extinct hence the anthropologists claim is false yeah this is I felt that common - yeah this is a well I don't know if you ever referred to it this is like a false contrapositive or you're confusing necessary and sufficient it's fucking up the contrapositive yep if you fuck up the contrapositive you have confused sufficient for necessary or necessary for sufficient I don't really know that you need to worry about that too much the difference between those two things nope you have you have fucked up the contrapositive and that is the else that's most common flaw and I knew they were gonna do it you know when they said just the way they put that together with however there's considerable evidence that a stir pull now I can't do it astral the Pittacus a forensics did thrive in a diverse array of environments but became extinct and I'm like oh no don't do it don't do it and then sure enough they do it and say yep therefore the anthropologist claim has to be false yeah. if you go back to the original claim the anthropologists argued that human species could not have survived if they had not evolved this ability to cope with adverse natural environments in other words if they wanted to survive then they had to have this ability to cope with a variety of environments that does not mean though that if they could cope with a wide variety of environments that they would survive it's not that this ability to cope guarantees survival it's something that is required for survival yep. the fact that this AAA species this prehistoric relative was able to survive or cope in in diverse environments and yet became extinct doesn't prove that that thing was not necessary it still could have been necessary it just wasn't sufficient that's right yep to say it again just different different way yep the anthropologists claim that this thing was necessary and then the speaker goes but because it's not sufficient therefore it's not necessary yeah and that makes no sense it's just a fancy version of the else that's most common flaw and this should be a relatively easy question if you're tuned into that most common flaw yeah and one thing that can help here is that the first sentence or the first claim is in if-then form it's not that claims that are in if-then form will always lead to a this kind of flaw confusing necessary and sufficient conditions but hey it's certainly prone to do that because we have an if-then statement and the person messed it up well I mean they just do it on every single test. yes you know this happens very frequently it's the first thing I think about when I see a conditional statement yeah it's just like okay don't don't fuck it up now which is how you do it every single time I mean actually I'm like okay I can't wait for you to fuck it up. that you can give me a free point that's what this would be sure lo and behold the question says their reasoning in the argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument whenever you see the phrase most vulnerable to criticism you know that you're looking at a flaw question which means you're going to be given five answer choices that describe the flaw and the correct answer has to be an answer choice that describes exactly what's happening in the argument and is a problem in the argument and we've already predicted the problem here this confusing necessary and sufficient conditions. we would expect that to be something in the correct answer and once again if we would have read the question stem first here it would have done absolutely no good for us because we spotted that flaw anyway and then they asked us about the flaw and that's easy and there was no value here to reading the question stem first if anything it would have just been more confusing that way sure hey does the argument confuse a conditions being required for a given result to occur in one case with the conditions being sufficient for such a result to occur in a similar case that sounds pretty good now that was he talking about yeah our case and then we're talking about a similar case in other words are prehistoric relatives. I would keep that open yeah I would be 99% but that's the answer sure absolutely B takes for granted that which just means necessarily assumes that if one species had a characteristic that happened to enable to it to survive certain condition at least one related extinct species must have had that same characteristic it doesn't assume that it had that characteristic a said that they did have that characteristic that they were able to cope in diverse natural environments. this is not describing what's happening and I would say it's out well it's just not trying to reach the conclusion that okay. this other extinct species must have had some same characteristic yeah it's like all the right words but the meaning of B is just not even close yeah okay C generalizes okay I'm already nervous because if you're gonna generalize from the fact that one species blah blah blah if you're generalizing from a fact that means your conclusion is a generalization and the here is that the anthropologist claim is false that's not a generalization that's a specific claim about the anthropologist claim. I'm inclined not to read the rest of this I don't think I would on the actual test the rest of it's wrong anywhere generalizes from the fact that one species with a certain characteristic survives certain conditions that all related species with the same characteristic must have survived exactly the same conditions no they never drew that conclusion this is wrong that would be a ridiculous thing to do yeah that would be a flaw but not the flaw here. it's not the fall here yeah good excellent D fails to consider the possibility that a a had one or more characteristics that lessened its chances of surviving prehistoric times okay it did fail to consider this possibility yeah it's not something that really matters because we're not talking about your chances of survival we're just saying they didn't survive and whether or not this thing was sufficient to guarantee their survival right yeah why it didn't survive it's just not the point the point is it had this one characteristic that the speaker said or the that the anthropologist said was necessary when the speaker says because they had this characteristic but they didn't survive therefore it's not sufficient and that's just misunderstanding the idea that mr. understanding the difference between necessary and sufficient whatever DS talking about is not that. it's not D yeah e fails to consider the possibility that even if a condition caused a result to occur in one case it was not necessary to cause the result to occur in a similar case even if a condition caused a result to occur in one case that's wrong at that point we don't know if any condition caused a result to occur all we know is that one condition is necessary but whether it causes is a totally different issue and we don't know that whether this case in our humans or in the pre our prehistoric ancestors. this is out I mean I guess they did fail to consider causation sure that's true for almost all answer choices that start with to consider the possibility right it's almost always the case that the argument did fail to consider the possibility the question just becomes is that a problem should they have considered it and in this case it doesn't matter whether they consider this or not because it's irrelevant to the conclusion good ok anything else to add to that note the difference between takes for granted that and fails to consider people sometimes think that those mean the same thing but they don't been said yeah takes for granted means necessarily assumes. it's part of their argument that must be true in order for their argument to make sense that's what takes for granted means fails to consider is just didn't talk about this yep didn't talk about it didn't think about it and that's usually the case but then the question becomes okay well should it right they have thought about it either one can be the answer yeah but in order for it takes for granted to be the right answer they have to have necessarily assumed this thing and you know like without justification or yeah necessarily assuming something that they should not necessarily assume in order for a fails to consider to be the answer it's something that they didn't talk about that would be a big problem if it were true. the big difference is would this be a problem if it were true or would be would it be a problem if it were false yeah right yeah it's like fails to consider the possibility answer choices are basically weakened or exactly it's not sort of like turns the question into a weakened or if that's the correct answer it's like well they didn't talk about this and if it's true it's a big problem yep with takes for granted it's yeah they necessarily assumed this and if this is false it's a problem yeah and. you can get rid of thanks for granted answer choices if they never even assumed it you're like even though they didn't assume this. this is not a bad assumption it doesn't matter it didn't happen yeah you could just say this is not a necessary assumption of the argument like this can be false without ruining the argument they did not necessarily assume this same for answer choices to start with presumes without providing justification the exact same thing that's also takes for granted yeah yeah yep cool all right. the answer is a cool that easy I mean I you know the the big s take away from all that is boy you could have made that a much much easier question if you would have just spotted that it was a sufficient and necessary flaw yeah it's on every test it's on every test multiple times you have to get tuned into that it's like free points yep and if you didn't spot it then now you're down there in the answer choices like trying to compare them all to one another and it's just like really really doing the test the hard way 100% I agree okay cool move on yeah you want to take this one yes says hey Ben and Nathan I posted in the Facebook group and received some feedback from numerous people wondering how to tackle the y-x law school essays I know it's not the most important factor but I believe it can show that you genuinely want the school and could potentially bump you if you're an on the fence applicant I attached my UC Irvine interest essay with the prompt below if this makes it on the podcast feel free to rip my essay to shreds and help a girl out you can also use my name if not give some tips on what to do thanks. here it is this is for UC Irvine and it says the prompt is we know that you have many options when applying to law school tell us why you are interested in the School of Law at the University of California Irvine what do you believe we have to offer you what will you bring to the School of Law how would your experiences and perspectives enhance and enrich the quality and breadth of our law school community please write a minimum of 350 words and a maximum of 500 words it says PS I'm a pretty tough crowd when it comes to humor and you guys make me genuinely laugh my ass off thanks for making this whole process fun and stimulating sure by the way I hate this prompt I do too I was gonna complain about it as well what do you hate about I hate that there are. many questions yeah I want to know from me you want to know why I want to go to your school or do you want to know why you should want me or like these are two totally different questions I mean it's in some ways they could overlap but well the first question what do you believe we have to offer you that's like okay clearly they want you to write about Irvine UC Irvine law specifically and why you're picking that school yeah. you're gonna have to come up with some reasons and you know to be honest you're gonna probably go on their website and pull up some shit about their school that's exactly what it is and. it kind of feels like a little like a bit of a a game like have you looked at us that much more than our ranking but really all law schools are very similar. does it matter that much but let's break it down why are they asking this question I think I know mmm to see if you're serious and therefore protect their yield yes this seems to be obvious yield protection they want to know if you're just applying to every school and you're gonna deny them they don't want to get shot down by you sure they don't wanna see feelings hurt yeah no they want to protect their yield and yield is you know how many of the people they admit how many people actually go to their school. they wanted to see if you're willing to jump through this one extra hoop because look at how specific it is to 350 words to 500 words mm-hmm and they want you to mention Irvine yeah. many people are not going to read that instruction many people aren't gonna care about it enough to actually follow those instructions yeah and. if you if they're on the fence about you they're gonna just deny you because well you you didn't you didn't do our you didn't do our special essay it's an easy way for them to try to filter out people who they think aren't gonna say yes to them yeah I kind of have a feeling it might have something to do with scholarship negotiations as well okay like if you tipped your hand here and said I have a baby and my mom lives in Orange County and I you see is my only choice yeah I think that might help your case for admissions and it would probably also hurt your case for scholarships mmm because they you start looking like you can't go anywhere else Yeah right that's if you're a borderline scholarship candidate to begin with yeah that make sense. that's that first question what do you believe we have to offer you but then Ben and I both got pissed when it said what will you bring to the School of Law it's like whoa wait a minute you did you read my personal statement yeah is that what are you wanting another personal statement like I'm gonna bring something different to a vine that I'm gonna bring to that's a stupid fucking question it's like well at Irvine I'm gonna make sure to bring my sunscreen because it's super nice whether in the OC I don't get it yeah I'm gonna make sure to bring my rich white entitled racism since the orange have you been to Orange County much Ben no it's a weird place well where did that what what oh the OSI is its it's weirdly conservative it's okay like Irvine specifically is is like sort of like very police heavy like it's it's like very it's very very clean put it that way okay well it's like it's uh yeah it's just like got a reputation for being like super white and conservative okay anyway I'm complaining about this dumb question they're they're they're going from I thought it was supposed to be about them now it's about me again yep and then this third question how would your experiences and perspectives enhance and enrich the quality and breadth of our law of our law school community that now sounds like they want a diversity statement or another personal statement yeah what else do you have to say about yourself this is just a writing tip and I see it in the personal statements that we're reviewing but people have trouble sometimes choosing like one of two words and it's rarely the case that that we need the completeness of having both words. how would your experiences and perspectives enhance and enrich like really not just enhance yeah just enrich but enhance and enrich as if as if one of those words adds meaning to this sentence that now I'm going to say more than I would have had just said enhance enrich the quality and breadth of our law school community okay just choose one of those words enhance quality or breath it doesn't really matter and I see this in law school statements people are like what was the one I just saw yesterday someone that we were working with a camera what they said but it was kind of like quality and breath and it's like you you just choose one dude to go with it this is hilarious they did it three times in one sentence how would your experiences and perspectives enhance and enrich the quality and breadth of our law school community it's like I mean what the question really is is how would your shit help our shit yep you know like what they're asking is it's an and it's like well you just asked what will you bring to the School of Law yeah what they want they want to know what they're getting what are we getting here I don't know make our community better done yeah yeah they go into this lawyer speak you know it's it's like the no tampering with disabling or something else the smoke detector in the lavatory on the plane it's like you could have just said don't fuck with the smoke detector yeah don't break it you didn't need to say no tampering with disabling or whatever I'd like come on it's just lawyers I wasn't disabling I was just tampering or I was tampering not diseased man that's okay you know I'm Lessing while we're on it the sentence before said what do you believe we have to offer you oh actually that's well anyways in it when you say you believe or whatever that's always implied what do we have to offer you well when you start saying what you think they have to offer you you're telling them what you think are you believe yeah right. whenever people say that in their personal statement it's almost always a cut yep that's right I agree I would like to contrast this prompt with the prompt that Dave sent us the other day yes. Dave another long one right but he thought he was looking at a y-x law school prompt that's true but I don't think he was I think he was just looking at a normal personal statement prompt. I agree there's times where if they're asking you to submit one essay if they're asking you for a personal statement and they happen to mention their own name in that prompt. Dave's won it was it was like well why are you interested in it was suffolk huh it was like tell us why you're applying to Suffolk law basically mm-hmm but that was part of their personal statement prompt yeah and Ben and I agreed that we didn't think that they actually cared that you mentioned Suffolk law it's just that they happen to like accidentally mentioned themselves mm-hmm does that make sense you you you did you felt that same way right yeah yeah yeah no exactly okay but this is different because this is a special essay with its own word count mm-hmm saying not only tell us why you're interested in the School of Law at the University of california-irvine that by itself doesn't do anything but the next sentence what do you believe we have to offer you at that point now you really do have to write about Irvine yeah do you think this is an optional essay yes sir oh it's optional I'm pretty sure yeah I mean these are normally optional I mean one thing is if your scores are high enough you and you're applying to a lot of schools and you don't really care about our vine then just skip this stuff no I wouldn't I if you're going to go through with the application if you're gonna pay the $45 l sac fee I mean either don't apply to the school or go ahead and do it I would say but I mean you could do it if you're like really a lawyer you could do this in two minutes right you go on their website you find some bullshit about some stupid program like whatever their marketing department is talking about on the website yeah right bobblehead collections the bobblehead collection would be actually perfect here you imagine like if you started talking about the like whimsy aspect of the school the whimsical nature they would love that they went there to get up yeah they would love that shit okay are we ready for this yeah we're ready okay first thing first this looks long Oh how many words is this no I'm gonna do the word count right now yeah this is gonna be the very first test here what has it been I got four hundred and eighty nine okay I might prefer something shorter it's a head it's a 350 to 500 although then again this person is answering one two three four questions taking it very seriously yeah okay well I mean they they knew that they were sending it into the show and we were gonna rip the shit out of it. oh we didn't get the name here. anyway whoever this person is it's a she she because that girl girl okay I knew I would start my career on the west coast from an early age oh no I hate it I hate it stop talking about your youth [Laughter] Irvine is on the west coast but there are dozens of schools on the west coast. that by itself doesn't really do much and yeah because you were a child oh my god okay cut that all right here we go being a Floridian the first time I saw a 200-foot Sequoia tree I fell in love with California and everything the West had to offer high taxes droughts that's why I was just thinking of things I loved about my home state I have to push back I mean I sequoia trees I don't think there's an e sequoias in Orange County I'm sorry that's a Northern California thing no that's well you know Sequoia National Park is kind of like south of Yosemite and people do go camping in Sequoia from here but I think it's a solid four hour drive from Irvine okay. I don't if you say Sequoia is I think the people in the office in Irvine are gonna be like um what yeah I'm thinking of redwoods I guess up north but anyway sorry yeah yeah Sequoia is a it's a brand of ro it is a redwood yeah there we go yeah that's why I'm confused okay got it being a Floridian the first time I saw a 200-foot Sequoia tree I fell in love with California and everything the West had to offer coastal beaches mountains forests snow and everything in between. why are you going to law school why not become a forest ranger yeah but besides location as my law school search narrowed eyes owned in on the University of California Irvine for the leading edge educational approaches and the rates of upward mobility inspiring students to succeed no matter their backgrounds while simultaneously giving back to the community that's not bad that's just some like probably bullshit boilerplate that you pulled off their website or something I'm sure they said that yeah and and anyway they're gonna they like to think that whether or not it's true they love they love to think leading-edge educational approaches and rates of upward mode and inspiring our students to succeed no matter their backgrounds while simultaneously giving back to the community that they'd like to hear that about themselves that's sure what would be I think more impressive though is if you could take their sort of vacuous BS and talk specifically about something that they're doing that's accomplishing these things mmm yeah just regurgitating marketing mumbo jumbo from their website because this is just like is are they what what do they mean when they say leading-edge do they mean cutting-edge educational approach to our leading edge is not a thing and. did you get this from their website and if you drilled into their website what what educational approaches are they actually taking are they actually leading-edge I suspect many of them are not but if there is one in there that is talk about that or when they talk about rates of upward mobility or is there a particular group that they felt like they've been successful with and are they actually successful with them compared to other law schools in their tier now that tiers are such a thing like I would really want to know are they successful in these things that they claim to be successful and talk about one that actually impresses you you're one you'll have more to say about it because you're impressed by it you know this next thing is actually a fact about the school. that's good the young age of the law school piqued my interest and as a racer misspelled I know yeah yeah peaked had spelled here P EA ke D it's not correct it's not like you're going to the peak I mean it makes sense that you would be at the peak of your interest but that's not the word the word is peaked piq you EDD it's also this is a symptom of like do you really speak that way yeah if you don't have written this if you don't speak that way then don't write that way because you'll end up making mistakes like that and as I researched the inaugural class I felt inspired and excited inspired and excited to join a school that began rooted in pro bono work and committed to public interest okay. there's facts about I mean whatever alleged facts about the school but what I'm sorry what is the young age of the law school have to do with its roots in pro bono work yeah public interest like you could just say hey the fact that you began with this kind of work is Right inspiring I kind of liked it that she was spitting out a fact about Irvine like that she knows that it's a new law school yeah but then again like the fact that it's a new law school is that why is that a selling point and it doesn't really have anything to do with the thing that she goes on to next with the program stuff all right as I read more alumni profiles I felt the graduates uh the word graduate apostrophe s as I read more alumni profiles I felt the Graduate apostrophe s genuine appreciation for their education and fondness of their time spent at UCI law okay I feel like this is look I did research let me show you that I did research yeah as opposed to actually doing research and figuring out something like so-and-so said this and that touched me because I have a family member who did this and was successful or something it's very vague they just have appreciation for their education yep and fondness for their time we're great we're the greatest administration since the first one what sets UCI apart for me is the characteristics publicly portrayed that not every Law School advertises or even claims to have civility mutual respect and overall basic kindness whoa wait those are all vague yeah but I mean if they're making a big deal about that on their website if they're like you know UCI is trying to brand itself as the like kinder gentler Law School or something yeah then okay I could see how you could say that I mean that sounds sounds like it must come from the website they must be advertising it yeah it's inspiring to see a law school with such a respected reputation and leading legal education to be connecting to real people with genuine characteristics it really feels like she's just trying to fill space here yeah it's like keep it short man you got to cut this way down like if it's 350 to 500 it just just get it up get it over 350 but but you got to cut out a lot of this just like filler or I mean dig into the substance like what why is she saying this is did she see an example of this I mean I realized that they're not making the best argument for themselves because they're just talking in market speak and they're using general proclamations of their greatness but if there really is greatness behind the proclamations then go find one or two examples that illustrate that and talk about that and how that hit you it will be easy to talk about too because you'll actually feel quote inspired and excited to talk about that agreed yeah there's no proper nouns in this first I mean there's no like you didn't name a professor you didn't name an alum you didn't talk about any particular pro bono program it's all just like these kind of platitudes and vagaries yeah you talk about a tree though you saw it true that's true we did get a Sequoia in there that's right which unfortunately is hours and hours away as a first-generation college student I am dedicated and no perseverance wait dude you skipped a sentence which has the same problem wait what the last end of the bow I believe UCI law can offer me a legal education that is not only intellectually challenging but genuinely enjoyable that's she's answering the what can we give you what do you believe it's like no shit that's what I'm trying to get a JD what do you think I'm trying to do and I think it'll be fun trying to get an education and I wouldn't do it if I thought I was gonna hate it. that's why I'm here yeah okay all right that's vague again um as a first-generation college student I am dedicated and no perseverance hmm. the list is broken it's not parallel I am dedicated and no perseverance yeah mmm I'm not even sure what that means you know perseverance like you know of it I've heard of it yeah my friends got a whole lot saying you know something is like if you say you like I know I know I know hunger if you say that that's like you've been hungry before yeah. I know perseverance it's like you've been perseverant before I guess but it's just and don't say that don't stop either way this is just a claim right there's no evidence here yeah I believe these traits are essential skills I can bring to UCLA UCI law along with feel intellectual curiosity that has motivated me to continue higher education okay. she's clearly like she's really following the directions here yeah which on the one hand I want to give her credit for but she just needs to tighten it way up and use more specifics and not all this just vague bullshit well the other thing is you have to realize that when people ask you questions they're not really asking you these questions directly they're idiots they don't realize that what they're really asking you to do is give them examples that show what they're asking you to say because they're saying please tell us why you believe you know you're great or whatever but that's not really what they're asking for they're asking you to give examples that show why you think you're great you give I'm saying is like the prompt is almost inviting her to tell instead of show right right right not yes and I think what they really want to hear about in this essay is about themselves not about you I don't I don't think they really meant you to be writing another personal statement yeah I think they wanted to know about Irvine and maybe why you're specifically a fit for Irvine but like if you're just gonna go with your generic traits of intellectual curiosity that has nothing to do with Irvine that's true like the only reason these questions are together even though they seem very different is that they want to see what you know about the school and therefore what you know you can contribute to the community because you're familiar with the community and. unlike your personal statement which could be sent to any school you have to think about something that would contribute to this school given the fact that they have the community that they have yeah and I might I might actually in if I were this particular applicant I might talk about I mean just one idea would be I'm from Florida I'm gonna bring a diverse perspective to Orange County my god I'm from a different place I'm from the entire different part of the country entire different side of the country that would be a way of a way of answering their question in you know like genuinely yeah not that that's like a Wow holy shit you're from Florida but like you're at least recognizing that like I am coming across country to come to your law school I was thinking that the the school apparently prides itself on being kind or nice yeah choose one thing and then talk about how you would add to that characteristic of their community and absolutely yeah yep that would be great I believe my experience stop saying I believe even though it said in the prompt I believe it asked do you believe she is she kidding with this next sentence I don't know I don't know hold on I was looking back at the prompt for just a second yeah okay hold on I believe my experiences and perspectives can enhance the law school community by embracing the rooted characteristics of the school I thought she might be joking with this end it's cuz she's like basically quoting them verbatim she'd should she forgot to include the word enriched I believe my experiences and perspectives can enhance and enrich yeah she's you know she's a good like you can tell that she's like a um like a diligent earnest serious applicant she is following the directions yeah and you know they're gonna give you some bonus for that although it the result is a just unreadable mush of an essay that doesn't have a point mm-hmm specifically the pre-law outreach program P o P coma helping students from disadvantaged backgrounds prepare for law school , demonstrated the type of culture I want to be a part of I don't know why that's in the past tense demonstrates or illustrates the type of culture that I want to be a part of why does it illustrates that what do they do also you don't need to do pop P o P no you don't and you can just say we're gonna use it again you could just say I plan to take advantage of the pre-law outreach program yes that would show what you're gonna do and how that ties in to what you value okay coming from a disadvantaged background myself I know the advantages of peer mentoring and networking just cut that sentence entirely the ability to give that to another student inspires me as my admiration for UCI law grows let's lay it on a little thick haha I love you I love your law school and I will promote you to everyone I meet I have this feeling inside of me it's it's growing the spark okay I didn't know what it was at first. now it's just just it's grown into something more moreover I hold in high regard you see eyes interdisciplinary approach in their curriculum recognizing and adapting to a changing world where law interacts and is dependent upon a variety of disciplines who whole thing is. vague in just generalizations it's vague that sentence is way too long you're like you notice it one tip is you should read your stuff out loud and when you notice that you're like running out of breath at the end of a sentence that means the sentence is too long yeah or if you get tripped up in your own sentence that's a problem you know that this but the sentence is just broken because the subject of the sentence is supposed to be I right mm-hmm moreover I hold in high regard you see is interdisciplinary approach in their curriculum , recognizing and adapting to a changing way hold on who's losing the action yeah who's recognizing and who's adapting you or the curriculum or the people who create the curriculum and then it goes in a changing world where law interacts and is independent upon a variety of disciplines. now law we've got another subject popping up here. first of all the school is being described as having an interdisciplinary approach and then the school is recognizing and adapting to a changing world where law interacts and is dependent upon now law is a subject law interacts is dependent upon a variety of discipline what the fuck is that sentence by the way clear writing and clear thinking are deeply connected. if you're having trouble articulating what you want to say it's very possible that you don't know exactly what you want to say you have some vague notion of what you think is going on but if you're struggling to write that it might be the case that you just need to think about what you're actually trying to say yeah there's a concept I mean she's she's trying to answer all of their stupid questions in their stupid prompt and I think she should focus on the first question why a vine yeah and I think she should answer that in one sentence and then flush it out and connect herself to that but by if you have a sincere response as to why you want or why you're impressed by them that will inevitably or should connect to you in some way shape or form because if that is what is attracting you to them there's something about it that relates to you I am particularly attracted to UC Irvine because of the pre-law outreach program period yep I intend not only to benefit from this program before I start law school but to give back to the UC Irvine community by participating as a peer mentor in my later years of school or whatever yeah I was most impressed by. and. who did XYZ as that's what happened to me or that's similar to my background or something I come from blah blah blah and I know that our vines the environment of civility mutual respect and overall basic kindness will blah blah blah all those sentences by the way are starting with the word I yeah and not I believe just I am I want I plan I will that would be much better yeah even that thing you quoted civility mutual respect and overall basic kindness this is again their problem with having trouble choosing a word just choose one word yeah right like one civility or respect or kindness what's the fucking difference yeah yeah yep I agree with my environmental science degree , I hope to bring to UCL UCI law a unique perspective of an environmental scientist and use my degree specific knowledge to launch myself and my peers deeper into our work in the Environmental Law Clinic learning different litigation and policy matters oh by the way this is a random side note but she references UCI law a lot you don't have to say their school name over and over again you can also just say your school or the law school to vary it up yeah she could definitely mix it up I mean you don't want to put it in there more than once probably for this type of essay just because it's like it is a school specific thing and they want to they want to know that you're actually talking about them but I mean you are all. when it says she later it says UC Irvine I like this. much more than UCI law yeah me too anyways um this again i okay i don't like starting that sentence with with mm-hmm that's a very that's like bad writing almost always when people start a sentence with with sure because people do it this way with my this then they say the actual subject mm-hmm it's like just start with the subject of the sentence she says the word unique which people just really have their privileges revoked on that yeah and then I hope to bring to UCI law a unique perspective of an environmental scientist if anything it feels like it should be the unique perspective but I hmm it just needs to be shorter it needs to be tighter you got to get you got to get more declarative and you gotta you gotta have shorter sentences like you don't need to say all this it's more down do you have a unique perspective just say as an environmental scientist I'm excited I look forward to working in the environmental automatic right period and this like comma learning different litigation and policy matters what what is that what is that even about what what are you doing are you just putting in words the variety of issues in the clinic students were able to engage in comma enforcing the Clean Water Act comma assisting coastal communities for climate change comma and protecting desert lands against development and exploitation comma all helped solidify UC Irvine as my top law school choice you want an essay pick one of those things and write about it and then pick another one and write about it there's a ton of stuff in here oh the first like to Thursday's essay are all vague mumbo-jumbo here we actually have some details what about these things did you actually like talk about those that would say why you like the school and they would tell us about you and how you fit into that school I feel like this essay finally started it's just ending yeah like the Environmental Law Clinic we're learning about that right now and we're learning about that she's an environmental scientist I hate this sentence I hate that the subject of this sentence is the variety of issues yeah the variety of issues helped solidify UC Irvine as my top law school choice yeah pick one really is it the variety of issues that they're doing that that's what really helps boy I'm. but that variety yeah I was really doing it for me no it's not it's one thing if there's a thing there that you that you're passionate about or that you're experienced in if accepted I will happily join UCI law immediately and to begin my education with a school I believe fits my character skillset and intellectual curiosity best cut yeah and and also like why are you promising that you're gonna just say yes right away please don't give me scholarship money I'm ready right that's that's like you tell your crush that you would just I would marry you right on the spot like oh if you gave me a chant if you if you just would give me a date I'll do anything for you it's like mmm mmm not interested anymore yeah I think okay. take aways from all of this thank you very much for sending this in girl without a name we we really appreciate it it needs to be tightened up it needs a thesis I mean it's like go back to your like junior high days of writing and when they like made you have a like thesis sentence cuz this is all over the place and it just doesn't like it doesn't I don't know what do you think Ben I agree I'm just stepping back and thinking about this and thinking about all the statements that we keep reading on the show off the show and it surprises me how much people do have to say there are things from their life that would be interesting concrete and worthy of discussion and they somehow miss it all and they just stick to the general vague and uninformative it's like you're an environmental scientist well Wow like okay you can talk about how you're attracted to the overall basic kindness of the school but that seems like something that would be true for a lot of people um not necessarily maybe some people are interested in a cut-through at school but you're talking about the clean water act what do you know about that I just feel like people have. much to say that would be interesting but they don't know that that's interesting I mean if she's an environmental scientist she must have spent four years studying this there's got to be interesting stuff to talk about here what what have you done in this. lead with that and tie it to their Environmental Law Clinic if you want to sell it that way yeah lead with your first generation status and talk about their pre-law outreach program if you want to do it that way yeah exactly like how much could you say about that either waters generation yeah either one of those leave the when you're a little kid you love California leave that out of it anybody could say that and all these vague statements it's inspiring to see a law school with such a respected reputation and a legal leading legal education to be connecting real people with genuine characteristics what okay is that under percent what is what is that like what happened in who and why right it's not about you it's not interesting yep it's big yep that's all okay all right thanks very much for sending that in and letting us roast it yeah thank you it wasn't hilariously bad no I mean it was bad it was way too long and it was way too vague and it needed to have a focus and you need to basically start over I would say pick either the Environmental Law Clinic or the pre-law outreach program and just focused the whole thing on that mm-hmm and you'll be much better off should we leave it there I think we should yeah all right that was show number 161 thanks all y'all for listening nice knowing you don't fit for Law School

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Episode 161: Bad LSAT Score? How to Move On.

hello and welcome to episode 161 of the thinking LSAT podcast in Vienna Virginia this is Ben Olsen with me as Nathan Fox in Los Angeles how's it going nation awesome man I'm excited for another excellent episode what are we talking about today we're gonna be talking about some I guess another we have another email about a disappointing LSAT score from the September LSAT and how to move forward from that we have some more dumb emails from law schools some snail mail to apparently we're going to go over a flaw question from the June 2007 LSAT. that's a logical reasoning question and we're parently gonna roast a white law school essay yeah we are Wow okay good you all can always email us at help at thinking LSAT calm we will not see those emails but Sarah will and she can help you out or annalisa will as well if you have not joined the facebook group the facebook group now has nine hundred and thirty nine members there's a lot of chatter over there people asking all sorts of questions all the time. it's a great resource I which I never shut up I'm gonna have to filter those emails out of my inbox I get. many notifications now from the thinking LSAT podcast we've already put you wait you get facebook emails I might add stupid for that I used to get those and I was like stop this ridiculousness like I'm just go into the app yeah I mean well basically I just don't go into the app very often but I enjoy I mean in fact the only thing I ever do on Facebook now is the thinking else that podcast group because you know there are like buddies in there and they're laughing about our stupid jokes. it's fun to check in and see what they're talking about we're getting a lot of the content from the show now for the show from the Facebook group. that that actually is really good. I like those notifications for that purpose but yeah it does seem a little bit oppressive when it's like every single comment that every person makes and you get email notifications for Nathan if you want to blow up Nathan's inbox continue posting posting of anything else that podcast group yeah and make sure to tag him yeah you can always tweet us at thinking Elsa you can tweet Nathan and Fox and Mia Olson Benjamin we both provide Elsa classes and tutoring and online courses I am at strategy prep comm Nathan is at Fox Elsa calm I'm in DC Nathan is in LA and San Francisco we also have a joint project it's the Elsa demon you can go to LSAT demon comm basically it's a tool to practice LSAT questions on the go and get our explanations both of our explanations are in there and the demon tracks your progress and tries to figure out what questions it should give you based on how well you're doing. the difficulty can go up and down as you work through those questions speaking of joint projects we also have a class coming up in Chicago October 20th and 21st by the time you listen to this it's probably almost close of registration for that wouldn't you say Ben yeah it is getting close that's gonna be exciting and then you said some cool places that we were gonna go for eating and I already forgot them but I'm excited to go and I will just depend on you to tell me where to go when we arrive yeah all and I'll announce that via the Facebook group and an email out everybody sometime before we go. that everybody knows where we're gonna meet up for beers on Friday night yeah and that's where is that again the class the class is at DePaul University Lincoln Park campus it's a cool part of town on the north side up by Wrigleyville the Cubs are in a one-game wildcard playoff. the Cubs may or may not be in the playoffs I'm hoping that the Cubs are gonna still be sticking around in the playoffs because it'll be super fun to be in that part of the world while the Cubs are in the playoffs yeah that's cool yeah if you are familiar with your pre-law Society or connected to it in any way please have them connect with us the email is odd cast at thinking LSAT calm again that's podcast at thinking LSAT calm it's also for like newsletter like if you have a pre-law newsletter or sometimes like maybe your political science department has a newsletter that goes out that's popular or maybe you just have a an advisor a pre-law advisor who you think could benefit from knowing us please email podcast at thinking LSAT calm and we will send them some goodies. that we can introduce ourselves yeah we've received a lot of reviews on iTunes we have three hundred and forty four ratings and ninety six reviews we appreciate it very much if you liked the show just head over to iTunes hit five stars tell people why you like the show the last five reviews are all good too we got like five good ones in a row. it's been one yeah we need one of those you know those like workplace it's 210 days since the last like decapitation or whatever signs that they have you know yeah yeah sure wow that would Wow that would be disturbing okay we've got like we've got like two months since our last bad review on iTunes. I'll try to say something super offensive today we'll get that back to zero all right yeah thank you I appreciate that yeah how many days yeah that's what we have two new staff that we should have on here. right now it's two weeks I think it's more like two months yes now we're like baiting people to go in there okay you can also listen to the podcast on YouTube if that's your thing right now there are 385 subscribers on YouTube unfortunately you will not see either of us on YouTube you will just see a nice thinking LSAT logo which is a kid in red glasses by the way that image is just a random stock photography image that we found at the very beginning of the show when we had no idea that people would actually subscribe to us. hope you like that image but I hope you liked our theme music which is also a random stock sound clip that we bought for like $10 I got I picked it because I thought it sounded like dr. dre and I'm a fan. that's there you go okay cool we have 191 followers on Instagram that is just our handle is that what they say that our Instagram username is thinking LSAT and ELISA posts cool things there she's becoming more active on that I noticed the other day and it's really neat. thank you Anna Lisa you can also find me on instagram at innovator Ben or Nathan at Fox LSAT we have 36 patrons donated on patreon one hundred and forty three dollars every month that's very helpful thank you. much that covers 14% of our monthly costs we have now hit oh I this is a new stat I like this 1 million 28,000 630 downloads. by the way does this count all downloads across all platforms are just iTunes I think it's all downloads across all platforms hmm and then we have to do the multiplier how many f-bombs per show say four f-bombs per show yeah and we need to divide that by host I think. it's uh it's yeah good because that means you get half of them and I that decreases my actual number. I would say four I wasn't saying automatically I was saying like divide out the data right. oh you want to know anything f-bombs and bent f-bombs that would be good it's gonna be something like 3 to 4 million Nathan f-bombs and more like let's see you've probably said it four times total well no way I think it is more than that and you'll see if we had a graph it would be this like plateau of zero forever for no huge spike in yeah it's a form of cheap therapy you know to deal with life changes all right. then if you're into LinkedIn there is a LinkedIn thinking else that podcast group it has 70 members and it's moderated by Ezra who is the infamous author of the man with kind eyes. if you'd like to chat it up with Ezra go to the Facebook group or LinkedIn and check it out beautiful yeah all right man we didn't I didn't know I don't know what's going on in your life we just jumped into those stats but I'm sure I'll find out as we talk about these things for example I just learned that you get email notifications from Facebook yeah I I don't know man what's going on with me I I just I have a very busy month of travel coming up I'm flying to New Orleans tomorrow to go to my friend Nicky and Danielle's wedding in New Orleans on Thursday. there's gonna be a lot of boozing that's gonna happen on the next three or four days of my life okay I well then I've got the next three weekends after that our San Francisco Chicago San Francisco for me. I've got four weekends in a row of flying around all over the place other than that I am super super into dungeons dragons like super into it like check this out my mom and my niece came and visited me I think I mentioned that on the last show yeah and on Friday night we were looking for something to do just kind of bumming around after dinner and I started a little Dungeons & Dragons game with my mom and my niece as the players and I was like master and my niece went apeshit she lost her mind about how awesome Dungeons & Dragons is and then we ended up playing a little bit more on Saturday and a little bit more on Sunday Wow wait how old is your niece again she's like 11 11 yeah okay when you talk about Dungeons & Dragons I think about my friend who ran a shop when we were in high school that sold those kind of cards there's cars right or something yeah you might be thinking a magic oh shoot okay nevermind that's okay yeah he's magic it says it's it's all nerd shit it's fine it's all I've never played magic but DNG is the just greatest game of all time it's. if you like dee dee is like an old game it is but it's it's also like very popular people it's having a resurgence or even popular all along I defy you to find someone who plays who has played D&D and doesn't like it it's just like everybody that I I was at the bar this like super cool like hipster bar here in Los Feliz the other day with my friend and we were geeking out sitting at the bar talking about Dungeons & Dragons and the super cool hipster like looks like punk-rock bartender is like hey you guys talking about Dungeons and Dragons yeah I write for a Dungeons & Dragons newsletter it's like immediately like giving us a free shot because of how we were talking about Dungeons & Dragons at the bar yeah okay cool man yeah what's up with you Oh life is good I was just playing some basketball whoa and by myself I didn't know you were a baller I don't know that I am I just have a hoop in my driveway. and I have a basketball. sometimes I go out there and shoot hoops were you practicing your sweet post moves well okay apparently I'm not a baller because I'm not sure what you mean by that don't worry about it don't worry about it come on tell me I got to learn at least one new word post post move if you're practicing your post moves you would be like sort of standing a few feet away from the basket maybe with your back to the basket and practicing like a little little Negron step little turn around a little crab job yeah all the little they have kids do the little drills you know. that you can practice like okay from this block I'm gonna make this move and from this block well you need to have all the moves if you're gonna be a true true baller but yeah you can I could show you a couple maybe maybe if we find a man that'd be sweet if we found a basketball hoop in Chicago yeah okay the little pickup game with the class that would be interesting that'd be hilarious do that yeah. I was just practicing shooting and then I was trying to do that before I came to the podcast you know uh-huh and you can't end on a missed shot correct. then I kept trying to shoot fast and of course I kept missing and I'm like this is kind of like the LSAT I guess I'm just rushing here yeah I slowed down and I after like 30 misses. you're shooting resources or 3-pointers or what I just kind of read them all over the place I am I'm not that bad of a shot really I'd say I make half of them and I'm shooting from pretty far away but um yeah it was really bad at the end because I wanted to come inside but I couldn't come in after missing that's why you have to quit early that's why you have to that's why you have to end on a good one right yeah you make make one or make a couple in a row and then just be like yep and then walk off I'm done yeah well uh do you want read this first snail mail it looks like well okay. I wanted to talk about there I put a bullet point about how to move forward from a disappointing September 2018 LSAT there's no email for this one it's just an agenda item that I wanted to talk about yeah how many phone calls and emails are you getting right now with people asking you what they should do Oh a good number yeah yeah like. many everybody this time of year I mean we have some people who are celebrating like yeah I killed the damn rails at my school or came back and I'm ready to go to school now it's okay good good for you yep but we also are hearing like oh shit I fucked up what do I do. I'm sure we've talked about this a million times but I just want to make sure we cover it again right now because it's timely but yeah the September test was a released LSAT yeah if you took the test you got your test back when they sent you your score you probably didn't even look at it that's what most people do they look at the score and that's it yeah. what should they do they should dig in and figure out where they got questions wrong and why they think they got them wrong yeah it's it's like people want to like reach out and go where do I go from here and I'm like well tell me what you were struggling with on that test why did you miss points on that test and it's funny how often they will have like oh I don't know at all yeah or they'll have just a broad like well I missed six on reading comprehension and I missed a total of twelve on logical reasoning and I missed an entire game yep and then it's like okay good a step in the right direction but why did you miss those points what specifically like let's talk about okay logical reasoning what questions did you miss when when you looked back at them when you reviewed them is it do you remember what you were thinking or like can you get it right now or like is there a certain question type you're missing a lot of or what's going on why did you miss that question and I just it's super consistent I get there's something in human nature that people just don't want to do that review and that is the clear and really only first step if you if you're trying to figure out how to move forward from a September crash yeah what happened did you miss the points and throughout the section or did you miss them all at the end those sort of things can tell you a little bit about how you took the test officially a lot of times when you're talking about crash you're talking about someone who scored lower or even sometimes a lot lower on the official test then their practice test scores led them to believe they would score. I can understand why they're panicking but it's it's it's just another test. you just need to go in and do some investigation and figure out what it was about test day that led you astray and like you said if you redo these questions because else AK does give you the whole test and you don't find them that challenging now then most likely you just rushed or did you even miss Bob well I mean I had someone who was scoring between 158 and 162 and she got a 142 which is. off that it's like hold on you you can't just say you can't do the test or there is something like maybe you miss bubbled do you have any idea and like you're saying she had not looked at it at all it just they just look at the score and that's it yeah. I wanted to make a pitch here for private tutoring actually if you're struggling to figure out why you had such a September LSAT that is a perfect opportunity you know maybe you need a little bit of motivation maybe you can't bear to face it on your own one tutoring session to go over that one test it has the potential to be transformative there's no guarantee but it's possible that if you sit down with Ben and look at that test I mean it's almost guaranteed that you sit down and look at that test and Ben is gonna tell you something that you're gonna be you know change your thinking about the test yeah and likewise if you work with me or likewise if you work with one of our tutors. consider doing that if you want a book with me it's Fox LSAT you can book me and you'll be able to put yourself right on to my calendar I do have openings for one-on-one tutoring. if you'd like to you know get crackin right now on your November retake or on your January retake or whatever it is let's sit down and do that and Ben if they want to reach out to you about tutoring how do they do that just a strategy prep calm and follow the stuff for tutoring yeah I mean especially if your practice test scores were higher and you did them timed you just need to figure out how to think about the test or your approach as you're taking the test officially fix it and bam you can take the next test you don't have to do as much as people think they do I think sometimes right yeah I you hear a lot of like well I I just think November's too soon. I'm gonna put it off till January yeah and I'm like wait I thought you were ready to take the test in September if you were ready to take the test in September I understand it didn't work out for you but if you were ready if your practice test scores were indicating that you're ready then you should also be ready to take it in November I mean yeah chip away at it a little bit every day like we're always talking about okay anyway I want to move on yep okay cool. what is this who is this this is amazing and we can post these in the newsletter because this first one Meghan already posted it on the Facebook group I assume if she can post it on the Facebook group we could post it out into the newsletter yeah or on thinking else that calm but this they sent her I oh I guess that's not snail mail I guess that's just an email it looks like oh really I thought this was snail mail. this is like a pamphlet or something this email okay well because that business card really confused me anyway what we're looking at here there's two images yeah and even is this the first one is a it's from Falkner law which apparently is in Montgomery Alabama and it has makin her first and last name and then it says attorney at law and then it says her last name and law office calm and it's a business card it was a fake business card yeah I don't know they that's it that's a stock photography they didn't actually send that to her that's it that's just a like a randomly generated oh no no I don't think that the the business card was sent to her I just think this this may be been was printed oh and then she photographed it yeah I'm see I'm seeing the top of the page there I think either way it's just such a stupid little gimmick come to Faulkner law and you could have a business card that looks like this people on the Facebook group we're busting on it including the fact that it doesn't say Esquire which probably any attorney would have on their business card yeah then the second thing is far more confusing yeah it's is that her holding it. now I think that that might be a photograph of her holding this thing yeah which they sent her a pamphlet or a flyer which looks like a door to an office home again but then it has the Faulkner law logo on it. then that ruins the illusion that it's a door like an office door that doesn't look like an office door if it says Faulkner law school of law on it and then the slogan at the bottom with open your door of opportunity work lever open your door of opportunity exclamation point oh shit and they gave her a custom URL Wow babe they really boy they went the marketing department at fucking our laws just going for it how much does all this cost well what do you think they're charging. much tuition for yeah I mean that's what you're getting for your money because you're certainly not getting like actual you know services you're it's I don't know boy just feels like a big Ponzi scheme huh big some weird big pyramid yeah I mean they figure if they can get one more student they've paid for all this marketing effort yeah absolutely yeah one person who's like dumb enough to be like can you imagine being dumb enough to be like holy shit I could have a business card and an office door like that with my name on it I'm gonna go to Falkner law just there they're gonna give me what I want I want to be a lawyer yeah I'm gonna be a big fancy lawyer with a business card and it and door and everything okay. that's one thing that they were laughing about on the Facebook group then the other thing is this next one from Andrew posted it on the Facebook group which is a entering class profile for Florida State University College of the law yeah and I just thought some of these stats were were pretty funny yeah they were specifically they were laughing about eight hundred ninety seven years of combined total years of work experience in the incoming class total I don't never understand that like when people say oh come work with our team we have a combined combined experience of over 50 years it's like what is okay like all there's 50 people here and they've all been working on this project for a year you know that's not super helpful how long the individuals have experienced anyways sorry now there's also what has to be an error on here it says first generation law 15% yeah that's crazy what 85% of your class are second generation law students eighty-five percent of the class is yeah coming from their mom and dad are lawyers there's no way yeah. what does that mean they're first generation like in this country our first generation graduate you know like getting a graduate degree or something I don't know I thought that it could be that 15% of them are first-generation undergrads yes yeah that's one thing that it could mean but there's no way in hell it's first generation because if it's if it's what we were saying the first instance which I think everybody would normally read it as oh wow. 85% of the class has family that are lawyers or parents right but there's no way that that's possibly the case that would be read a very depressing notion that would be yeah okay anyway there's some just random shit that law law schools think they want to send you yeah 31% have traveled abroad I know already saw that too I was laughing about that who's like 31% went to spring break in Cabo alright yeah though I don't I don't get it yeah I don't get it okay moving on yeah let's move on oh we got a LSAT question hell yeah all right let's do this oh I guess I'll read this I love how it's got some words I know I know I won't be able to pronounce where is this from this is from the June 2007 LSAT you can find that by just googling June 2007 that will pop up as a free PDF from El sack then we're in section 3 and we're looking at question 25 this is a logical reasoning question if you want if you're not driving stop and go do this question and then follow on yep okay. here's what it says some anthropologists argue that the human species could not have survived prehistoric times if the species had not evolved the ability to cope with diverse natural environments okay. all right now I'm thinking to myself this is what some anthropologists argue in other words that's what some other people think and I think that we wouldn't have made it if we didn't have this ability to cope with diverse natural environments which to me just means a variety of different kinds of weather or something like that hot cold dangerous not dangerous I wish I wish I could this is a good test for people I think like do you know what's coming next do you have an idea what's coming next because I feel something coming I feel something coming too I mean by starting out with this sentence some anthropologists argue yada yada it's possible that this person could say and they're right and here's why but in most cases they're gonna probably say I think they're wrong and here's why I think they're wrong yeah and I think smart asses will point out that the very next word is however. it's like well yeah there's the butt right there Nathan like who you know what's your point but my point is that you should if you're tuned in you should feel that coming it's a good test of whether you're you're doing this correctly because because you should you should have a pretty good idea that that's what's gonna happen next yeah okay cool. the next sentence however there is considerable evidence that I'm not even going to pronounce it. let's go Australopithecus Australopithecus perfect I see yeah I'm not is this is where I struggle and then the next word is something that starts with a. I'm just gonna say a a afarensis oh that's great dude a a there's considerable evidence that a a comma a prehistoric species related to early humans hmm okay. this this new species that we were introduced to is a prehistoric species that were related to early humans also thrived in a diverse array of environments but became extinct okay. they's they thrived in a random set of environments we survived or thrived in a random set of environments but these guys became extinct hence the anthropologists claim is false yeah this is I felt that common - yeah this is a well I don't know if you ever referred to it this is like a false contrapositive or you're confusing necessary and sufficient it's fucking up the contrapositive yep if you fuck up the contrapositive you have confused sufficient for necessary or necessary for sufficient I don't really know that you need to worry about that too much the difference between those two things nope you have you have fucked up the contrapositive and that is the else that's most common flaw and I knew they were gonna do it you know when they said just the way they put that together with however there's considerable evidence that a stir pull now I can't do it astral the Pittacus a forensics did thrive in a diverse array of environments but became extinct and I'm like oh no don't do it don't do it and then sure enough they do it and say yep therefore the anthropologist claim has to be false yeah. if you go back to the original claim the anthropologists argued that human species could not have survived if they had not evolved this ability to cope with adverse natural environments in other words if they wanted to survive then they had to have this ability to cope with a variety of environments that does not mean though that if they could cope with a wide variety of environments that they would survive it's not that this ability to cope guarantees survival it's something that is required for survival yep. the fact that this AAA species this prehistoric relative was able to survive or cope in in diverse environments and yet became extinct doesn't prove that that thing was not necessary it still could have been necessary it just wasn't sufficient that's right yep to say it again just different different way yep the anthropologists claim that this thing was necessary and then the speaker goes but because it's not sufficient therefore it's not necessary yeah and that makes no sense it's just a fancy version of the else that's most common flaw and this should be a relatively easy question if you're tuned into that most common flaw yeah and one thing that can help here is that the first sentence or the first claim is in if-then form it's not that claims that are in if-then form will always lead to a this kind of flaw confusing necessary and sufficient conditions but hey it's certainly prone to do that because we have an if-then statement and the person messed it up well I mean they just do it on every single test. yes you know this happens very frequently it's the first thing I think about when I see a conditional statement yeah it's just like okay don't don't fuck it up now which is how you do it every single time I mean actually I'm like okay I can't wait for you to fuck it up. that you can give me a free point that's what this would be sure lo and behold the question says their reasoning in the argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument whenever you see the phrase most vulnerable to criticism you know that you're looking at a flaw question which means you're going to be given five answer choices that describe the flaw and the correct answer has to be an answer choice that describes exactly what's happening in the argument and is a problem in the argument and we've already predicted the problem here this confusing necessary and sufficient conditions. we would expect that to be something in the correct answer and once again if we would have read the question stem first here it would have done absolutely no good for us because we spotted that flaw anyway and then they asked us about the flaw and that's easy and there was no value here to reading the question stem first if anything it would have just been more confusing that way sure hey does the argument confuse a conditions being required for a given result to occur in one case with the conditions being sufficient for such a result to occur in a similar case that sounds pretty good now that was he talking about yeah our case and then we're talking about a similar case in other words are prehistoric relatives. I would keep that open yeah I would be 99% but that's the answer sure absolutely B takes for granted that which just means necessarily assumes that if one species had a characteristic that happened to enable to it to survive certain condition at least one related extinct species must have had that same characteristic it doesn't assume that it had that characteristic a said that they did have that characteristic that they were able to cope in diverse natural environments. this is not describing what's happening and I would say it's out well it's just not trying to reach the conclusion that okay. this other extinct species must have had some same characteristic yeah it's like all the right words but the meaning of B is just not even close yeah okay C generalizes okay I'm already nervous because if you're gonna generalize from the fact that one species blah blah blah if you're generalizing from a fact that means your conclusion is a generalization and the here is that the anthropologist claim is false that's not a generalization that's a specific claim about the anthropologist claim. I'm inclined not to read the rest of this I don't think I would on the actual test the rest of it's wrong anywhere generalizes from the fact that one species with a certain characteristic survives certain conditions that all related species with the same characteristic must have survived exactly the same conditions no they never drew that conclusion this is wrong that would be a ridiculous thing to do yeah that would be a flaw but not the flaw here. it's not the fall here yeah good excellent D fails to consider the possibility that a a had one or more characteristics that lessened its chances of surviving prehistoric times okay it did fail to consider this possibility yeah it's not something that really matters because we're not talking about your chances of survival we're just saying they didn't survive and whether or not this thing was sufficient to guarantee their survival right yeah why it didn't survive it's just not the point the point is it had this one characteristic that the speaker said or the that the anthropologist said was necessary when the speaker says because they had this characteristic but they didn't survive therefore it's not sufficient and that's just misunderstanding the idea that mr. understanding the difference between necessary and sufficient whatever DS talking about is not that. it's not D yeah e fails to consider the possibility that even if a condition caused a result to occur in one case it was not necessary to cause the result to occur in a similar case even if a condition caused a result to occur in one case that's wrong at that point we don't know if any condition caused a result to occur all we know is that one condition is necessary but whether it causes is a totally different issue and we don't know that whether this case in our humans or in the pre our prehistoric ancestors. this is out I mean I guess they did fail to consider causation sure that's true for almost all answer choices that start with to consider the possibility right it's almost always the case that the argument did fail to consider the possibility the question just becomes is that a problem should they have considered it and in this case it doesn't matter whether they consider this or not because it's irrelevant to the conclusion good ok anything else to add to that note the difference between takes for granted that and fails to consider people sometimes think that those mean the same thing but they don't been said yeah takes for granted means necessarily assumes. it's part of their argument that must be true in order for their argument to make sense that's what takes for granted means fails to consider is just didn't talk about this yep didn't talk about it didn't think about it and that's usually the case but then the question becomes okay well should it right they have thought about it either one can be the answer yeah but in order for it takes for granted to be the right answer they have to have necessarily assumed this thing and you know like without justification or yeah necessarily assuming something that they should not necessarily assume in order for a fails to consider to be the answer it's something that they didn't talk about that would be a big problem if it were true. the big difference is would this be a problem if it were true or would be would it be a problem if it were false yeah right yeah it's like fails to consider the possibility answer choices are basically weakened or exactly it's not sort of like turns the question into a weakened or if that's the correct answer it's like well they didn't talk about this and if it's true it's a big problem yep with takes for granted it's yeah they necessarily assumed this and if this is false it's a problem yeah and. you can get rid of thanks for granted answer choices if they never even assumed it you're like even though they didn't assume this. this is not a bad assumption it doesn't matter it didn't happen yeah you could just say this is not a necessary assumption of the argument like this can be false without ruining the argument they did not necessarily assume this same for answer choices to start with presumes without providing justification the exact same thing that's also takes for granted yeah yeah yep cool all right. the answer is a cool that easy I mean I you know the the big s take away from all that is boy you could have made that a much much easier question if you would have just spotted that it was a sufficient and necessary flaw yeah it's on every test it's on every test multiple times you have to get tuned into that it's like free points yep and if you didn't spot it then now you're down there in the answer choices like trying to compare them all to one another and it's just like really really doing the test the hard way 100% I agree okay cool move on yeah you want to take this one yes says hey Ben and Nathan I posted in the Facebook group and received some feedback from numerous people wondering how to tackle the y-x law school essays I know it's not the most important factor but I believe it can show that you genuinely want the school and could potentially bump you if you're an on the fence applicant I attached my UC Irvine interest essay with the prompt below if this makes it on the podcast feel free to rip my essay to shreds and help a girl out you can also use my name if not give some tips on what to do thanks. here it is this is for UC Irvine and it says the prompt is we know that you have many options when applying to law school tell us why you are interested in the School of Law at the University of California Irvine what do you believe we have to offer you what will you bring to the School of Law how would your experiences and perspectives enhance and enrich the quality and breadth of our law school community please write a minimum of 350 words and a maximum of 500 words it says PS I'm a pretty tough crowd when it comes to humor and you guys make me genuinely laugh my ass off thanks for making this whole process fun and stimulating sure by the way I hate this prompt I do too I was gonna complain about it as well what do you hate about I hate that there are. many questions yeah I want to know from me you want to know why I want to go to your school or do you want to know why you should want me or like these are two totally different questions I mean it's in some ways they could overlap but well the first question what do you believe we have to offer you that's like okay clearly they want you to write about Irvine UC Irvine law specifically and why you're picking that school yeah. you're gonna have to come up with some reasons and you know to be honest you're gonna probably go on their website and pull up some shit about their school that's exactly what it is and. it kind of feels like a little like a bit of a a game like have you looked at us that much more than our ranking but really all law schools are very similar. does it matter that much but let's break it down why are they asking this question I think I know mmm to see if you're serious and therefore protect their yield yes this seems to be obvious yield protection they want to know if you're just applying to every school and you're gonna deny them they don't want to get shot down by you sure they don't wanna see feelings hurt yeah no they want to protect their yield and yield is you know how many of the people they admit how many people actually go to their school. they wanted to see if you're willing to jump through this one extra hoop because look at how specific it is to 350 words to 500 words mm-hmm and they want you to mention Irvine yeah. many people are not going to read that instruction many people aren't gonna care about it enough to actually follow those instructions yeah and. if you if they're on the fence about you they're gonna just deny you because well you you didn't you didn't do our you didn't do our special essay it's an easy way for them to try to filter out people who they think aren't gonna say yes to them yeah I kind of have a feeling it might have something to do with scholarship negotiations as well okay like if you tipped your hand here and said I have a baby and my mom lives in Orange County and I you see is my only choice yeah I think that might help your case for admissions and it would probably also hurt your case for scholarships mmm because they you start looking like you can't go anywhere else Yeah right that's if you're a borderline scholarship candidate to begin with yeah that make sense. that's that first question what do you believe we have to offer you but then Ben and I both got pissed when it said what will you bring to the School of Law it's like whoa wait a minute you did you read my personal statement yeah is that what are you wanting another personal statement like I'm gonna bring something different to a vine that I'm gonna bring to that's a stupid fucking question it's like well at Irvine I'm gonna make sure to bring my sunscreen because it's super nice whether in the OC I don't get it yeah I'm gonna make sure to bring my rich white entitled racism since the orange have you been to Orange County much Ben no it's a weird place well where did that what what oh the OSI is its it's weirdly conservative it's okay like Irvine specifically is is like sort of like very police heavy like it's it's like very it's very very clean put it that way okay well it's like it's uh yeah it's just like got a reputation for being like super white and conservative okay anyway I'm complaining about this dumb question they're they're they're going from I thought it was supposed to be about them now it's about me again yep and then this third question how would your experiences and perspectives enhance and enrich the quality and breadth of our law of our law school community that now sounds like they want a diversity statement or another personal statement yeah what else do you have to say about yourself this is just a writing tip and I see it in the personal statements that we're reviewing but people have trouble sometimes choosing like one of two words and it's rarely the case that that we need the completeness of having both words. how would your experiences and perspectives enhance and enrich like really not just enhance yeah just enrich but enhance and enrich as if as if one of those words adds meaning to this sentence that now I'm going to say more than I would have had just said enhance enrich the quality and breadth of our law school community okay just choose one of those words enhance quality or breath it doesn't really matter and I see this in law school statements people are like what was the one I just saw yesterday someone that we were working with a camera what they said but it was kind of like quality and breath and it's like you you just choose one dude to go with it this is hilarious they did it three times in one sentence how would your experiences and perspectives enhance and enrich the quality and breadth of our law school community it's like I mean what the question really is is how would your shit help our shit yep you know like what they're asking is it's an and it's like well you just asked what will you bring to the School of Law yeah what they want they want to know what they're getting what are we getting here I don't know make our community better done yeah yeah they go into this lawyer speak you know it's it's like the no tampering with disabling or something else the smoke detector in the lavatory on the plane it's like you could have just said don't fuck with the smoke detector yeah don't break it you didn't need to say no tampering with disabling or whatever I'd like come on it's just lawyers I wasn't disabling I was just tampering or I was tampering not diseased man that's okay you know I'm Lessing while we're on it the sentence before said what do you believe we have to offer you oh actually that's well anyways in it when you say you believe or whatever that's always implied what do we have to offer you well when you start saying what you think they have to offer you you're telling them what you think are you believe yeah right. whenever people say that in their personal statement it's almost always a cut yep that's right I agree I would like to contrast this prompt with the prompt that Dave sent us the other day yes. Dave another long one right but he thought he was looking at a y-x law school prompt that's true but I don't think he was I think he was just looking at a normal personal statement prompt. I agree there's times where if they're asking you to submit one essay if they're asking you for a personal statement and they happen to mention their own name in that prompt. Dave's won it was it was like well why are you interested in it was suffolk huh it was like tell us why you're applying to Suffolk law basically mm-hmm but that was part of their personal statement prompt yeah and Ben and I agreed that we didn't think that they actually cared that you mentioned Suffolk law it's just that they happen to like accidentally mentioned themselves mm-hmm does that make sense you you you did you felt that same way right yeah yeah yeah no exactly okay but this is different because this is a special essay with its own word count mm-hmm saying not only tell us why you're interested in the School of Law at the University of california-irvine that by itself doesn't do anything but the next sentence what do you believe we have to offer you at that point now you really do have to write about Irvine yeah do you think this is an optional essay yes sir oh it's optional I'm pretty sure yeah I mean these are normally optional I mean one thing is if your scores are high enough you and you're applying to a lot of schools and you don't really care about our vine then just skip this stuff no I wouldn't I if you're going to go through with the application if you're gonna pay the $45 l sac fee I mean either don't apply to the school or go ahead and do it I would say but I mean you could do it if you're like really a lawyer you could do this in two minutes right you go on their website you find some bullshit about some stupid program like whatever their marketing department is talking about on the website yeah right bobblehead collections the bobblehead collection would be actually perfect here you imagine like if you started talking about the like whimsy aspect of the school the whimsical nature they would love that they went there to get up yeah they would love that shit okay are we ready for this yeah we're ready okay first thing first this looks long Oh how many words is this no I'm gonna do the word count right now yeah this is gonna be the very first test here what has it been I got four hundred and eighty nine okay I might prefer something shorter it's a head it's a 350 to 500 although then again this person is answering one two three four questions taking it very seriously yeah okay well I mean they they knew that they were sending it into the show and we were gonna rip the shit out of it. oh we didn't get the name here. anyway whoever this person is it's a she she because that girl girl okay I knew I would start my career on the west coast from an early age oh no I hate it I hate it stop talking about your youth [Laughter] Irvine is on the west coast but there are dozens of schools on the west coast. that by itself doesn't really do much and yeah because you were a child oh my god okay cut that all right here we go being a Floridian the first time I saw a 200-foot Sequoia tree I fell in love with California and everything the West had to offer high taxes droughts that's why I was just thinking of things I loved about my home state I have to push back I mean I sequoia trees I don't think there's an e sequoias in Orange County I'm sorry that's a Northern California thing no that's well you know Sequoia National Park is kind of like south of Yosemite and people do go camping in Sequoia from here but I think it's a solid four hour drive from Irvine okay. I don't if you say Sequoia is I think the people in the office in Irvine are gonna be like um what yeah I'm thinking of redwoods I guess up north but anyway sorry yeah yeah Sequoia is a it's a brand of ro it is a redwood yeah there we go yeah that's why I'm confused okay got it being a Floridian the first time I saw a 200-foot Sequoia tree I fell in love with California and everything the West had to offer coastal beaches mountains forests snow and everything in between. why are you going to law school why not become a forest ranger yeah but besides location as my law school search narrowed eyes owned in on the University of California Irvine for the leading edge educational approaches and the rates of upward mobility inspiring students to succeed no matter their backgrounds while simultaneously giving back to the community that's not bad that's just some like probably bullshit boilerplate that you pulled off their website or something I'm sure they said that yeah and and anyway they're gonna they like to think that whether or not it's true they love they love to think leading-edge educational approaches and rates of upward mode and inspiring our students to succeed no matter their backgrounds while simultaneously giving back to the community that they'd like to hear that about themselves that's sure what would be I think more impressive though is if you could take their sort of vacuous BS and talk specifically about something that they're doing that's accomplishing these things mmm yeah just regurgitating marketing mumbo jumbo from their website because this is just like is are they what what do they mean when they say leading-edge do they mean cutting-edge educational approach to our leading edge is not a thing and. did you get this from their website and if you drilled into their website what what educational approaches are they actually taking are they actually leading-edge I suspect many of them are not but if there is one in there that is talk about that or when they talk about rates of upward mobility or is there a particular group that they felt like they've been successful with and are they actually successful with them compared to other law schools in their tier now that tiers are such a thing like I would really want to know are they successful in these things that they claim to be successful and talk about one that actually impresses you you're one you'll have more to say about it because you're impressed by it you know this next thing is actually a fact about the school. that's good the young age of the law school piqued my interest and as a racer misspelled I know yeah yeah peaked had spelled here P EA ke D it's not correct it's not like you're going to the peak I mean it makes sense that you would be at the peak of your interest but that's not the word the word is peaked piq you EDD it's also this is a symptom of like do you really speak that way yeah if you don't have written this if you don't speak that way then don't write that way because you'll end up making mistakes like that and as I researched the inaugural class I felt inspired and excited inspired and excited to join a school that began rooted in pro bono work and committed to public interest okay. there's facts about I mean whatever alleged facts about the school but what I'm sorry what is the young age of the law school have to do with its roots in pro bono work yeah public interest like you could just say hey the fact that you began with this kind of work is Right inspiring I kind of liked it that she was spitting out a fact about Irvine like that she knows that it's a new law school yeah but then again like the fact that it's a new law school is that why is that a selling point and it doesn't really have anything to do with the thing that she goes on to next with the program stuff all right as I read more alumni profiles I felt the graduates uh the word graduate apostrophe s as I read more alumni profiles I felt the Graduate apostrophe s genuine appreciation for their education and fondness of their time spent at UCI law okay I feel like this is look I did research let me show you that I did research yeah as opposed to actually doing research and figuring out something like so-and-so said this and that touched me because I have a family member who did this and was successful or something it's very vague they just have appreciation for their education yep and fondness for their time we're great we're the greatest administration since the first one what sets UCI apart for me is the characteristics publicly portrayed that not every Law School advertises or even claims to have civility mutual respect and overall basic kindness whoa wait those are all vague yeah but I mean if they're making a big deal about that on their website if they're like you know UCI is trying to brand itself as the like kinder gentler Law School or something yeah then okay I could see how you could say that I mean that sounds sounds like it must come from the website they must be advertising it yeah it's inspiring to see a law school with such a respected reputation and leading legal education to be connecting to real people with genuine characteristics it really feels like she's just trying to fill space here yeah it's like keep it short man you got to cut this way down like if it's 350 to 500 it just just get it up get it over 350 but but you got to cut out a lot of this just like filler or I mean dig into the substance like what why is she saying this is did she see an example of this I mean I realized that they're not making the best argument for themselves because they're just talking in market speak and they're using general proclamations of their greatness but if there really is greatness behind the proclamations then go find one or two examples that illustrate that and talk about that and how that hit you it will be easy to talk about too because you'll actually feel quote inspired and excited to talk about that agreed yeah there's no proper nouns in this first I mean there's no like you didn't name a professor you didn't name an alum you didn't talk about any particular pro bono program it's all just like these kind of platitudes and vagaries yeah you talk about a tree though you saw it true that's true we did get a Sequoia in there that's right which unfortunately is hours and hours away as a first-generation college student I am dedicated and no perseverance wait dude you skipped a sentence which has the same problem wait what the last end of the bow I believe UCI law can offer me a legal education that is not only intellectually challenging but genuinely enjoyable that's she's answering the what can we give you what do you believe it's like no shit that's what I'm trying to get a JD what do you think I'm trying to do and I think it'll be fun trying to get an education and I wouldn't do it if I thought I was gonna hate it. that's why I'm here yeah okay all right that's vague again um as a first-generation college student I am dedicated and no perseverance hmm. the list is broken it's not parallel I am dedicated and no perseverance yeah mmm I'm not even sure what that means you know perseverance like you know of it I've heard of it yeah my friends got a whole lot saying you know something is like if you say you like I know I know I know hunger if you say that that's like you've been hungry before yeah. I know perseverance it's like you've been perseverant before I guess but it's just and don't say that don't stop either way this is just a claim right there's no evidence here yeah I believe these traits are essential skills I can bring to UCLA UCI law along with feel intellectual curiosity that has motivated me to continue higher education okay. she's clearly like she's really following the directions here yeah which on the one hand I want to give her credit for but she just needs to tighten it way up and use more specifics and not all this just vague bullshit well the other thing is you have to realize that when people ask you questions they're not really asking you these questions directly they're idiots they don't realize that what they're really asking you to do is give them examples that show what they're asking you to say because they're saying please tell us why you believe you know you're great or whatever but that's not really what they're asking for they're asking you to give examples that show why you think you're great you give I'm saying is like the prompt is almost inviting her to tell instead of show right right right not yes and I think what they really want to hear about in this essay is about themselves not about you I don't I don't think they really meant you to be writing another personal statement yeah I think they wanted to know about Irvine and maybe why you're specifically a fit for Irvine but like if you're just gonna go with your generic traits of intellectual curiosity that has nothing to do with Irvine that's true like the only reason these questions are together even though they seem very different is that they want to see what you know about the school and therefore what you know you can contribute to the community because you're familiar with the community and. unlike your personal statement which could be sent to any school you have to think about something that would contribute to this school given the fact that they have the community that they have yeah and I might I might actually in if I were this particular applicant I might talk about I mean just one idea would be I'm from Florida I'm gonna bring a diverse perspective to Orange County my god I'm from a different place I'm from the entire different part of the country entire different side of the country that would be a way of a way of answering their question in you know like genuinely yeah not that that's like a Wow holy shit you're from Florida but like you're at least recognizing that like I am coming across country to come to your law school I was thinking that the the school apparently prides itself on being kind or nice yeah choose one thing and then talk about how you would add to that characteristic of their community and absolutely yeah yep that would be great I believe my experience stop saying I believe even though it said in the prompt I believe it asked do you believe she is she kidding with this next sentence I don't know I don't know hold on I was looking back at the prompt for just a second yeah okay hold on I believe my experiences and perspectives can enhance the law school community by embracing the rooted characteristics of the school I thought she might be joking with this end it's cuz she's like basically quoting them verbatim she'd should she forgot to include the word enriched I believe my experiences and perspectives can enhance and enrich yeah she's you know she's a good like you can tell that she's like a um like a diligent earnest serious applicant she is following the directions yeah and you know they're gonna give you some bonus for that although it the result is a just unreadable mush of an essay that doesn't have a point mm-hmm specifically the pre-law outreach program P o P coma helping students from disadvantaged backgrounds prepare for law school , demonstrated the type of culture I want to be a part of I don't know why that's in the past tense demonstrates or illustrates the type of culture that I want to be a part of why does it illustrates that what do they do also you don't need to do pop P o P no you don't and you can just say we're gonna use it again you could just say I plan to take advantage of the pre-law outreach program yes that would show what you're gonna do and how that ties in to what you value okay coming from a disadvantaged background myself I know the advantages of peer mentoring and networking just cut that sentence entirely the ability to give that to another student inspires me as my admiration for UCI law grows let's lay it on a little thick haha I love you I love your law school and I will promote you to everyone I meet I have this feeling inside of me it's it's growing the spark okay I didn't know what it was at first. now it's just just it's grown into something more moreover I hold in high regard you see eyes interdisciplinary approach in their curriculum recognizing and adapting to a changing world where law interacts and is dependent upon a variety of disciplines who whole thing is. vague in just generalizations it's vague that sentence is way too long you're like you notice it one tip is you should read your stuff out loud and when you notice that you're like running out of breath at the end of a sentence that means the sentence is too long yeah or if you get tripped up in your own sentence that's a problem you know that this but the sentence is just broken because the subject of the sentence is supposed to be I right mm-hmm moreover I hold in high regard you see is interdisciplinary approach in their curriculum , recognizing and adapting to a changing way hold on who's losing the action yeah who's recognizing and who's adapting you or the curriculum or the people who create the curriculum and then it goes in a changing world where law interacts and is independent upon a variety of disciplines. now law we've got another subject popping up here. first of all the school is being described as having an interdisciplinary approach and then the school is recognizing and adapting to a changing world where law interacts and is dependent upon now law is a subject law interacts is dependent upon a variety of discipline what the fuck is that sentence by the way clear writing and clear thinking are deeply connected. if you're having trouble articulating what you want to say it's very possible that you don't know exactly what you want to say you have some vague notion of what you think is going on but if you're struggling to write that it might be the case that you just need to think about what you're actually trying to say yeah there's a concept I mean she's she's trying to answer all of their stupid questions in their stupid prompt and I think she should focus on the first question why a vine yeah and I think she should answer that in one sentence and then flush it out and connect herself to that but by if you have a sincere response as to why you want or why you're impressed by them that will inevitably or should connect to you in some way shape or form because if that is what is attracting you to them there's something about it that relates to you I am particularly attracted to UC Irvine because of the pre-law outreach program period yep I intend not only to benefit from this program before I start law school but to give back to the UC Irvine community by participating as a peer mentor in my later years of school or whatever yeah I was most impressed by. and. who did XYZ as that's what happened to me or that's similar to my background or something I come from blah blah blah and I know that our vines the environment of civility mutual respect and overall basic kindness will blah blah blah all those sentences by the way are starting with the word I yeah and not I believe just I am I want I plan I will that would be much better yeah even that thing you quoted civility mutual respect and overall basic kindness this is again their problem with having trouble choosing a word just choose one word yeah right like one civility or respect or kindness what's the fucking difference yeah yeah yep I agree with my environmental science degree , I hope to bring to UCL UCI law a unique perspective of an environmental scientist and use my degree specific knowledge to launch myself and my peers deeper into our work in the Environmental Law Clinic learning different litigation and policy matters oh by the way this is a random side note but she references UCI law a lot you don't have to say their school name over and over again you can also just say your school or the law school to vary it up yeah she could definitely mix it up I mean you don't want to put it in there more than once probably for this type of essay just because it's like it is a school specific thing and they want to they want to know that you're actually talking about them but I mean you are all. when it says she later it says UC Irvine I like this. much more than UCI law yeah me too anyways um this again i okay i don't like starting that sentence with with mm-hmm that's a very that's like bad writing almost always when people start a sentence with with sure because people do it this way with my this then they say the actual subject mm-hmm it's like just start with the subject of the sentence she says the word unique which people just really have their privileges revoked on that yeah and then I hope to bring to UCI law a unique perspective of an environmental scientist if anything it feels like it should be the unique perspective but I hmm it just needs to be shorter it needs to be tighter you got to get you got to get more declarative and you gotta you gotta have shorter sentences like you don't need to say all this it's more down do you have a unique perspective just say as an environmental scientist I'm excited I look forward to working in the environmental automatic right period and this like comma learning different litigation and policy matters what what is that what is that even about what what are you doing are you just putting in words the variety of issues in the clinic students were able to engage in comma enforcing the Clean Water Act comma assisting coastal communities for climate change comma and protecting desert lands against development and exploitation comma all helped solidify UC Irvine as my top law school choice you want an essay pick one of those things and write about it and then pick another one and write about it there's a ton of stuff in here oh the first like to Thursday's essay are all vague mumbo-jumbo here we actually have some details what about these things did you actually like talk about those that would say why you like the school and they would tell us about you and how you fit into that school I feel like this essay finally started it's just ending yeah like the Environmental Law Clinic we're learning about that right now and we're learning about that she's an environmental scientist I hate this sentence I hate that the subject of this sentence is the variety of issues yeah the variety of issues helped solidify UC Irvine as my top law school choice yeah pick one really is it the variety of issues that they're doing that that's what really helps boy I'm. but that variety yeah I was really doing it for me no it's not it's one thing if there's a thing there that you that you're passionate about or that you're experienced in if accepted I will happily join UCI law immediately and to begin my education with a school I believe fits my character skillset and intellectual curiosity best cut yeah and and also like why are you promising that you're gonna just say yes right away please don't give me scholarship money I'm ready right that's that's like you tell your crush that you would just I would marry you right on the spot like oh if you gave me a chant if you if you just would give me a date I'll do anything for you it's like mmm mmm not interested anymore yeah I think okay. take aways from all of this thank you very much for sending this in girl without a name we we really appreciate it it needs to be tightened up it needs a thesis I mean it's like go back to your like junior high days of writing and when they like made you have a like thesis sentence cuz this is all over the place and it just doesn't like it doesn't I don't know what do you think Ben I agree I'm just stepping back and thinking about this and thinking about all the statements that we keep reading on the show off the show and it surprises me how much people do have to say there are things from their life that would be interesting concrete and worthy of discussion and they somehow miss it all and they just stick to the general vague and uninformative it's like you're an environmental scientist well Wow like okay you can talk about how you're attracted to the overall basic kindness of the school but that seems like something that would be true for a lot of people um not necessarily maybe some people are interested in a cut-through at school but you're talking about the clean water act what do you know about that I just feel like people have. much to say that would be interesting but they don't know that that's interesting I mean if she's an environmental scientist she must have spent four years studying this there's got to be interesting stuff to talk about here what what have you done in this. lead with that and tie it to their Environmental Law Clinic if you want to sell it that way yeah lead with your first generation status and talk about their pre-law outreach program if you want to do it that way yeah exactly like how much could you say about that either waters generation yeah either one of those leave the when you're a little kid you love California leave that out of it anybody could say that and all these vague statements it's inspiring to see a law school with such a respected reputation and a legal leading legal education to be connecting real people with genuine characteristics what okay is that under percent what is what is that like what happened in who and why right it's not about you it's not interesting yep it's big yep that's all okay all right thanks very much for sending that in and letting us roast it yeah thank you it wasn't hilariously bad no I mean it was bad it was way too long and it was way too vague and it needed to have a focus and you need to basically start over I would say pick either the Environmental Law Clinic or the pre-law outreach program and just focused the whole thing on that mm-hmm and you'll be much better off should we leave it there I think we should yeah all right that was show number 161 thanks all y'all for listening nice knowing you don't fit for Law School

Episode 161: Bad LSAT Score? How to Move On.

hello and welcome to episode 161 of the thinking LSAT podcast in Vienna Virginia this is Ben Olsen with me as Nathan Fox in Los Angeles how's it going nation awesome man I'm excited for another excellent episode what are we talking about today we're gonna be talking about some I guess another we have another email about a disappointing LSAT score from the September LSAT and how to move forward from that we have some more dumb emails from law schools some snail mail to apparently we're going to go over a flaw question from the June 2007 LSAT. that's a logical reasoning question and we're parently gonna roast a white law school essay yeah we are Wow okay good you all can always email us at help at thinking LSAT calm we will not see those emails but Sarah will and she can help you out or annalisa will as well if you have not joined the facebook group the facebook group now has nine hundred and thirty nine members there's a lot of chatter over there people asking all sorts of questions all the time. it's a great resource I which I never shut up I'm gonna have to filter those emails out of my inbox I get. many notifications now from the thinking LSAT podcast we've already put you wait you get facebook emails I might add stupid for that I used to get those and I was like stop this ridiculousness like I'm just go into the app yeah I mean well basically I just don't go into the app very often but I enjoy I mean in fact the only thing I ever do on Facebook now is the thinking else that podcast group because you know there are like buddies in there and they're laughing about our stupid jokes. it's fun to check in and see what they're talking about we're getting a lot of the content from the show now for the show from the Facebook group. that that actually is really good. I like those notifications for that purpose but yeah it does seem a little bit oppressive when it's like every single comment that every person makes and you get email notifications for Nathan if you want to blow up Nathan's inbox continue posting posting of anything else that podcast group yeah and make sure to tag him yeah you can always tweet us at thinking Elsa you can tweet Nathan and Fox and Mia Olson Benjamin we both provide Elsa classes and tutoring and online courses I am at strategy prep comm Nathan is at Fox Elsa calm I'm in DC Nathan is in LA and San Francisco we also have a joint project it's the Elsa demon you can go to LSAT demon comm basically it's a tool to practice LSAT questions on the go and get our explanations both of our explanations are in there and the demon tracks your progress and tries to figure out what questions it should give you based on how well you're doing. the difficulty can go up and down as you work through those questions speaking of joint projects we also have a class coming up in Chicago October 20th and 21st by the time you listen to this it's probably almost close of registration for that wouldn't you say Ben yeah it is getting close that's gonna be exciting and then you said some cool places that we were gonna go for eating and I already forgot them but I'm excited to go and I will just depend on you to tell me where to go when we arrive yeah all and I'll announce that via the Facebook group and an email out everybody sometime before we go. that everybody knows where we're gonna meet up for beers on Friday night yeah and that's where is that again the class the class is at DePaul University Lincoln Park campus it's a cool part of town on the north side up by Wrigleyville the Cubs are in a one-game wildcard playoff. the Cubs may or may not be in the playoffs I'm hoping that the Cubs are gonna still be sticking around in the playoffs because it'll be super fun to be in that part of the world while the Cubs are in the playoffs yeah that's cool yeah if you are familiar with your pre-law Society or connected to it in any way please have them connect with us the email is odd cast at thinking LSAT calm again that's podcast at thinking LSAT calm it's also for like newsletter like if you have a pre-law newsletter or sometimes like maybe your political science department has a newsletter that goes out that's popular or maybe you just have a an advisor a pre-law advisor who you think could benefit from knowing us please email podcast at thinking LSAT calm and we will send them some goodies. that we can introduce ourselves yeah we've received a lot of reviews on iTunes we have three hundred and forty four ratings and ninety six reviews we appreciate it very much if you liked the show just head over to iTunes hit five stars tell people why you like the show the last five reviews are all good too we got like five good ones in a row. it's been one yeah we need one of those you know those like workplace it's 210 days since the last like decapitation or whatever signs that they have you know yeah yeah sure wow that would Wow that would be disturbing okay we've got like we've got like two months since our last bad review on iTunes. I'll try to say something super offensive today we'll get that back to zero all right yeah thank you I appreciate that yeah how many days yeah that's what we have two new staff that we should have on here. right now it's two weeks I think it's more like two months yes now we're like baiting people to go in there okay you can also listen to the podcast on YouTube if that's your thing right now there are 385 subscribers on YouTube unfortunately you will not see either of us on YouTube you will just see a nice thinking LSAT logo which is a kid in red glasses by the way that image is just a random stock photography image that we found at the very beginning of the show when we had no idea that people would actually subscribe to us. hope you like that image but I hope you liked our theme music which is also a random stock sound clip that we bought for like $10 I got I picked it because I thought it sounded like dr. dre and I'm a fan. that's there you go okay cool we have 191 followers on Instagram that is just our handle is that what they say that our Instagram username is thinking LSAT and ELISA posts cool things there she's becoming more active on that I noticed the other day and it's really neat. thank you Anna Lisa you can also find me on instagram at innovator Ben or Nathan at Fox LSAT we have 36 patrons donated on patreon one hundred and forty three dollars every month that's very helpful thank you. much that covers 14% of our monthly costs we have now hit oh I this is a new stat I like this 1 million 28,000 630 downloads. by the way does this count all downloads across all platforms are just iTunes I think it's all downloads across all platforms hmm and then we have to do the multiplier how many f-bombs per show say four f-bombs per show yeah and we need to divide that by host I think. it's uh it's yeah good because that means you get half of them and I that decreases my actual number. I would say four I wasn't saying automatically I was saying like divide out the data right. oh you want to know anything f-bombs and bent f-bombs that would be good it's gonna be something like 3 to 4 million Nathan f-bombs and more like let's see you've probably said it four times total well no way I think it is more than that and you'll see if we had a graph it would be this like plateau of zero forever for no huge spike in yeah it's a form of cheap therapy you know to deal with life changes all right. then if you're into LinkedIn there is a LinkedIn thinking else that podcast group it has 70 members and it's moderated by Ezra who is the infamous author of the man with kind eyes. if you'd like to chat it up with Ezra go to the Facebook group or LinkedIn and check it out beautiful yeah all right man we didn't I didn't know I don't know what's going on in your life we just jumped into those stats but I'm sure I'll find out as we talk about these things for example I just learned that you get email notifications from Facebook yeah I I don't know man what's going on with me I I just I have a very busy month of travel coming up I'm flying to New Orleans tomorrow to go to my friend Nicky and Danielle's wedding in New Orleans on Thursday. there's gonna be a lot of boozing that's gonna happen on the next three or four days of my life okay I well then I've got the next three weekends after that our San Francisco Chicago San Francisco for me. I've got four weekends in a row of flying around all over the place other than that I am super super into dungeons dragons like super into it like check this out my mom and my niece came and visited me I think I mentioned that on the last show yeah and on Friday night we were looking for something to do just kind of bumming around after dinner and I started a little Dungeons & Dragons game with my mom and my niece as the players and I was like master and my niece went apeshit she lost her mind about how awesome Dungeons & Dragons is and then we ended up playing a little bit more on Saturday and a little bit more on Sunday Wow wait how old is your niece again she's like 11 11 yeah okay when you talk about Dungeons & Dragons I think about my friend who ran a shop when we were in high school that sold those kind of cards there's cars right or something yeah you might be thinking a magic oh shoot okay nevermind that's okay yeah he's magic it says it's it's all nerd shit it's fine it's all I've never played magic but DNG is the just greatest game of all time it's. if you like dee dee is like an old game it is but it's it's also like very popular people it's having a resurgence or even popular all along I defy you to find someone who plays who has played D&D and doesn't like it it's just like everybody that I I was at the bar this like super cool like hipster bar here in Los Feliz the other day with my friend and we were geeking out sitting at the bar talking about Dungeons & Dragons and the super cool hipster like looks like punk-rock bartender is like hey you guys talking about Dungeons and Dragons yeah I write for a Dungeons & Dragons newsletter it's like immediately like giving us a free shot because of how we were talking about Dungeons & Dragons at the bar yeah okay cool man yeah what's up with you Oh life is good I was just playing some basketball whoa and by myself I didn't know you were a baller I don't know that I am I just have a hoop in my driveway. and I have a basketball. sometimes I go out there and shoot hoops were you practicing your sweet post moves well okay apparently I'm not a baller because I'm not sure what you mean by that don't worry about it don't worry about it come on tell me I got to learn at least one new word post post move if you're practicing your post moves you would be like sort of standing a few feet away from the basket maybe with your back to the basket and practicing like a little little Negron step little turn around a little crab job yeah all the little they have kids do the little drills you know. that you can practice like okay from this block I'm gonna make this move and from this block well you need to have all the moves if you're gonna be a true true baller but yeah you can I could show you a couple maybe maybe if we find a man that'd be sweet if we found a basketball hoop in Chicago yeah okay the little pickup game with the class that would be interesting that'd be hilarious do that yeah. I was just practicing shooting and then I was trying to do that before I came to the podcast you know uh-huh and you can't end on a missed shot correct. then I kept trying to shoot fast and of course I kept missing and I'm like this is kind of like the LSAT I guess I'm just rushing here yeah I slowed down and I after like 30 misses. you're shooting resources or 3-pointers or what I just kind of read them all over the place I am I'm not that bad of a shot really I'd say I make half of them and I'm shooting from pretty far away but um yeah it was really bad at the end because I wanted to come inside but I couldn't come in after missing that's why you have to quit early that's why you have to that's why you have to end on a good one right yeah you make make one or make a couple in a row and then just be like yep and then walk off I'm done yeah well uh do you want read this first snail mail it looks like well okay. I wanted to talk about there I put a bullet point about how to move forward from a disappointing September 2018 LSAT there's no email for this one it's just an agenda item that I wanted to talk about yeah how many phone calls and emails are you getting right now with people asking you what they should do Oh a good number yeah yeah like. many everybody this time of year I mean we have some people who are celebrating like yeah I killed the damn rails at my school or came back and I'm ready to go to school now it's okay good good for you yep but we also are hearing like oh shit I fucked up what do I do. I'm sure we've talked about this a million times but I just want to make sure we cover it again right now because it's timely but yeah the September test was a released LSAT yeah if you took the test you got your test back when they sent you your score you probably didn't even look at it that's what most people do they look at the score and that's it yeah. what should they do they should dig in and figure out where they got questions wrong and why they think they got them wrong yeah it's it's like people want to like reach out and go where do I go from here and I'm like well tell me what you were struggling with on that test why did you miss points on that test and it's funny how often they will have like oh I don't know at all yeah or they'll have just a broad like well I missed six on reading comprehension and I missed a total of twelve on logical reasoning and I missed an entire game yep and then it's like okay good a step in the right direction but why did you miss those points what specifically like let's talk about okay logical reasoning what questions did you miss when when you looked back at them when you reviewed them is it do you remember what you were thinking or like can you get it right now or like is there a certain question type you're missing a lot of or what's going on why did you miss that question and I just it's super consistent I get there's something in human nature that people just don't want to do that review and that is the clear and really only first step if you if you're trying to figure out how to move forward from a September crash yeah what happened did you miss the points and throughout the section or did you miss them all at the end those sort of things can tell you a little bit about how you took the test officially a lot of times when you're talking about crash you're talking about someone who scored lower or even sometimes a lot lower on the official test then their practice test scores led them to believe they would score. I can understand why they're panicking but it's it's it's just another test. you just need to go in and do some investigation and figure out what it was about test day that led you astray and like you said if you redo these questions because else AK does give you the whole test and you don't find them that challenging now then most likely you just rushed or did you even miss Bob well I mean I had someone who was scoring between 158 and 162 and she got a 142 which is. off that it's like hold on you you can't just say you can't do the test or there is something like maybe you miss bubbled do you have any idea and like you're saying she had not looked at it at all it just they just look at the score and that's it yeah. I wanted to make a pitch here for private tutoring actually if you're struggling to figure out why you had such a September LSAT that is a perfect opportunity you know maybe you need a little bit of motivation maybe you can't bear to face it on your own one tutoring session to go over that one test it has the potential to be transformative there's no guarantee but it's possible that if you sit down with Ben and look at that test I mean it's almost guaranteed that you sit down and look at that test and Ben is gonna tell you something that you're gonna be you know change your thinking about the test yeah and likewise if you work with me or likewise if you work with one of our tutors. consider doing that if you want a book with me it's Fox LSAT you can book me and you'll be able to put yourself right on to my calendar I do have openings for one-on-one tutoring. if you'd like to you know get crackin right now on your November retake or on your January retake or whatever it is let's sit down and do that and Ben if they want to reach out to you about tutoring how do they do that just a strategy prep calm and follow the stuff for tutoring yeah I mean especially if your practice test scores were higher and you did them timed you just need to figure out how to think about the test or your approach as you're taking the test officially fix it and bam you can take the next test you don't have to do as much as people think they do I think sometimes right yeah I you hear a lot of like well I I just think November's too soon. I'm gonna put it off till January yeah and I'm like wait I thought you were ready to take the test in September if you were ready to take the test in September I understand it didn't work out for you but if you were ready if your practice test scores were indicating that you're ready then you should also be ready to take it in November I mean yeah chip away at it a little bit every day like we're always talking about okay anyway I want to move on yep okay cool. what is this who is this this is amazing and we can post these in the newsletter because this first one Meghan already posted it on the Facebook group I assume if she can post it on the Facebook group we could post it out into the newsletter yeah or on thinking else that calm but this they sent her I oh I guess that's not snail mail I guess that's just an email it looks like oh really I thought this was snail mail. this is like a pamphlet or something this email okay well because that business card really confused me anyway what we're looking at here there's two images yeah and even is this the first one is a it's from Falkner law which apparently is in Montgomery Alabama and it has makin her first and last name and then it says attorney at law and then it says her last name and law office calm and it's a business card it was a fake business card yeah I don't know they that's it that's a stock photography they didn't actually send that to her that's it that's just a like a randomly generated oh no no I don't think that the the business card was sent to her I just think this this may be been was printed oh and then she photographed it yeah I'm see I'm seeing the top of the page there I think either way it's just such a stupid little gimmick come to Faulkner law and you could have a business card that looks like this people on the Facebook group we're busting on it including the fact that it doesn't say Esquire which probably any attorney would have on their business card yeah then the second thing is far more confusing yeah it's is that her holding it. now I think that that might be a photograph of her holding this thing yeah which they sent her a pamphlet or a flyer which looks like a door to an office home again but then it has the Faulkner law logo on it. then that ruins the illusion that it's a door like an office door that doesn't look like an office door if it says Faulkner law school of law on it and then the slogan at the bottom with open your door of opportunity work lever open your door of opportunity exclamation point oh shit and they gave her a custom URL Wow babe they really boy they went the marketing department at fucking our laws just going for it how much does all this cost well what do you think they're charging. much tuition for yeah I mean that's what you're getting for your money because you're certainly not getting like actual you know services you're it's I don't know boy just feels like a big Ponzi scheme huh big some weird big pyramid yeah I mean they figure if they can get one more student they've paid for all this marketing effort yeah absolutely yeah one person who's like dumb enough to be like can you imagine being dumb enough to be like holy shit I could have a business card and an office door like that with my name on it I'm gonna go to Falkner law just there they're gonna give me what I want I want to be a lawyer yeah I'm gonna be a big fancy lawyer with a business card and it and door and everything okay. that's one thing that they were laughing about on the Facebook group then the other thing is this next one from Andrew posted it on the Facebook group which is a entering class profile for Florida State University College of the law yeah and I just thought some of these stats were were pretty funny yeah they were specifically they were laughing about eight hundred ninety seven years of combined total years of work experience in the incoming class total I don't never understand that like when people say oh come work with our team we have a combined combined experience of over 50 years it's like what is okay like all there's 50 people here and they've all been working on this project for a year you know that's not super helpful how long the individuals have experienced anyways sorry now there's also what has to be an error on here it says first generation law 15% yeah that's crazy what 85% of your class are second generation law students eighty-five percent of the class is yeah coming from their mom and dad are lawyers there's no way yeah. what does that mean they're first generation like in this country our first generation graduate you know like getting a graduate degree or something I don't know I thought that it could be that 15% of them are first-generation undergrads yes yeah that's one thing that it could mean but there's no way in hell it's first generation because if it's if it's what we were saying the first instance which I think everybody would normally read it as oh wow. 85% of the class has family that are lawyers or parents right but there's no way that that's possibly the case that would be read a very depressing notion that would be yeah okay anyway there's some just random shit that law law schools think they want to send you yeah 31% have traveled abroad I know already saw that too I was laughing about that who's like 31% went to spring break in Cabo alright yeah though I don't I don't get it yeah I don't get it okay moving on yeah let's move on oh we got a LSAT question hell yeah all right let's do this oh I guess I'll read this I love how it's got some words I know I know I won't be able to pronounce where is this from this is from the June 2007 LSAT you can find that by just googling June 2007 that will pop up as a free PDF from El sack then we're in section 3 and we're looking at question 25 this is a logical reasoning question if you want if you're not driving stop and go do this question and then follow on yep okay. here's what it says some anthropologists argue that the human species could not have survived prehistoric times if the species had not evolved the ability to cope with diverse natural environments okay. all right now I'm thinking to myself this is what some anthropologists argue in other words that's what some other people think and I think that we wouldn't have made it if we didn't have this ability to cope with diverse natural environments which to me just means a variety of different kinds of weather or something like that hot cold dangerous not dangerous I wish I wish I could this is a good test for people I think like do you know what's coming next do you have an idea what's coming next because I feel something coming I feel something coming too I mean by starting out with this sentence some anthropologists argue yada yada it's possible that this person could say and they're right and here's why but in most cases they're gonna probably say I think they're wrong and here's why I think they're wrong yeah and I think smart asses will point out that the very next word is however. it's like well yeah there's the butt right there Nathan like who you know what's your point but my point is that you should if you're tuned in you should feel that coming it's a good test of whether you're you're doing this correctly because because you should you should have a pretty good idea that that's what's gonna happen next yeah okay cool. the next sentence however there is considerable evidence that I'm not even going to pronounce it. let's go Australopithecus Australopithecus perfect I see yeah I'm not is this is where I struggle and then the next word is something that starts with a. I'm just gonna say a a afarensis oh that's great dude a a there's considerable evidence that a a comma a prehistoric species related to early humans hmm okay. this this new species that we were introduced to is a prehistoric species that were related to early humans also thrived in a diverse array of environments but became extinct okay. they's they thrived in a random set of environments we survived or thrived in a random set of environments but these guys became extinct hence the anthropologists claim is false yeah this is I felt that common - yeah this is a well I don't know if you ever referred to it this is like a false contrapositive or you're confusing necessary and sufficient it's fucking up the contrapositive yep if you fuck up the contrapositive you have confused sufficient for necessary or necessary for sufficient I don't really know that you need to worry about that too much the difference between those two things nope you have you have fucked up the contrapositive and that is the else that's most common flaw and I knew they were gonna do it you know when they said just the way they put that together with however there's considerable evidence that a stir pull now I can't do it astral the Pittacus a forensics did thrive in a diverse array of environments but became extinct and I'm like oh no don't do it don't do it and then sure enough they do it and say yep therefore the anthropologist claim has to be false yeah. if you go back to the original claim the anthropologists argued that human species could not have survived if they had not evolved this ability to cope with adverse natural environments in other words if they wanted to survive then they had to have this ability to cope with a variety of environments that does not mean though that if they could cope with a wide variety of environments that they would survive it's not that this ability to cope guarantees survival it's something that is required for survival yep. the fact that this AAA species this prehistoric relative was able to survive or cope in in diverse environments and yet became extinct doesn't prove that that thing was not necessary it still could have been necessary it just wasn't sufficient that's right yep to say it again just different different way yep the anthropologists claim that this thing was necessary and then the speaker goes but because it's not sufficient therefore it's not necessary yeah and that makes no sense it's just a fancy version of the else that's most common flaw and this should be a relatively easy question if you're tuned into that most common flaw yeah and one thing that can help here is that the first sentence or the first claim is in if-then form it's not that claims that are in if-then form will always lead to a this kind of flaw confusing necessary and sufficient conditions but hey it's certainly prone to do that because we have an if-then statement and the person messed it up well I mean they just do it on every single test. yes you know this happens very frequently it's the first thing I think about when I see a conditional statement yeah it's just like okay don't don't fuck it up now which is how you do it every single time I mean actually I'm like okay I can't wait for you to fuck it up. that you can give me a free point that's what this would be sure lo and behold the question says their reasoning in the argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument whenever you see the phrase most vulnerable to criticism you know that you're looking at a flaw question which means you're going to be given five answer choices that describe the flaw and the correct answer has to be an answer choice that describes exactly what's happening in the argument and is a problem in the argument and we've already predicted the problem here this confusing necessary and sufficient conditions. we would expect that to be something in the correct answer and once again if we would have read the question stem first here it would have done absolutely no good for us because we spotted that flaw anyway and then they asked us about the flaw and that's easy and there was no value here to reading the question stem first if anything it would have just been more confusing that way sure hey does the argument confuse a conditions being required for a given result to occur in one case with the conditions being sufficient for such a result to occur in a similar case that sounds pretty good now that was he talking about yeah our case and then we're talking about a similar case in other words are prehistoric relatives. I would keep that open yeah I would be 99% but that's the answer sure absolutely B takes for granted that which just means necessarily assumes that if one species had a characteristic that happened to enable to it to survive certain condition at least one related extinct species must have had that same characteristic it doesn't assume that it had that characteristic a said that they did have that characteristic that they were able to cope in diverse natural environments. this is not describing what's happening and I would say it's out well it's just not trying to reach the conclusion that okay. this other extinct species must have had some same characteristic yeah it's like all the right words but the meaning of B is just not even close yeah okay C generalizes okay I'm already nervous because if you're gonna generalize from the fact that one species blah blah blah if you're generalizing from a fact that means your conclusion is a generalization and the here is that the anthropologist claim is false that's not a generalization that's a specific claim about the anthropologist claim. I'm inclined not to read the rest of this I don't think I would on the actual test the rest of it's wrong anywhere generalizes from the fact that one species with a certain characteristic survives certain conditions that all related species with the same characteristic must have survived exactly the same conditions no they never drew that conclusion this is wrong that would be a ridiculous thing to do yeah that would be a flaw but not the flaw here. it's not the fall here yeah good excellent D fails to consider the possibility that a a had one or more characteristics that lessened its chances of surviving prehistoric times okay it did fail to consider this possibility yeah it's not something that really matters because we're not talking about your chances of survival we're just saying they didn't survive and whether or not this thing was sufficient to guarantee their survival right yeah why it didn't survive it's just not the point the point is it had this one characteristic that the speaker said or the that the anthropologist said was necessary when the speaker says because they had this characteristic but they didn't survive therefore it's not sufficient and that's just misunderstanding the idea that mr. understanding the difference between necessary and sufficient whatever DS talking about is not that. it's not D yeah e fails to consider the possibility that even if a condition caused a result to occur in one case it was not necessary to cause the result to occur in a similar case even if a condition caused a result to occur in one case that's wrong at that point we don't know if any condition caused a result to occur all we know is that one condition is necessary but whether it causes is a totally different issue and we don't know that whether this case in our humans or in the pre our prehistoric ancestors. this is out I mean I guess they did fail to consider causation sure that's true for almost all answer choices that start with to consider the possibility right it's almost always the case that the argument did fail to consider the possibility the question just becomes is that a problem should they have considered it and in this case it doesn't matter whether they consider this or not because it's irrelevant to the conclusion good ok anything else to add to that note the difference between takes for granted that and fails to consider people sometimes think that those mean the same thing but they don't been said yeah takes for granted means necessarily assumes. it's part of their argument that must be true in order for their argument to make sense that's what takes for granted means fails to consider is just didn't talk about this yep didn't talk about it didn't think about it and that's usually the case but then the question becomes okay well should it right they have thought about it either one can be the answer yeah but in order for it takes for granted to be the right answer they have to have necessarily assumed this thing and you know like without justification or yeah necessarily assuming something that they should not necessarily assume in order for a fails to consider to be the answer it's something that they didn't talk about that would be a big problem if it were true. the big difference is would this be a problem if it were true or would be would it be a problem if it were false yeah right yeah it's like fails to consider the possibility answer choices are basically weakened or exactly it's not sort of like turns the question into a weakened or if that's the correct answer it's like well they didn't talk about this and if it's true it's a big problem yep with takes for granted it's yeah they necessarily assumed this and if this is false it's a problem yeah and. you can get rid of thanks for granted answer choices if they never even assumed it you're like even though they didn't assume this. this is not a bad assumption it doesn't matter it didn't happen yeah you could just say this is not a necessary assumption of the argument like this can be false without ruining the argument they did not necessarily assume this same for answer choices to start with presumes without providing justification the exact same thing that's also takes for granted yeah yeah yep cool all right. the answer is a cool that easy I mean I you know the the big s take away from all that is boy you could have made that a much much easier question if you would have just spotted that it was a sufficient and necessary flaw yeah it's on every test it's on every test multiple times you have to get tuned into that it's like free points yep and if you didn't spot it then now you're down there in the answer choices like trying to compare them all to one another and it's just like really really doing the test the hard way 100% I agree okay cool move on yeah you want to take this one yes says hey Ben and Nathan I posted in the Facebook group and received some feedback from numerous people wondering how to tackle the y-x law school essays I know it's not the most important factor but I believe it can show that you genuinely want the school and could potentially bump you if you're an on the fence applicant I attached my UC Irvine interest essay with the prompt below if this makes it on the podcast feel free to rip my essay to shreds and help a girl out you can also use my name if not give some tips on what to do thanks. here it is this is for UC Irvine and it says the prompt is we know that you have many options when applying to law school tell us why you are interested in the School of Law at the University of California Irvine what do you believe we have to offer you what will you bring to the School of Law how would your experiences and perspectives enhance and enrich the quality and breadth of our law school community please write a minimum of 350 words and a maximum of 500 words it says PS I'm a pretty tough crowd when it comes to humor and you guys make me genuinely laugh my ass off thanks for making this whole process fun and stimulating sure by the way I hate this prompt I do too I was gonna complain about it as well what do you hate about I hate that there are. many questions yeah I want to know from me you want to know why I want to go to your school or do you want to know why you should want me or like these are two totally different questions I mean it's in some ways they could overlap but well the first question what do you believe we have to offer you that's like okay clearly they want you to write about Irvine UC Irvine law specifically and why you're picking that school yeah. you're gonna have to come up with some reasons and you know to be honest you're gonna probably go on their website and pull up some shit about their school that's exactly what it is and. it kind of feels like a little like a bit of a a game like have you looked at us that much more than our ranking but really all law schools are very similar. does it matter that much but let's break it down why are they asking this question I think I know mmm to see if you're serious and therefore protect their yield yes this seems to be obvious yield protection they want to know if you're just applying to every school and you're gonna deny them they don't want to get shot down by you sure they don't wanna see feelings hurt yeah no they want to protect their yield and yield is you know how many of the people they admit how many people actually go to their school. they wanted to see if you're willing to jump through this one extra hoop because look at how specific it is to 350 words to 500 words mm-hmm and they want you to mention Irvine yeah. many people are not going to read that instruction many people aren't gonna care about it enough to actually follow those instructions yeah and. if you if they're on the fence about you they're gonna just deny you because well you you didn't you didn't do our you didn't do our special essay it's an easy way for them to try to filter out people who they think aren't gonna say yes to them yeah I kind of have a feeling it might have something to do with scholarship negotiations as well okay like if you tipped your hand here and said I have a baby and my mom lives in Orange County and I you see is my only choice yeah I think that might help your case for admissions and it would probably also hurt your case for scholarships mmm because they you start looking like you can't go anywhere else Yeah right that's if you're a borderline scholarship candidate to begin with yeah that make sense. that's that first question what do you believe we have to offer you but then Ben and I both got pissed when it said what will you bring to the School of Law it's like whoa wait a minute you did you read my personal statement yeah is that what are you wanting another personal statement like I'm gonna bring something different to a vine that I'm gonna bring to that's a stupid fucking question it's like well at Irvine I'm gonna make sure to bring my sunscreen because it's super nice whether in the OC I don't get it yeah I'm gonna make sure to bring my rich white entitled racism since the orange have you been to Orange County much Ben no it's a weird place well where did that what what oh the OSI is its it's weirdly conservative it's okay like Irvine specifically is is like sort of like very police heavy like it's it's like very it's very very clean put it that way okay well it's like it's uh yeah it's just like got a reputation for being like super white and conservative okay anyway I'm complaining about this dumb question they're they're they're going from I thought it was supposed to be about them now it's about me again yep and then this third question how would your experiences and perspectives enhance and enrich the quality and breadth of our law of our law school community that now sounds like they want a diversity statement or another personal statement yeah what else do you have to say about yourself this is just a writing tip and I see it in the personal statements that we're reviewing but people have trouble sometimes choosing like one of two words and it's rarely the case that that we need the completeness of having both words. how would your experiences and perspectives enhance and enrich like really not just enhance yeah just enrich but enhance and enrich as if as if one of those words adds meaning to this sentence that now I'm going to say more than I would have had just said enhance enrich the quality and breadth of our law school community okay just choose one of those words enhance quality or breath it doesn't really matter and I see this in law school statements people are like what was the one I just saw yesterday someone that we were working with a camera what they said but it was kind of like quality and breath and it's like you you just choose one dude to go with it this is hilarious they did it three times in one sentence how would your experiences and perspectives enhance and enrich the quality and breadth of our law school community it's like I mean what the question really is is how would your shit help our shit yep you know like what they're asking is it's an and it's like well you just asked what will you bring to the School of Law yeah what they want they want to know what they're getting what are we getting here I don't know make our community better done yeah yeah they go into this lawyer speak you know it's it's like the no tampering with disabling or something else the smoke detector in the lavatory on the plane it's like you could have just said don't fuck with the smoke detector yeah don't break it you didn't need to say no tampering with disabling or whatever I'd like come on it's just lawyers I wasn't disabling I was just tampering or I was tampering not diseased man that's okay you know I'm Lessing while we're on it the sentence before said what do you believe we have to offer you oh actually that's well anyways in it when you say you believe or whatever that's always implied what do we have to offer you well when you start saying what you think they have to offer you you're telling them what you think are you believe yeah right. whenever people say that in their personal statement it's almost always a cut yep that's right I agree I would like to contrast this prompt with the prompt that Dave sent us the other day yes. Dave another long one right but he thought he was looking at a y-x law school prompt that's true but I don't think he was I think he was just looking at a normal personal statement prompt. I agree there's times where if they're asking you to submit one essay if they're asking you for a personal statement and they happen to mention their own name in that prompt. Dave's won it was it was like well why are you interested in it was suffolk huh it was like tell us why you're applying to Suffolk law basically mm-hmm but that was part of their personal statement prompt yeah and Ben and I agreed that we didn't think that they actually cared that you mentioned Suffolk law it's just that they happen to like accidentally mentioned themselves mm-hmm does that make sense you you you did you felt that same way right yeah yeah yeah no exactly okay but this is different because this is a special essay with its own word count mm-hmm saying not only tell us why you're interested in the School of Law at the University of california-irvine that by itself doesn't do anything but the next sentence what do you believe we have to offer you at that point now you really do have to write about Irvine yeah do you think this is an optional essay yes sir oh it's optional I'm pretty sure yeah I mean these are normally optional I mean one thing is if your scores are high enough you and you're applying to a lot of schools and you don't really care about our vine then just skip this stuff no I wouldn't I if you're going to go through with the application if you're gonna pay the $45 l sac fee I mean either don't apply to the school or go ahead and do it I would say but I mean you could do it if you're like really a lawyer you could do this in two minutes right you go on their website you find some bullshit about some stupid program like whatever their marketing department is talking about on the website yeah right bobblehead collections the bobblehead collection would be actually perfect here you imagine like if you started talking about the like whimsy aspect of the school the whimsical nature they would love that they went there to get up yeah they would love that shit okay are we ready for this yeah we're ready okay first thing first this looks long Oh how many words is this no I'm gonna do the word count right now yeah this is gonna be the very first test here what has it been I got four hundred and eighty nine okay I might prefer something shorter it's a head it's a 350 to 500 although then again this person is answering one two three four questions taking it very seriously yeah okay well I mean they they knew that they were sending it into the show and we were gonna rip the shit out of it. oh we didn't get the name here. anyway whoever this person is it's a she she because that girl girl okay I knew I would start my career on the west coast from an early age oh no I hate it I hate it stop talking about your youth [Laughter] Irvine is on the west coast but there are dozens of schools on the west coast. that by itself doesn't really do much and yeah because you were a child oh my god okay cut that all right here we go being a Floridian the first time I saw a 200-foot Sequoia tree I fell in love with California and everything the West had to offer high taxes droughts that's why I was just thinking of things I loved about my home state I have to push back I mean I sequoia trees I don't think there's an e sequoias in Orange County I'm sorry that's a Northern California thing no that's well you know Sequoia National Park is kind of like south of Yosemite and people do go camping in Sequoia from here but I think it's a solid four hour drive from Irvine okay. I don't if you say Sequoia is I think the people in the office in Irvine are gonna be like um what yeah I'm thinking of redwoods I guess up north but anyway sorry yeah yeah Sequoia is a it's a brand of ro it is a redwood yeah there we go yeah that's why I'm confused okay got it being a Floridian the first time I saw a 200-foot Sequoia tree I fell in love with California and everything the West had to offer coastal beaches mountains forests snow and everything in between. why are you going to law school why not become a forest ranger yeah but besides location as my law school search narrowed eyes owned in on the University of California Irvine for the leading edge educational approaches and the rates of upward mobility inspiring students to succeed no matter their backgrounds while simultaneously giving back to the community that's not bad that's just some like probably bullshit boilerplate that you pulled off their website or something I'm sure they said that yeah and and anyway they're gonna they like to think that whether or not it's true they love they love to think leading-edge educational approaches and rates of upward mode and inspiring our students to succeed no matter their backgrounds while simultaneously giving back to the community that they'd like to hear that about themselves that's sure what would be I think more impressive though is if you could take their sort of vacuous BS and talk specifically about something that they're doing that's accomplishing these things mmm yeah just regurgitating marketing mumbo jumbo from their website because this is just like is are they what what do they mean when they say leading-edge do they mean cutting-edge educational approach to our leading edge is not a thing and. did you get this from their website and if you drilled into their website what what educational approaches are they actually taking are they actually leading-edge I suspect many of them are not but if there is one in there that is talk about that or when they talk about rates of upward mobility or is there a particular group that they felt like they've been successful with and are they actually successful with them compared to other law schools in their tier now that tiers are such a thing like I would really want to know are they successful in these things that they claim to be successful and talk about one that actually impresses you you're one you'll have more to say about it because you're impressed by it you know this next thing is actually a fact about the school. that's good the young age of the law school piqued my interest and as a racer misspelled I know yeah yeah peaked had spelled here P EA ke D it's not correct it's not like you're going to the peak I mean it makes sense that you would be at the peak of your interest but that's not the word the word is peaked piq you EDD it's also this is a symptom of like do you really speak that way yeah if you don't have written this if you don't speak that way then don't write that way because you'll end up making mistakes like that and as I researched the inaugural class I felt inspired and excited inspired and excited to join a school that began rooted in pro bono work and committed to public interest okay. there's facts about I mean whatever alleged facts about the school but what I'm sorry what is the young age of the law school have to do with its roots in pro bono work yeah public interest like you could just say hey the fact that you began with this kind of work is Right inspiring I kind of liked it that she was spitting out a fact about Irvine like that she knows that it's a new law school yeah but then again like the fact that it's a new law school is that why is that a selling point and it doesn't really have anything to do with the thing that she goes on to next with the program stuff all right as I read more alumni profiles I felt the graduates uh the word graduate apostrophe s as I read more alumni profiles I felt the Graduate apostrophe s genuine appreciation for their education and fondness of their time spent at UCI law okay I feel like this is look I did research let me show you that I did research yeah as opposed to actually doing research and figuring out something like so-and-so said this and that touched me because I have a family member who did this and was successful or something it's very vague they just have appreciation for their education yep and fondness for their time we're great we're the greatest administration since the first one what sets UCI apart for me is the characteristics publicly portrayed that not every Law School advertises or even claims to have civility mutual respect and overall basic kindness whoa wait those are all vague yeah but I mean if they're making a big deal about that on their website if they're like you know UCI is trying to brand itself as the like kinder gentler Law School or something yeah then okay I could see how you could say that I mean that sounds sounds like it must come from the website they must be advertising it yeah it's inspiring to see a law school with such a respected reputation and leading legal education to be connecting to real people with genuine characteristics it really feels like she's just trying to fill space here yeah it's like keep it short man you got to cut this way down like if it's 350 to 500 it just just get it up get it over 350 but but you got to cut out a lot of this just like filler or I mean dig into the substance like what why is she saying this is did she see an example of this I mean I realized that they're not making the best argument for themselves because they're just talking in market speak and they're using general proclamations of their greatness but if there really is greatness behind the proclamations then go find one or two examples that illustrate that and talk about that and how that hit you it will be easy to talk about too because you'll actually feel quote inspired and excited to talk about that agreed yeah there's no proper nouns in this first I mean there's no like you didn't name a professor you didn't name an alum you didn't talk about any particular pro bono program it's all just like these kind of platitudes and vagaries yeah you talk about a tree though you saw it true that's true we did get a Sequoia in there that's right which unfortunately is hours and hours away as a first-generation college student I am dedicated and no perseverance wait dude you skipped a sentence which has the same problem wait what the last end of the bow I believe UCI law can offer me a legal education that is not only intellectually challenging but genuinely enjoyable that's she's answering the what can we give you what do you believe it's like no shit that's what I'm trying to get a JD what do you think I'm trying to do and I think it'll be fun trying to get an education and I wouldn't do it if I thought I was gonna hate it. that's why I'm here yeah okay all right that's vague again um as a first-generation college student I am dedicated and no perseverance hmm. the list is broken it's not parallel I am dedicated and no perseverance yeah mmm I'm not even sure what that means you know perseverance like you know of it I've heard of it yeah my friends got a whole lot saying you know something is like if you say you like I know I know I know hunger if you say that that's like you've been hungry before yeah. I know perseverance it's like you've been perseverant before I guess but it's just and don't say that don't stop either way this is just a claim right there's no evidence here yeah I believe these traits are essential skills I can bring to UCLA UCI law along with feel intellectual curiosity that has motivated me to continue higher education okay. she's clearly like she's really following the directions here yeah which on the one hand I want to give her credit for but she just needs to tighten it way up and use more specifics and not all this just vague bullshit well the other thing is you have to realize that when people ask you questions they're not really asking you these questions directly they're idiots they don't realize that what they're really asking you to do is give them examples that show what they're asking you to say because they're saying please tell us why you believe you know you're great or whatever but that's not really what they're asking for they're asking you to give examples that show why you think you're great you give I'm saying is like the prompt is almost inviting her to tell instead of show right right right not yes and I think what they really want to hear about in this essay is about themselves not about you I don't I don't think they really meant you to be writing another personal statement yeah I think they wanted to know about Irvine and maybe why you're specifically a fit for Irvine but like if you're just gonna go with your generic traits of intellectual curiosity that has nothing to do with Irvine that's true like the only reason these questions are together even though they seem very different is that they want to see what you know about the school and therefore what you know you can contribute to the community because you're familiar with the community and. unlike your personal statement which could be sent to any school you have to think about something that would contribute to this school given the fact that they have the community that they have yeah and I might I might actually in if I were this particular applicant I might talk about I mean just one idea would be I'm from Florida I'm gonna bring a diverse perspective to Orange County my god I'm from a different place I'm from the entire different part of the country entire different side of the country that would be a way of a way of answering their question in you know like genuinely yeah not that that's like a Wow holy shit you're from Florida but like you're at least recognizing that like I am coming across country to come to your law school I was thinking that the the school apparently prides itself on being kind or nice yeah choose one thing and then talk about how you would add to that characteristic of their community and absolutely yeah yep that would be great I believe my experience stop saying I believe even though it said in the prompt I believe it asked do you believe she is she kidding with this next sentence I don't know I don't know hold on I was looking back at the prompt for just a second yeah okay hold on I believe my experiences and perspectives can enhance the law school community by embracing the rooted characteristics of the school I thought she might be joking with this end it's cuz she's like basically quoting them verbatim she'd should she forgot to include the word enriched I believe my experiences and perspectives can enhance and enrich yeah she's you know she's a good like you can tell that she's like a um like a diligent earnest serious applicant she is following the directions yeah and you know they're gonna give you some bonus for that although it the result is a just unreadable mush of an essay that doesn't have a point mm-hmm specifically the pre-law outreach program P o P coma helping students from disadvantaged backgrounds prepare for law school , demonstrated the type of culture I want to be a part of I don't know why that's in the past tense demonstrates or illustrates the type of culture that I want to be a part of why does it illustrates that what do they do also you don't need to do pop P o P no you don't and you can just say we're gonna use it again you could just say I plan to take advantage of the pre-law outreach program yes that would show what you're gonna do and how that ties in to what you value okay coming from a disadvantaged background myself I know the advantages of peer mentoring and networking just cut that sentence entirely the ability to give that to another student inspires me as my admiration for UCI law grows let's lay it on a little thick haha I love you I love your law school and I will promote you to everyone I meet I have this feeling inside of me it's it's growing the spark okay I didn't know what it was at first. now it's just just it's grown into something more moreover I hold in high regard you see eyes interdisciplinary approach in their curriculum recognizing and adapting to a changing world where law interacts and is dependent upon a variety of disciplines who whole thing is. vague in just generalizations it's vague that sentence is way too long you're like you notice it one tip is you should read your stuff out loud and when you notice that you're like running out of breath at the end of a sentence that means the sentence is too long yeah or if you get tripped up in your own sentence that's a problem you know that this but the sentence is just broken because the subject of the sentence is supposed to be I right mm-hmm moreover I hold in high regard you see is interdisciplinary approach in their curriculum , recognizing and adapting to a changing way hold on who's losing the action yeah who's recognizing and who's adapting you or the curriculum or the people who create the curriculum and then it goes in a changing world where law interacts and is independent upon a variety of disciplines. now law we've got another subject popping up here. first of all the school is being described as having an interdisciplinary approach and then the school is recognizing and adapting to a changing world where law interacts and is dependent upon now law is a subject law interacts is dependent upon a variety of discipline what the fuck is that sentence by the way clear writing and clear thinking are deeply connected. if you're having trouble articulating what you want to say it's very possible that you don't know exactly what you want to say you have some vague notion of what you think is going on but if you're struggling to write that it might be the case that you just need to think about what you're actually trying to say yeah there's a concept I mean she's she's trying to answer all of their stupid questions in their stupid prompt and I think she should focus on the first question why a vine yeah and I think she should answer that in one sentence and then flush it out and connect herself to that but by if you have a sincere response as to why you want or why you're impressed by them that will inevitably or should connect to you in some way shape or form because if that is what is attracting you to them there's something about it that relates to you I am particularly attracted to UC Irvine because of the pre-law outreach program period yep I intend not only to benefit from this program before I start law school but to give back to the UC Irvine community by participating as a peer mentor in my later years of school or whatever yeah I was most impressed by. and. who did XYZ as that's what happened to me or that's similar to my background or something I come from blah blah blah and I know that our vines the environment of civility mutual respect and overall basic kindness will blah blah blah all those sentences by the way are starting with the word I yeah and not I believe just I am I want I plan I will that would be much better yeah even that thing you quoted civility mutual respect and overall basic kindness this is again their problem with having trouble choosing a word just choose one word yeah right like one civility or respect or kindness what's the fucking difference yeah yeah yep I agree with my environmental science degree , I hope to bring to UCL UCI law a unique perspective of an environmental scientist and use my degree specific knowledge to launch myself and my peers deeper into our work in the Environmental Law Clinic learning different litigation and policy matters oh by the way this is a random side note but she references UCI law a lot you don't have to say their school name over and over again you can also just say your school or the law school to vary it up yeah she could definitely mix it up I mean you don't want to put it in there more than once probably for this type of essay just because it's like it is a school specific thing and they want to they want to know that you're actually talking about them but I mean you are all. when it says she later it says UC Irvine I like this. much more than UCI law yeah me too anyways um this again i okay i don't like starting that sentence with with mm-hmm that's a very that's like bad writing almost always when people start a sentence with with sure because people do it this way with my this then they say the actual subject mm-hmm it's like just start with the subject of the sentence she says the word unique which people just really have their privileges revoked on that yeah and then I hope to bring to UCI law a unique perspective of an environmental scientist if anything it feels like it should be the unique perspective but I hmm it just needs to be shorter it needs to be tighter you got to get you got to get more declarative and you gotta you gotta have shorter sentences like you don't need to say all this it's more down do you have a unique perspective just say as an environmental scientist I'm excited I look forward to working in the environmental automatic right period and this like comma learning different litigation and policy matters what what is that what is that even about what what are you doing are you just putting in words the variety of issues in the clinic students were able to engage in comma enforcing the Clean Water Act comma assisting coastal communities for climate change comma and protecting desert lands against development and exploitation comma all helped solidify UC Irvine as my top law school choice you want an essay pick one of those things and write about it and then pick another one and write about it there's a ton of stuff in here oh the first like to Thursday's essay are all vague mumbo-jumbo here we actually have some details what about these things did you actually like talk about those that would say why you like the school and they would tell us about you and how you fit into that school I feel like this essay finally started it's just ending yeah like the Environmental Law Clinic we're learning about that right now and we're learning about that she's an environmental scientist I hate this sentence I hate that the subject of this sentence is the variety of issues yeah the variety of issues helped solidify UC Irvine as my top law school choice yeah pick one really is it the variety of issues that they're doing that that's what really helps boy I'm. but that variety yeah I was really doing it for me no it's not it's one thing if there's a thing there that you that you're passionate about or that you're experienced in if accepted I will happily join UCI law immediately and to begin my education with a school I believe fits my character skillset and intellectual curiosity best cut yeah and and also like why are you promising that you're gonna just say yes right away please don't give me scholarship money I'm ready right that's that's like you tell your crush that you would just I would marry you right on the spot like oh if you gave me a chant if you if you just would give me a date I'll do anything for you it's like mmm mmm not interested anymore yeah I think okay. take aways from all of this thank you very much for sending this in girl without a name we we really appreciate it it needs to be tightened up it needs a thesis I mean it's like go back to your like junior high days of writing and when they like made you have a like thesis sentence cuz this is all over the place and it just doesn't like it doesn't I don't know what do you think Ben I agree I'm just stepping back and thinking about this and thinking about all the statements that we keep reading on the show off the show and it surprises me how much people do have to say there are things from their life that would be interesting concrete and worthy of discussion and they somehow miss it all and they just stick to the general vague and uninformative it's like you're an environmental scientist well Wow like okay you can talk about how you're attracted to the overall basic kindness of the school but that seems like something that would be true for a lot of people um not necessarily maybe some people are interested in a cut-through at school but you're talking about the clean water act what do you know about that I just feel like people have. much to say that would be interesting but they don't know that that's interesting I mean if she's an environmental scientist she must have spent four years studying this there's got to be interesting stuff to talk about here what what have you done in this. lead with that and tie it to their Environmental Law Clinic if you want to sell it that way yeah lead with your first generation status and talk about their pre-law outreach program if you want to do it that way yeah exactly like how much could you say about that either waters generation yeah either one of those leave the when you're a little kid you love California leave that out of it anybody could say that and all these vague statements it's inspiring to see a law school with such a respected reputation and a legal leading legal education to be connecting real people with genuine characteristics what okay is that under percent what is what is that like what happened in who and why right it's not about you it's not interesting yep it's big yep that's all okay all right thanks very much for sending that in and letting us roast it yeah thank you it wasn't hilariously bad no I mean it was bad it was way too long and it was way too vague and it needed to have a focus and you need to basically start over I would say pick either the Environmental Law Clinic or the pre-law outreach program and just focused the whole thing on that mm-hmm and you'll be much better off should we leave it there I think we should yeah all right that was show number 161 thanks all y'all for listening nice knowing you don't fit for Law School

Episode 161: Bad LSAT Score? How to Move On.

hello and welcome to episode 161 of the thinking LSAT podcast in Vienna Virginia this is Ben Olsen with me as Nathan Fox in Los Angeles how's it going nation awesome man I'm excited for another excellent episode what are we talking about today we're gonna be talking about some I guess another we have another email about a disappointing LSAT score from the September LSAT and how to move forward from that we have some more dumb emails from law schools some snail mail to apparently we're going to go over a flaw question from the June 2007 LSAT. that's a logical reasoning question and we're parently gonna roast a white law school essay yeah we are Wow okay good you all can always email us at help at thinking LSAT calm we will not see those emails but Sarah will and she can help you out or annalisa will as well if you have not joined the facebook group the facebook group now has nine hundred and thirty nine members there's a lot of chatter over there people asking all sorts of questions all the time. it's a great resource I which I never shut up I'm gonna have to filter those emails out of my inbox I get. many notifications now from the thinking LSAT podcast we've already put you wait you get facebook emails I might add stupid for that I used to get those and I was like stop this ridiculousness like I'm just go into the app yeah I mean well basically I just don't go into the app very often but I enjoy I mean in fact the only thing I ever do on Facebook now is the thinking else that podcast group because you know there are like buddies in there and they're laughing about our stupid jokes. it's fun to check in and see what they're talking about we're getting a lot of the content from the show now for the show from the Facebook group. that that actually is really good. I like those notifications for that purpose but yeah it does seem a little bit oppressive when it's like every single comment that every person makes and you get email notifications for Nathan if you want to blow up Nathan's inbox continue posting posting of anything else that podcast group yeah and make sure to tag him yeah you can always tweet us at thinking Elsa you can tweet Nathan and Fox and Mia Olson Benjamin we both provide Elsa classes and tutoring and online courses I am at strategy prep comm Nathan is at Fox Elsa calm I'm in DC Nathan is in LA and San Francisco we also have a joint project it's the Elsa demon you can go to LSAT demon comm basically it's a tool to practice LSAT questions on the go and get our explanations both of our explanations are in there and the demon tracks your progress and tries to figure out what questions it should give you based on how well you're doing. the difficulty can go up and down as you work through those questions speaking of joint projects we also have a class coming up in Chicago October 20th and 21st by the time you listen to this it's probably almost close of registration for that wouldn't you say Ben yeah it is getting close that's gonna be exciting and then you said some cool places that we were gonna go for eating and I already forgot them but I'm excited to go and I will just depend on you to tell me where to go when we arrive yeah all and I'll announce that via the Facebook group and an email out everybody sometime before we go. that everybody knows where we're gonna meet up for beers on Friday night yeah and that's where is that again the class the class is at DePaul University Lincoln Park campus it's a cool part of town on the north side up by Wrigleyville the Cubs are in a one-game wildcard playoff. the Cubs may or may not be in the playoffs I'm hoping that the Cubs are gonna still be sticking around in the playoffs because it'll be super fun to be in that part of the world while the Cubs are in the playoffs yeah that's cool yeah if you are familiar with your pre-law Society or connected to it in any way please have them connect with us the email is odd cast at thinking LSAT calm again that's podcast at thinking LSAT calm it's also for like newsletter like if you have a pre-law newsletter or sometimes like maybe your political science department has a newsletter that goes out that's popular or maybe you just have a an advisor a pre-law advisor who you think could benefit from knowing us please email podcast at thinking LSAT calm and we will send them some goodies. that we can introduce ourselves yeah we've received a lot of reviews on iTunes we have three hundred and forty four ratings and ninety six reviews we appreciate it very much if you liked the show just head over to iTunes hit five stars tell people why you like the show the last five reviews are all good too we got like five good ones in a row. it's been one yeah we need one of those you know those like workplace it's 210 days since the last like decapitation or whatever signs that they have you know yeah yeah sure wow that would Wow that would be disturbing okay we've got like we've got like two months since our last bad review on iTunes. I'll try to say something super offensive today we'll get that back to zero all right yeah thank you I appreciate that yeah how many days yeah that's what we have two new staff that we should have on here. right now it's two weeks I think it's more like two months yes now we're like baiting people to go in there okay you can also listen to the podcast on YouTube if that's your thing right now there are 385 subscribers on YouTube unfortunately you will not see either of us on YouTube you will just see a nice thinking LSAT logo which is a kid in red glasses by the way that image is just a random stock photography image that we found at the very beginning of the show when we had no idea that people would actually subscribe to us. hope you like that image but I hope you liked our theme music which is also a random stock sound clip that we bought for like $10 I got I picked it because I thought it sounded like dr. dre and I'm a fan. that's there you go okay cool we have 191 followers on Instagram that is just our handle is that what they say that our Instagram username is thinking LSAT and ELISA posts cool things there she's becoming more active on that I noticed the other day and it's really neat. thank you Anna Lisa you can also find me on instagram at innovator Ben or Nathan at Fox LSAT we have 36 patrons donated on patreon one hundred and forty three dollars every month that's very helpful thank you. much that covers 14% of our monthly costs we have now hit oh I this is a new stat I like this 1 million 28,000 630 downloads. by the way does this count all downloads across all platforms are just iTunes I think it's all downloads across all platforms hmm and then we have to do the multiplier how many f-bombs per show say four f-bombs per show yeah and we need to divide that by host I think. it's uh it's yeah good because that means you get half of them and I that decreases my actual number. I would say four I wasn't saying automatically I was saying like divide out the data right. oh you want to know anything f-bombs and bent f-bombs that would be good it's gonna be something like 3 to 4 million Nathan f-bombs and more like let's see you've probably said it four times total well no way I think it is more than that and you'll see if we had a graph it would be this like plateau of zero forever for no huge spike in yeah it's a form of cheap therapy you know to deal with life changes all right. then if you're into LinkedIn there is a LinkedIn thinking else that podcast group it has 70 members and it's moderated by Ezra who is the infamous author of the man with kind eyes. if you'd like to chat it up with Ezra go to the Facebook group or LinkedIn and check it out beautiful yeah all right man we didn't I didn't know I don't know what's going on in your life we just jumped into those stats but I'm sure I'll find out as we talk about these things for example I just learned that you get email notifications from Facebook yeah I I don't know man what's going on with me I I just I have a very busy month of travel coming up I'm flying to New Orleans tomorrow to go to my friend Nicky and Danielle's wedding in New Orleans on Thursday. there's gonna be a lot of boozing that's gonna happen on the next three or four days of my life okay I well then I've got the next three weekends after that our San Francisco Chicago San Francisco for me. I've got four weekends in a row of flying around all over the place other than that I am super super into dungeons dragons like super into it like check this out my mom and my niece came and visited me I think I mentioned that on the last show yeah and on Friday night we were looking for something to do just kind of bumming around after dinner and I started a little Dungeons & Dragons game with my mom and my niece as the players and I was like master and my niece went apeshit she lost her mind about how awesome Dungeons & Dragons is and then we ended up playing a little bit more on Saturday and a little bit more on Sunday Wow wait how old is your niece again she's like 11 11 yeah okay when you talk about Dungeons & Dragons I think about my friend who ran a shop when we were in high school that sold those kind of cards there's cars right or something yeah you might be thinking a magic oh shoot okay nevermind that's okay yeah he's magic it says it's it's all nerd shit it's fine it's all I've never played magic but DNG is the just greatest game of all time it's. if you like dee dee is like an old game it is but it's it's also like very popular people it's having a resurgence or even popular all along I defy you to find someone who plays who has played D&D and doesn't like it it's just like everybody that I I was at the bar this like super cool like hipster bar here in Los Feliz the other day with my friend and we were geeking out sitting at the bar talking about Dungeons & Dragons and the super cool hipster like looks like punk-rock bartender is like hey you guys talking about Dungeons and Dragons yeah I write for a Dungeons & Dragons newsletter it's like immediately like giving us a free shot because of how we were talking about Dungeons & Dragons at the bar yeah okay cool man yeah what's up with you Oh life is good I was just playing some basketball whoa and by myself I didn't know you were a baller I don't know that I am I just have a hoop in my driveway. and I have a basketball. sometimes I go out there and shoot hoops were you practicing your sweet post moves well okay apparently I'm not a baller because I'm not sure what you mean by that don't worry about it don't worry about it come on tell me I got to learn at least one new word post post move if you're practicing your post moves you would be like sort of standing a few feet away from the basket maybe with your back to the basket and practicing like a little little Negron step little turn around a little crab job yeah all the little they have kids do the little drills you know. that you can practice like okay from this block I'm gonna make this move and from this block well you need to have all the moves if you're gonna be a true true baller but yeah you can I could show you a couple maybe maybe if we find a man that'd be sweet if we found a basketball hoop in Chicago yeah okay the little pickup game with the class that would be interesting that'd be hilarious do that yeah. I was just practicing shooting and then I was trying to do that before I came to the podcast you know uh-huh and you can't end on a missed shot correct. then I kept trying to shoot fast and of course I kept missing and I'm like this is kind of like the LSAT I guess I'm just rushing here yeah I slowed down and I after like 30 misses. you're shooting resources or 3-pointers or what I just kind of read them all over the place I am I'm not that bad of a shot really I'd say I make half of them and I'm shooting from pretty far away but um yeah it was really bad at the end because I wanted to come inside but I couldn't come in after missing that's why you have to quit early that's why you have to that's why you have to end on a good one right yeah you make make one or make a couple in a row and then just be like yep and then walk off I'm done yeah well uh do you want read this first snail mail it looks like well okay. I wanted to talk about there I put a bullet point about how to move forward from a disappointing September 2018 LSAT there's no email for this one it's just an agenda item that I wanted to talk about yeah how many phone calls and emails are you getting right now with people asking you what they should do Oh a good number yeah yeah like. many everybody this time of year I mean we have some people who are celebrating like yeah I killed the damn rails at my school or came back and I'm ready to go to school now it's okay good good for you yep but we also are hearing like oh shit I fucked up what do I do. I'm sure we've talked about this a million times but I just want to make sure we cover it again right now because it's timely but yeah the September test was a released LSAT yeah if you took the test you got your test back when they sent you your score you probably didn't even look at it that's what most people do they look at the score and that's it yeah. what should they do they should dig in and figure out where they got questions wrong and why they think they got them wrong yeah it's it's like people want to like reach out and go where do I go from here and I'm like well tell me what you were struggling with on that test why did you miss points on that test and it's funny how often they will have like oh I don't know at all yeah or they'll have just a broad like well I missed six on reading comprehension and I missed a total of twelve on logical reasoning and I missed an entire game yep and then it's like okay good a step in the right direction but why did you miss those points what specifically like let's talk about okay logical reasoning what questions did you miss when when you looked back at them when you reviewed them is it do you remember what you were thinking or like can you get it right now or like is there a certain question type you're missing a lot of or what's going on why did you miss that question and I just it's super consistent I get there's something in human nature that people just don't want to do that review and that is the clear and really only first step if you if you're trying to figure out how to move forward from a September crash yeah what happened did you miss the points and throughout the section or did you miss them all at the end those sort of things can tell you a little bit about how you took the test officially a lot of times when you're talking about crash you're talking about someone who scored lower or even sometimes a lot lower on the official test then their practice test scores led them to believe they would score. I can understand why they're panicking but it's it's it's just another test. you just need to go in and do some investigation and figure out what it was about test day that led you astray and like you said if you redo these questions because else AK does give you the whole test and you don't find them that challenging now then most likely you just rushed or did you even miss Bob well I mean I had someone who was scoring between 158 and 162 and she got a 142 which is. off that it's like hold on you you can't just say you can't do the test or there is something like maybe you miss bubbled do you have any idea and like you're saying she had not looked at it at all it just they just look at the score and that's it yeah. I wanted to make a pitch here for private tutoring actually if you're struggling to figure out why you had such a September LSAT that is a perfect opportunity you know maybe you need a little bit of motivation maybe you can't bear to face it on your own one tutoring session to go over that one test it has the potential to be transformative there's no guarantee but it's possible that if you sit down with Ben and look at that test I mean it's almost guaranteed that you sit down and look at that test and Ben is gonna tell you something that you're gonna be you know change your thinking about the test yeah and likewise if you work with me or likewise if you work with one of our tutors. consider doing that if you want a book with me it's Fox LSAT you can book me and you'll be able to put yourself right on to my calendar I do have openings for one-on-one tutoring. if you'd like to you know get crackin right now on your November retake or on your January retake or whatever it is let's sit down and do that and Ben if they want to reach out to you about tutoring how do they do that just a strategy prep calm and follow the stuff for tutoring yeah I mean especially if your practice test scores were higher and you did them timed you just need to figure out how to think about the test or your approach as you're taking the test officially fix it and bam you can take the next test you don't have to do as much as people think they do I think sometimes right yeah I you hear a lot of like well I I just think November's too soon. I'm gonna put it off till January yeah and I'm like wait I thought you were ready to take the test in September if you were ready to take the test in September I understand it didn't work out for you but if you were ready if your practice test scores were indicating that you're ready then you should also be ready to take it in November I mean yeah chip away at it a little bit every day like we're always talking about okay anyway I want to move on yep okay cool. what is this who is this this is amazing and we can post these in the newsletter because this first one Meghan already posted it on the Facebook group I assume if she can post it on the Facebook group we could post it out into the newsletter yeah or on thinking else that calm but this they sent her I oh I guess that's not snail mail I guess that's just an email it looks like oh really I thought this was snail mail. this is like a pamphlet or something this email okay well because that business card really confused me anyway what we're looking at here there's two images yeah and even is this the first one is a it's from Falkner law which apparently is in Montgomery Alabama and it has makin her first and last name and then it says attorney at law and then it says her last name and law office calm and it's a business card it was a fake business card yeah I don't know they that's it that's a stock photography they didn't actually send that to her that's it that's just a like a randomly generated oh no no I don't think that the the business card was sent to her I just think this this may be been was printed oh and then she photographed it yeah I'm see I'm seeing the top of the page there I think either way it's just such a stupid little gimmick come to Faulkner law and you could have a business card that looks like this people on the Facebook group we're busting on it including the fact that it doesn't say Esquire which probably any attorney would have on their business card yeah then the second thing is far more confusing yeah it's is that her holding it. now I think that that might be a photograph of her holding this thing yeah which they sent her a pamphlet or a flyer which looks like a door to an office home again but then it has the Faulkner law logo on it. then that ruins the illusion that it's a door like an office door that doesn't look like an office door if it says Faulkner law school of law on it and then the slogan at the bottom with open your door of opportunity work lever open your door of opportunity exclamation point oh shit and they gave her a custom URL Wow babe they really boy they went the marketing department at fucking our laws just going for it how much does all this cost well what do you think they're charging. much tuition for yeah I mean that's what you're getting for your money because you're certainly not getting like actual you know services you're it's I don't know boy just feels like a big Ponzi scheme huh big some weird big pyramid yeah I mean they figure if they can get one more student they've paid for all this marketing effort yeah absolutely yeah one person who's like dumb enough to be like can you imagine being dumb enough to be like holy shit I could have a business card and an office door like that with my name on it I'm gonna go to Falkner law just there they're gonna give me what I want I want to be a lawyer yeah I'm gonna be a big fancy lawyer with a business card and it and door and everything okay. that's one thing that they were laughing about on the Facebook group then the other thing is this next one from Andrew posted it on the Facebook group which is a entering class profile for Florida State University College of the law yeah and I just thought some of these stats were were pretty funny yeah they were specifically they were laughing about eight hundred ninety seven years of combined total years of work experience in the incoming class total I don't never understand that like when people say oh come work with our team we have a combined combined experience of over 50 years it's like what is okay like all there's 50 people here and they've all been working on this project for a year you know that's not super helpful how long the individuals have experienced anyways sorry now there's also what has to be an error on here it says first generation law 15% yeah that's crazy what 85% of your class are second generation law students eighty-five percent of the class is yeah coming from their mom and dad are lawyers there's no way yeah. what does that mean they're first generation like in this country our first generation graduate you know like getting a graduate degree or something I don't know I thought that it could be that 15% of them are first-generation undergrads yes yeah that's one thing that it could mean but there's no way in hell it's first generation because if it's if it's what we were saying the first instance which I think everybody would normally read it as oh wow. 85% of the class has family that are lawyers or parents right but there's no way that that's possibly the case that would be read a very depressing notion that would be yeah okay anyway there's some just random shit that law law schools think they want to send you yeah 31% have traveled abroad I know already saw that too I was laughing about that who's like 31% went to spring break in Cabo alright yeah though I don't I don't get it yeah I don't get it okay moving on yeah let's move on oh we got a LSAT question hell yeah all right let's do this oh I guess I'll read this I love how it's got some words I know I know I won't be able to pronounce where is this from this is from the June 2007 LSAT you can find that by just googling June 2007 that will pop up as a free PDF from El sack then we're in section 3 and we're looking at question 25 this is a logical reasoning question if you want if you're not driving stop and go do this question and then follow on yep okay. here's what it says some anthropologists argue that the human species could not have survived prehistoric times if the species had not evolved the ability to cope with diverse natural environments okay. all right now I'm thinking to myself this is what some anthropologists argue in other words that's what some other people think and I think that we wouldn't have made it if we didn't have this ability to cope with diverse natural environments which to me just means a variety of different kinds of weather or something like that hot cold dangerous not dangerous I wish I wish I could this is a good test for people I think like do you know what's coming next do you have an idea what's coming next because I feel something coming I feel something coming too I mean by starting out with this sentence some anthropologists argue yada yada it's possible that this person could say and they're right and here's why but in most cases they're gonna probably say I think they're wrong and here's why I think they're wrong yeah and I think smart asses will point out that the very next word is however. it's like well yeah there's the butt right there Nathan like who you know what's your point but my point is that you should if you're tuned in you should feel that coming it's a good test of whether you're you're doing this correctly because because you should you should have a pretty good idea that that's what's gonna happen next yeah okay cool. the next sentence however there is considerable evidence that I'm not even going to pronounce it. let's go Australopithecus Australopithecus perfect I see yeah I'm not is this is where I struggle and then the next word is something that starts with a. I'm just gonna say a a afarensis oh that's great dude a a there's considerable evidence that a a comma a prehistoric species related to early humans hmm okay. this this new species that we were introduced to is a prehistoric species that were related to early humans also thrived in a diverse array of environments but became extinct okay. they's they thrived in a random set of environments we survived or thrived in a random set of environments but these guys became extinct hence the anthropologists claim is false yeah this is I felt that common - yeah this is a well I don't know if you ever referred to it this is like a false contrapositive or you're confusing necessary and sufficient it's fucking up the contrapositive yep if you fuck up the contrapositive you have confused sufficient for necessary or necessary for sufficient I don't really know that you need to worry about that too much the difference between those two things nope you have you have fucked up the contrapositive and that is the else that's most common flaw and I knew they were gonna do it you know when they said just the way they put that together with however there's considerable evidence that a stir pull now I can't do it astral the Pittacus a forensics did thrive in a diverse array of environments but became extinct and I'm like oh no don't do it don't do it and then sure enough they do it and say yep therefore the anthropologist claim has to be false yeah. if you go back to the original claim the anthropologists argued that human species could not have survived if they had not evolved this ability to cope with adverse natural environments in other words if they wanted to survive then they had to have this ability to cope with a variety of environments that does not mean though that if they could cope with a wide variety of environments that they would survive it's not that this ability to cope guarantees survival it's something that is required for survival yep. the fact that this AAA species this prehistoric relative was able to survive or cope in in diverse environments and yet became extinct doesn't prove that that thing was not necessary it still could have been necessary it just wasn't sufficient that's right yep to say it again just different different way yep the anthropologists claim that this thing was necessary and then the speaker goes but because it's not sufficient therefore it's not necessary yeah and that makes no sense it's just a fancy version of the else that's most common flaw and this should be a relatively easy question if you're tuned into that most common flaw yeah and one thing that can help here is that the first sentence or the first claim is in if-then form it's not that claims that are in if-then form will always lead to a this kind of flaw confusing necessary and sufficient conditions but hey it's certainly prone to do that because we have an if-then statement and the person messed it up well I mean they just do it on every single test. yes you know this happens very frequently it's the first thing I think about when I see a conditional statement yeah it's just like okay don't don't fuck it up now which is how you do it every single time I mean actually I'm like okay I can't wait for you to fuck it up. that you can give me a free point that's what this would be sure lo and behold the question says their reasoning in the argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument whenever you see the phrase most vulnerable to criticism you know that you're looking at a flaw question which means you're going to be given five answer choices that describe the flaw and the correct answer has to be an answer choice that describes exactly what's happening in the argument and is a problem in the argument and we've already predicted the problem here this confusing necessary and sufficient conditions. we would expect that to be something in the correct answer and once again if we would have read the question stem first here it would have done absolutely no good for us because we spotted that flaw anyway and then they asked us about the flaw and that's easy and there was no value here to reading the question stem first if anything it would have just been more confusing that way sure hey does the argument confuse a conditions being required for a given result to occur in one case with the conditions being sufficient for such a result to occur in a similar case that sounds pretty good now that was he talking about yeah our case and then we're talking about a similar case in other words are prehistoric relatives. I would keep that open yeah I would be 99% but that's the answer sure absolutely B takes for granted that which just means necessarily assumes that if one species had a characteristic that happened to enable to it to survive certain condition at least one related extinct species must have had that same characteristic it doesn't assume that it had that characteristic a said that they did have that characteristic that they were able to cope in diverse natural environments. this is not describing what's happening and I would say it's out well it's just not trying to reach the conclusion that okay. this other extinct species must have had some same characteristic yeah it's like all the right words but the meaning of B is just not even close yeah okay C generalizes okay I'm already nervous because if you're gonna generalize from the fact that one species blah blah blah if you're generalizing from a fact that means your conclusion is a generalization and the here is that the anthropologist claim is false that's not a generalization that's a specific claim about the anthropologist claim. I'm inclined not to read the rest of this I don't think I would on the actual test the rest of it's wrong anywhere generalizes from the fact that one species with a certain characteristic survives certain conditions that all related species with the same characteristic must have survived exactly the same conditions no they never drew that conclusion this is wrong that would be a ridiculous thing to do yeah that would be a flaw but not the flaw here. it's not the fall here yeah good excellent D fails to consider the possibility that a a had one or more characteristics that lessened its chances of surviving prehistoric times okay it did fail to consider this possibility yeah it's not something that really matters because we're not talking about your chances of survival we're just saying they didn't survive and whether or not this thing was sufficient to guarantee their survival right yeah why it didn't survive it's just not the point the point is it had this one characteristic that the speaker said or the that the anthropologist said was necessary when the speaker says because they had this characteristic but they didn't survive therefore it's not sufficient and that's just misunderstanding the idea that mr. understanding the difference between necessary and sufficient whatever DS talking about is not that. it's not D yeah e fails to consider the possibility that even if a condition caused a result to occur in one case it was not necessary to cause the result to occur in a similar case even if a condition caused a result to occur in one case that's wrong at that point we don't know if any condition caused a result to occur all we know is that one condition is necessary but whether it causes is a totally different issue and we don't know that whether this case in our humans or in the pre our prehistoric ancestors. this is out I mean I guess they did fail to consider causation sure that's true for almost all answer choices that start with to consider the possibility right it's almost always the case that the argument did fail to consider the possibility the question just becomes is that a problem should they have considered it and in this case it doesn't matter whether they consider this or not because it's irrelevant to the conclusion good ok anything else to add to that note the difference between takes for granted that and fails to consider people sometimes think that those mean the same thing but they don't been said yeah takes for granted means necessarily assumes. it's part of their argument that must be true in order for their argument to make sense that's what takes for granted means fails to consider is just didn't talk about this yep didn't talk about it didn't think about it and that's usually the case but then the question becomes okay well should it right they have thought about it either one can be the answer yeah but in order for it takes for granted to be the right answer they have to have necessarily assumed this thing and you know like without justification or yeah necessarily assuming something that they should not necessarily assume in order for a fails to consider to be the answer it's something that they didn't talk about that would be a big problem if it were true. the big difference is would this be a problem if it were true or would be would it be a problem if it were false yeah right yeah it's like fails to consider the possibility answer choices are basically weakened or exactly it's not sort of like turns the question into a weakened or if that's the correct answer it's like well they didn't talk about this and if it's true it's a big problem yep with takes for granted it's yeah they necessarily assumed this and if this is false it's a problem yeah and. you can get rid of thanks for granted answer choices if they never even assumed it you're like even though they didn't assume this. this is not a bad assumption it doesn't matter it didn't happen yeah you could just say this is not a necessary assumption of the argument like this can be false without ruining the argument they did not necessarily assume this same for answer choices to start with presumes without providing justification the exact same thing that's also takes for granted yeah yeah yep cool all right. the answer is a cool that easy I mean I you know the the big s take away from all that is boy you could have made that a much much easier question if you would have just spotted that it was a sufficient and necessary flaw yeah it's on every test it's on every test multiple times you have to get tuned into that it's like free points yep and if you didn't spot it then now you're down there in the answer choices like trying to compare them all to one another and it's just like really really doing the test the hard way 100% I agree okay cool move on yeah you want to take this one yes says hey Ben and Nathan I posted in the Facebook group and received some feedback from numerous people wondering how to tackle the y-x law school essays I know it's not the most important factor but I believe it can show that you genuinely want the school and could potentially bump you if you're an on the fence applicant I attached my UC Irvine interest essay with the prompt below if this makes it on the podcast feel free to rip my essay to shreds and help a girl out you can also use my name if not give some tips on what to do thanks. here it is this is for UC Irvine and it says the prompt is we know that you have many options when applying to law school tell us why you are interested in the School of Law at the University of California Irvine what do you believe we have to offer you what will you bring to the School of Law how would your experiences and perspectives enhance and enrich the quality and breadth of our law school community please write a minimum of 350 words and a maximum of 500 words it says PS I'm a pretty tough crowd when it comes to humor and you guys make me genuinely laugh my ass off thanks for making this whole process fun and stimulating sure by the way I hate this prompt I do too I was gonna complain about it as well what do you hate about I hate that there are. many questions yeah I want to know from me you want to know why I want to go to your school or do you want to know why you should want me or like these are two totally different questions I mean it's in some ways they could overlap but well the first question what do you believe we have to offer you that's like okay clearly they want you to write about Irvine UC Irvine law specifically and why you're picking that school yeah. you're gonna have to come up with some reasons and you know to be honest you're gonna probably go on their website and pull up some shit about their school that's exactly what it is and. it kind of feels like a little like a bit of a a game like have you looked at us that much more than our ranking but really all law schools are very similar. does it matter that much but let's break it down why are they asking this question I think I know mmm to see if you're serious and therefore protect their yield yes this seems to be obvious yield protection they want to know if you're just applying to every school and you're gonna deny them they don't want to get shot down by you sure they don't wanna see feelings hurt yeah no they want to protect their yield and yield is you know how many of the people they admit how many people actually go to their school. they wanted to see if you're willing to jump through this one extra hoop because look at how specific it is to 350 words to 500 words mm-hmm and they want you to mention Irvine yeah. many people are not going to read that instruction many people aren't gonna care about it enough to actually follow those instructions yeah and. if you if they're on the fence about you they're gonna just deny you because well you you didn't you didn't do our you didn't do our special essay it's an easy way for them to try to filter out people who they think aren't gonna say yes to them yeah I kind of have a feeling it might have something to do with scholarship negotiations as well okay like if you tipped your hand here and said I have a baby and my mom lives in Orange County and I you see is my only choice yeah I think that might help your case for admissions and it would probably also hurt your case for scholarships mmm because they you start looking like you can't go anywhere else Yeah right that's if you're a borderline scholarship candidate to begin with yeah that make sense. that's that first question what do you believe we have to offer you but then Ben and I both got pissed when it said what will you bring to the School of Law it's like whoa wait a minute you did you read my personal statement yeah is that what are you wanting another personal statement like I'm gonna bring something different to a vine that I'm gonna bring to that's a stupid fucking question it's like well at Irvine I'm gonna make sure to bring my sunscreen because it's super nice whether in the OC I don't get it yeah I'm gonna make sure to bring my rich white entitled racism since the orange have you been to Orange County much Ben no it's a weird place well where did that what what oh the OSI is its it's weirdly conservative it's okay like Irvine specifically is is like sort of like very police heavy like it's it's like very it's very very clean put it that way okay well it's like it's uh yeah it's just like got a reputation for being like super white and conservative okay anyway I'm complaining about this dumb question they're they're they're going from I thought it was supposed to be about them now it's about me again yep and then this third question how would your experiences and perspectives enhance and enrich the quality and breadth of our law of our law school community that now sounds like they want a diversity statement or another personal statement yeah what else do you have to say about yourself this is just a writing tip and I see it in the personal statements that we're reviewing but people have trouble sometimes choosing like one of two words and it's rarely the case that that we need the completeness of having both words. how would your experiences and perspectives enhance and enrich like really not just enhance yeah just enrich but enhance and enrich as if as if one of those words adds meaning to this sentence that now I'm going to say more than I would have had just said enhance enrich the quality and breadth of our law school community okay just choose one of those words enhance quality or breath it doesn't really matter and I see this in law school statements people are like what was the one I just saw yesterday someone that we were working with a camera what they said but it was kind of like quality and breath and it's like you you just choose one dude to go with it this is hilarious they did it three times in one sentence how would your experiences and perspectives enhance and enrich the quality and breadth of our law school community it's like I mean what the question really is is how would your shit help our shit yep you know like what they're asking is it's an and it's like well you just asked what will you bring to the School of Law yeah what they want they want to know what they're getting what are we getting here I don't know make our community better done yeah yeah they go into this lawyer speak you know it's it's like the no tampering with disabling or something else the smoke detector in the lavatory on the plane it's like you could have just said don't fuck with the smoke detector yeah don't break it you didn't need to say no tampering with disabling or whatever I'd like come on it's just lawyers I wasn't disabling I was just tampering or I was tampering not diseased man that's okay you know I'm Lessing while we're on it the sentence before said what do you believe we have to offer you oh actually that's well anyways in it when you say you believe or whatever that's always implied what do we have to offer you well when you start saying what you think they have to offer you you're telling them what you think are you believe yeah right. whenever people say that in their personal statement it's almost always a cut yep that's right I agree I would like to contrast this prompt with the prompt that Dave sent us the other day yes. Dave another long one right but he thought he was looking at a y-x law school prompt that's true but I don't think he was I think he was just looking at a normal personal statement prompt. I agree there's times where if they're asking you to submit one essay if they're asking you for a personal statement and they happen to mention their own name in that prompt. Dave's won it was it was like well why are you interested in it was suffolk huh it was like tell us why you're applying to Suffolk law basically mm-hmm but that was part of their personal statement prompt yeah and Ben and I agreed that we didn't think that they actually cared that you mentioned Suffolk law it's just that they happen to like accidentally mentioned themselves mm-hmm does that make sense you you you did you felt that same way right yeah yeah yeah no exactly okay but this is different because this is a special essay with its own word count mm-hmm saying not only tell us why you're interested in the School of Law at the University of california-irvine that by itself doesn't do anything but the next sentence what do you believe we have to offer you at that point now you really do have to write about Irvine yeah do you think this is an optional essay yes sir oh it's optional I'm pretty sure yeah I mean these are normally optional I mean one thing is if your scores are high enough you and you're applying to a lot of schools and you don't really care about our vine then just skip this stuff no I wouldn't I if you're going to go through with the application if you're gonna pay the $45 l sac fee I mean either don't apply to the school or go ahead and do it I would say but I mean you could do it if you're like really a lawyer you could do this in two minutes right you go on their website you find some bullshit about some stupid program like whatever their marketing department is talking about on the website yeah right bobblehead collections the bobblehead collection would be actually perfect here you imagine like if you started talking about the like whimsy aspect of the school the whimsical nature they would love that they went there to get up yeah they would love that shit okay are we ready for this yeah we're ready okay first thing first this looks long Oh how many words is this no I'm gonna do the word count right now yeah this is gonna be the very first test here what has it been I got four hundred and eighty nine okay I might prefer something shorter it's a head it's a 350 to 500 although then again this person is answering one two three four questions taking it very seriously yeah okay well I mean they they knew that they were sending it into the show and we were gonna rip the shit out of it. oh we didn't get the name here. anyway whoever this person is it's a she she because that girl girl okay I knew I would start my career on the west coast from an early age oh no I hate it I hate it stop talking about your youth [Laughter] Irvine is on the west coast but there are dozens of schools on the west coast. that by itself doesn't really do much and yeah because you were a child oh my god okay cut that all right here we go being a Floridian the first time I saw a 200-foot Sequoia tree I fell in love with California and everything the West had to offer high taxes droughts that's why I was just thinking of things I loved about my home state I have to push back I mean I sequoia trees I don't think there's an e sequoias in Orange County I'm sorry that's a Northern California thing no that's well you know Sequoia National Park is kind of like south of Yosemite and people do go camping in Sequoia from here but I think it's a solid four hour drive from Irvine okay. I don't if you say Sequoia is I think the people in the office in Irvine are gonna be like um what yeah I'm thinking of redwoods I guess up north but anyway sorry yeah yeah Sequoia is a it's a brand of ro it is a redwood yeah there we go yeah that's why I'm confused okay got it being a Floridian the first time I saw a 200-foot Sequoia tree I fell in love with California and everything the West had to offer coastal beaches mountains forests snow and everything in between. why are you going to law school why not become a forest ranger yeah but besides location as my law school search narrowed eyes owned in on the University of California Irvine for the leading edge educational approaches and the rates of upward mobility inspiring students to succeed no matter their backgrounds while simultaneously giving back to the community that's not bad that's just some like probably bullshit boilerplate that you pulled off their website or something I'm sure they said that yeah and and anyway they're gonna they like to think that whether or not it's true they love they love to think leading-edge educational approaches and rates of upward mode and inspiring our students to succeed no matter their backgrounds while simultaneously giving back to the community that they'd like to hear that about themselves that's sure what would be I think more impressive though is if you could take their sort of vacuous BS and talk specifically about something that they're doing that's accomplishing these things mmm yeah just regurgitating marketing mumbo jumbo from their website because this is just like is are they what what do they mean when they say leading-edge do they mean cutting-edge educational approach to our leading edge is not a thing and. did you get this from their website and if you drilled into their website what what educational approaches are they actually taking are they actually leading-edge I suspect many of them are not but if there is one in there that is talk about that or when they talk about rates of upward mobility or is there a particular group that they felt like they've been successful with and are they actually successful with them compared to other law schools in their tier now that tiers are such a thing like I would really want to know are they successful in these things that they claim to be successful and talk about one that actually impresses you you're one you'll have more to say about it because you're impressed by it you know this next thing is actually a fact about the school. that's good the young age of the law school piqued my interest and as a racer misspelled I know yeah yeah peaked had spelled here P EA ke D it's not correct it's not like you're going to the peak I mean it makes sense that you would be at the peak of your interest but that's not the word the word is peaked piq you EDD it's also this is a symptom of like do you really speak that way yeah if you don't have written this if you don't speak that way then don't write that way because you'll end up making mistakes like that and as I researched the inaugural class I felt inspired and excited inspired and excited to join a school that began rooted in pro bono work and committed to public interest okay. there's facts about I mean whatever alleged facts about the school but what I'm sorry what is the young age of the law school have to do with its roots in pro bono work yeah public interest like you could just say hey the fact that you began with this kind of work is Right inspiring I kind of liked it that she was spitting out a fact about Irvine like that she knows that it's a new law school yeah but then again like the fact that it's a new law school is that why is that a selling point and it doesn't really have anything to do with the thing that she goes on to next with the program stuff all right as I read more alumni profiles I felt the graduates uh the word graduate apostrophe s as I read more alumni profiles I felt the Graduate apostrophe s genuine appreciation for their education and fondness of their time spent at UCI law okay I feel like this is look I did research let me show you that I did research yeah as opposed to actually doing research and figuring out something like so-and-so said this and that touched me because I have a family member who did this and was successful or something it's very vague they just have appreciation for their education yep and fondness for their time we're great we're the greatest administration since the first one what sets UCI apart for me is the characteristics publicly portrayed that not every Law School advertises or even claims to have civility mutual respect and overall basic kindness whoa wait those are all vague yeah but I mean if they're making a big deal about that on their website if they're like you know UCI is trying to brand itself as the like kinder gentler Law School or something yeah then okay I could see how you could say that I mean that sounds sounds like it must come from the website they must be advertising it yeah it's inspiring to see a law school with such a respected reputation and leading legal education to be connecting to real people with genuine characteristics it really feels like she's just trying to fill space here yeah it's like keep it short man you got to cut this way down like if it's 350 to 500 it just just get it up get it over 350 but but you got to cut out a lot of this just like filler or I mean dig into the substance like what why is she saying this is did she see an example of this I mean I realized that they're not making the best argument for themselves because they're just talking in market speak and they're using general proclamations of their greatness but if there really is greatness behind the proclamations then go find one or two examples that illustrate that and talk about that and how that hit you it will be easy to talk about too because you'll actually feel quote inspired and excited to talk about that agreed yeah there's no proper nouns in this first I mean there's no like you didn't name a professor you didn't name an alum you didn't talk about any particular pro bono program it's all just like these kind of platitudes and vagaries yeah you talk about a tree though you saw it true that's true we did get a Sequoia in there that's right which unfortunately is hours and hours away as a first-generation college student I am dedicated and no perseverance wait dude you skipped a sentence which has the same problem wait what the last end of the bow I believe UCI law can offer me a legal education that is not only intellectually challenging but genuinely enjoyable that's she's answering the what can we give you what do you believe it's like no shit that's what I'm trying to get a JD what do you think I'm trying to do and I think it'll be fun trying to get an education and I wouldn't do it if I thought I was gonna hate it. that's why I'm here yeah okay all right that's vague again um as a first-generation college student I am dedicated and no perseverance hmm. the list is broken it's not parallel I am dedicated and no perseverance yeah mmm I'm not even sure what that means you know perseverance like you know of it I've heard of it yeah my friends got a whole lot saying you know something is like if you say you like I know I know I know hunger if you say that that's like you've been hungry before yeah. I know perseverance it's like you've been perseverant before I guess but it's just and don't say that don't stop either way this is just a claim right there's no evidence here yeah I believe these traits are essential skills I can bring to UCLA UCI law along with feel intellectual curiosity that has motivated me to continue higher education okay. she's clearly like she's really following the directions here yeah which on the one hand I want to give her credit for but she just needs to tighten it way up and use more specifics and not all this just vague bullshit well the other thing is you have to realize that when people ask you questions they're not really asking you these questions directly they're idiots they don't realize that what they're really asking you to do is give them examples that show what they're asking you to say because they're saying please tell us why you believe you know you're great or whatever but that's not really what they're asking for they're asking you to give examples that show why you think you're great you give I'm saying is like the prompt is almost inviting her to tell instead of show right right right not yes and I think what they really want to hear about in this essay is about themselves not about you I don't I don't think they really meant you to be writing another personal statement yeah I think they wanted to know about Irvine and maybe why you're specifically a fit for Irvine but like if you're just gonna go with your generic traits of intellectual curiosity that has nothing to do with Irvine that's true like the only reason these questions are together even though they seem very different is that they want to see what you know about the school and therefore what you know you can contribute to the community because you're familiar with the community and. unlike your personal statement which could be sent to any school you have to think about something that would contribute to this school given the fact that they have the community that they have yeah and I might I might actually in if I were this particular applicant I might talk about I mean just one idea would be I'm from Florida I'm gonna bring a diverse perspective to Orange County my god I'm from a different place I'm from the entire different part of the country entire different side of the country that would be a way of a way of answering their question in you know like genuinely yeah not that that's like a Wow holy shit you're from Florida but like you're at least recognizing that like I am coming across country to come to your law school I was thinking that the the school apparently prides itself on being kind or nice yeah choose one thing and then talk about how you would add to that characteristic of their community and absolutely yeah yep that would be great I believe my experience stop saying I believe even though it said in the prompt I believe it asked do you believe she is she kidding with this next sentence I don't know I don't know hold on I was looking back at the prompt for just a second yeah okay hold on I believe my experiences and perspectives can enhance the law school community by embracing the rooted characteristics of the school I thought she might be joking with this end it's cuz she's like basically quoting them verbatim she'd should she forgot to include the word enriched I believe my experiences and perspectives can enhance and enrich yeah she's you know she's a good like you can tell that she's like a um like a diligent earnest serious applicant she is following the directions yeah and you know they're gonna give you some bonus for that although it the result is a just unreadable mush of an essay that doesn't have a point mm-hmm specifically the pre-law outreach program P o P coma helping students from disadvantaged backgrounds prepare for law school , demonstrated the type of culture I want to be a part of I don't know why that's in the past tense demonstrates or illustrates the type of culture that I want to be a part of why does it illustrates that what do they do also you don't need to do pop P o P no you don't and you can just say we're gonna use it again you could just say I plan to take advantage of the pre-law outreach program yes that would show what you're gonna do and how that ties in to what you value okay coming from a disadvantaged background myself I know the advantages of peer mentoring and networking just cut that sentence entirely the ability to give that to another student inspires me as my admiration for UCI law grows let's lay it on a little thick haha I love you I love your law school and I will promote you to everyone I meet I have this feeling inside of me it's it's growing the spark okay I didn't know what it was at first. now it's just just it's grown into something more moreover I hold in high regard you see eyes interdisciplinary approach in their curriculum recognizing and adapting to a changing world where law interacts and is dependent upon a variety of disciplines who whole thing is. vague in just generalizations it's vague that sentence is way too long you're like you notice it one tip is you should read your stuff out loud and when you notice that you're like running out of breath at the end of a sentence that means the sentence is too long yeah or if you get tripped up in your own sentence that's a problem you know that this but the sentence is just broken because the subject of the sentence is supposed to be I right mm-hmm moreover I hold in high regard you see is interdisciplinary approach in their curriculum , recognizing and adapting to a changing way hold on who's losing the action yeah who's recognizing and who's adapting you or the curriculum or the people who create the curriculum and then it goes in a changing world where law interacts and is independent upon a variety of disciplines. now law we've got another subject popping up here. first of all the school is being described as having an interdisciplinary approach and then the school is recognizing and adapting to a changing world where law interacts and is dependent upon now law is a subject law interacts is dependent upon a variety of discipline what the fuck is that sentence by the way clear writing and clear thinking are deeply connected. if you're having trouble articulating what you want to say it's very possible that you don't know exactly what you want to say you have some vague notion of what you think is going on but if you're struggling to write that it might be the case that you just need to think about what you're actually trying to say yeah there's a concept I mean she's she's trying to answer all of their stupid questions in their stupid prompt and I think she should focus on the first question why a vine yeah and I think she should answer that in one sentence and then flush it out and connect herself to that but by if you have a sincere response as to why you want or why you're impressed by them that will inevitably or should connect to you in some way shape or form because if that is what is attracting you to them there's something about it that relates to you I am particularly attracted to UC Irvine because of the pre-law outreach program period yep I intend not only to benefit from this program before I start law school but to give back to the UC Irvine community by participating as a peer mentor in my later years of school or whatever yeah I was most impressed by. and. who did XYZ as that's what happened to me or that's similar to my background or something I come from blah blah blah and I know that our vines the environment of civility mutual respect and overall basic kindness will blah blah blah all those sentences by the way are starting with the word I yeah and not I believe just I am I want I plan I will that would be much better yeah even that thing you quoted civility mutual respect and overall basic kindness this is again their problem with having trouble choosing a word just choose one word yeah right like one civility or respect or kindness what's the fucking difference yeah yeah yep I agree with my environmental science degree , I hope to bring to UCL UCI law a unique perspective of an environmental scientist and use my degree specific knowledge to launch myself and my peers deeper into our work in the Environmental Law Clinic learning different litigation and policy matters oh by the way this is a random side note but she references UCI law a lot you don't have to say their school name over and over again you can also just say your school or the law school to vary it up yeah she could definitely mix it up I mean you don't want to put it in there more than once probably for this type of essay just because it's like it is a school specific thing and they want to they want to know that you're actually talking about them but I mean you are all. when it says she later it says UC Irvine I like this. much more than UCI law yeah me too anyways um this again i okay i don't like starting that sentence with with mm-hmm that's a very that's like bad writing almost always when people start a sentence with with sure because people do it this way with my this then they say the actual subject mm-hmm it's like just start with the subject of the sentence she says the word unique which people just really have their privileges revoked on that yeah and then I hope to bring to UCI law a unique perspective of an environmental scientist if anything it feels like it should be the unique perspective but I hmm it just needs to be shorter it needs to be tighter you got to get you got to get more declarative and you gotta you gotta have shorter sentences like you don't need to say all this it's more down do you have a unique perspective just say as an environmental scientist I'm excited I look forward to working in the environmental automatic right period and this like comma learning different litigation and policy matters what what is that what is that even about what what are you doing are you just putting in words the variety of issues in the clinic students were able to engage in comma enforcing the Clean Water Act comma assisting coastal communities for climate change comma and protecting desert lands against development and exploitation comma all helped solidify UC Irvine as my top law school choice you want an essay pick one of those things and write about it and then pick another one and write about it there's a ton of stuff in here oh the first like to Thursday's essay are all vague mumbo-jumbo here we actually have some details what about these things did you actually like talk about those that would say why you like the school and they would tell us about you and how you fit into that school I feel like this essay finally started it's just ending yeah like the Environmental Law Clinic we're learning about that right now and we're learning about that she's an environmental scientist I hate this sentence I hate that the subject of this sentence is the variety of issues yeah the variety of issues helped solidify UC Irvine as my top law school choice yeah pick one really is it the variety of issues that they're doing that that's what really helps boy I'm. but that variety yeah I was really doing it for me no it's not it's one thing if there's a thing there that you that you're passionate about or that you're experienced in if accepted I will happily join UCI law immediately and to begin my education with a school I believe fits my character skillset and intellectual curiosity best cut yeah and and also like why are you promising that you're gonna just say yes right away please don't give me scholarship money I'm ready right that's that's like you tell your crush that you would just I would marry you right on the spot like oh if you gave me a chant if you if you just would give me a date I'll do anything for you it's like mmm mmm not interested anymore yeah I think okay. take aways from all of this thank you very much for sending this in girl without a name we we really appreciate it it needs to be tightened up it needs a thesis I mean it's like go back to your like junior high days of writing and when they like made you have a like thesis sentence cuz this is all over the place and it just doesn't like it doesn't I don't know what do you think Ben I agree I'm just stepping back and thinking about this and thinking about all the statements that we keep reading on the show off the show and it surprises me how much people do have to say there are things from their life that would be interesting concrete and worthy of discussion and they somehow miss it all and they just stick to the general vague and uninformative it's like you're an environmental scientist well Wow like okay you can talk about how you're attracted to the overall basic kindness of the school but that seems like something that would be true for a lot of people um not necessarily maybe some people are interested in a cut-through at school but you're talking about the clean water act what do you know about that I just feel like people have. much to say that would be interesting but they don't know that that's interesting I mean if she's an environmental scientist she must have spent four years studying this there's got to be interesting stuff to talk about here what what have you done in this. lead with that and tie it to their Environmental Law Clinic if you want to sell it that way yeah lead with your first generation status and talk about their pre-law outreach program if you want to do it that way yeah exactly like how much could you say about that either waters generation yeah either one of those leave the when you're a little kid you love California leave that out of it anybody could say that and all these vague statements it's inspiring to see a law school with such a respected reputation and a legal leading legal education to be connecting real people with genuine characteristics what okay is that under percent what is what is that like what happened in who and why right it's not about you it's not interesting yep it's big yep that's all okay all right thanks very much for sending that in and letting us roast it yeah thank you it wasn't hilariously bad no I mean it was bad it was way too long and it was way too vague and it needed to have a focus and you need to basically start over I would say pick either the Environmental Law Clinic or the pre-law outreach program and just focused the whole thing on that mm-hmm and you'll be much better off should we leave it there I think we should yeah all right that was show number 161 thanks all y'all for listening nice knowing you don't fit for Law School

Episode 161: Bad LSAT Score? How to Move On.

hello and welcome to episode 161 of the thinking LSAT podcast in Vienna Virginia this is Ben Olsen with me as Nathan Fox in Los Angeles how's it going nation awesome man I'm excited for another excellent episode what are we talking about today we're gonna be talking about some I guess another we have another email about a disappointing LSAT score from the September LSAT and how to move forward from that we have some more dumb emails from law schools some snail mail to apparently we're going to go over a flaw question from the June 2007 LSAT. that's a logical reasoning question and we're parently gonna roast a white law school essay yeah we are Wow okay good you all can always email us at help at thinking LSAT calm we will not see those emails but Sarah will and she can help you out or annalisa will as well if you have not joined the facebook group the facebook group now has nine hundred and thirty nine members there's a lot of chatter over there people asking all sorts of questions all the time. it's a great resource I which I never shut up I'm gonna have to filter those emails out of my inbox I get. many notifications now from the thinking LSAT podcast we've already put you wait you get facebook emails I might add stupid for that I used to get those and I was like stop this ridiculousness like I'm just go into the app yeah I mean well basically I just don't go into the app very often but I enjoy I mean in fact the only thing I ever do on Facebook now is the thinking else that podcast group because you know there are like buddies in there and they're laughing about our stupid jokes. it's fun to check in and see what they're talking about we're getting a lot of the content from the show now for the show from the Facebook group. that that actually is really good. I like those notifications for that purpose but yeah it does seem a little bit oppressive when it's like every single comment that every person makes and you get email notifications for Nathan if you want to blow up Nathan's inbox continue posting posting of anything else that podcast group yeah and make sure to tag him yeah you can always tweet us at thinking Elsa you can tweet Nathan and Fox and Mia Olson Benjamin we both provide Elsa classes and tutoring and online courses I am at strategy prep comm Nathan is at Fox Elsa calm I'm in DC Nathan is in LA and San Francisco we also have a joint project it's the Elsa demon you can go to LSAT demon comm basically it's a tool to practice LSAT questions on the go and get our explanations both of our explanations are in there and the demon tracks your progress and tries to figure out what questions it should give you based on how well you're doing. the difficulty can go up and down as you work through those questions speaking of joint projects we also have a class coming up in Chicago October 20th and 21st by the time you listen to this it's probably almost close of registration for that wouldn't you say Ben yeah it is getting close that's gonna be exciting and then you said some cool places that we were gonna go for eating and I already forgot them but I'm excited to go and I will just depend on you to tell me where to go when we arrive yeah all and I'll announce that via the Facebook group and an email out everybody sometime before we go. that everybody knows where we're gonna meet up for beers on Friday night yeah and that's where is that again the class the class is at DePaul University Lincoln Park campus it's a cool part of town on the north side up by Wrigleyville the Cubs are in a one-game wildcard playoff. the Cubs may or may not be in the playoffs I'm hoping that the Cubs are gonna still be sticking around in the playoffs because it'll be super fun to be in that part of the world while the Cubs are in the playoffs yeah that's cool yeah if you are familiar with your pre-law Society or connected to it in any way please have them connect with us the email is odd cast at thinking LSAT calm again that's podcast at thinking LSAT calm it's also for like newsletter like if you have a pre-law newsletter or sometimes like maybe your political science department has a newsletter that goes out that's popular or maybe you just have a an advisor a pre-law advisor who you think could benefit from knowing us please email podcast at thinking LSAT calm and we will send them some goodies. that we can introduce ourselves yeah we've received a lot of reviews on iTunes we have three hundred and forty four ratings and ninety six reviews we appreciate it very much if you liked the show just head over to iTunes hit five stars tell people why you like the show the last five reviews are all good too we got like five good ones in a row. it's been one yeah we need one of those you know those like workplace it's 210 days since the last like decapitation or whatever signs that they have you know yeah yeah sure wow that would Wow that would be disturbing okay we've got like we've got like two months since our last bad review on iTunes. I'll try to say something super offensive today we'll get that back to zero all right yeah thank you I appreciate that yeah how many days yeah that's what we have two new staff that we should have on here. right now it's two weeks I think it's more like two months yes now we're like baiting people to go in there okay you can also listen to the podcast on YouTube if that's your thing right now there are 385 subscribers on YouTube unfortunately you will not see either of us on YouTube you will just see a nice thinking LSAT logo which is a kid in red glasses by the way that image is just a random stock photography image that we found at the very beginning of the show when we had no idea that people would actually subscribe to us. hope you like that image but I hope you liked our theme music which is also a random stock sound clip that we bought for like $10 I got I picked it because I thought it sounded like dr. dre and I'm a fan. that's there you go okay cool we have 191 followers on Instagram that is just our handle is that what they say that our Instagram username is thinking LSAT and ELISA posts cool things there she's becoming more active on that I noticed the other day and it's really neat. thank you Anna Lisa you can also find me on instagram at innovator Ben or Nathan at Fox LSAT we have 36 patrons donated on patreon one hundred and forty three dollars every month that's very helpful thank you. much that covers 14% of our monthly costs we have now hit oh I this is a new stat I like this 1 million 28,000 630 downloads. by the way does this count all downloads across all platforms are just iTunes I think it's all downloads across all platforms hmm and then we have to do the multiplier how many f-bombs per show say four f-bombs per show yeah and we need to divide that by host I think. it's uh it's yeah good because that means you get half of them and I that decreases my actual number. I would say four I wasn't saying automatically I was saying like divide out the data right. oh you want to know anything f-bombs and bent f-bombs that would be good it's gonna be something like 3 to 4 million Nathan f-bombs and more like let's see you've probably said it four times total well no way I think it is more than that and you'll see if we had a graph it would be this like plateau of zero forever for no huge spike in yeah it's a form of cheap therapy you know to deal with life changes all right. then if you're into LinkedIn there is a LinkedIn thinking else that podcast group it has 70 members and it's moderated by Ezra who is the infamous author of the man with kind eyes. if you'd like to chat it up with Ezra go to the Facebook group or LinkedIn and check it out beautiful yeah all right man we didn't I didn't know I don't know what's going on in your life we just jumped into those stats but I'm sure I'll find out as we talk about these things for example I just learned that you get email notifications from Facebook yeah I I don't know man what's going on with me I I just I have a very busy month of travel coming up I'm flying to New Orleans tomorrow to go to my friend Nicky and Danielle's wedding in New Orleans on Thursday. there's gonna be a lot of boozing that's gonna happen on the next three or four days of my life okay I well then I've got the next three weekends after that our San Francisco Chicago San Francisco for me. I've got four weekends in a row of flying around all over the place other than that I am super super into dungeons dragons like super into it like check this out my mom and my niece came and visited me I think I mentioned that on the last show yeah and on Friday night we were looking for something to do just kind of bumming around after dinner and I started a little Dungeons & Dragons game with my mom and my niece as the players and I was like master and my niece went apeshit she lost her mind about how awesome Dungeons & Dragons is and then we ended up playing a little bit more on Saturday and a little bit more on Sunday Wow wait how old is your niece again she's like 11 11 yeah okay when you talk about Dungeons & Dragons I think about my friend who ran a shop when we were in high school that sold those kind of cards there's cars right or something yeah you might be thinking a magic oh shoot okay nevermind that's okay yeah he's magic it says it's it's all nerd shit it's fine it's all I've never played magic but DNG is the just greatest game of all time it's. if you like dee dee is like an old game it is but it's it's also like very popular people it's having a resurgence or even popular all along I defy you to find someone who plays who has played D&D and doesn't like it it's just like everybody that I I was at the bar this like super cool like hipster bar here in Los Feliz the other day with my friend and we were geeking out sitting at the bar talking about Dungeons & Dragons and the super cool hipster like looks like punk-rock bartender is like hey you guys talking about Dungeons and Dragons yeah I write for a Dungeons & Dragons newsletter it's like immediately like giving us a free shot because of how we were talking about Dungeons & Dragons at the bar yeah okay cool man yeah what's up with you Oh life is good I was just playing some basketball whoa and by myself I didn't know you were a baller I don't know that I am I just have a hoop in my driveway. and I have a basketball. sometimes I go out there and shoot hoops were you practicing your sweet post moves well okay apparently I'm not a baller because I'm not sure what you mean by that don't worry about it don't worry about it come on tell me I got to learn at least one new word post post move if you're practicing your post moves you would be like sort of standing a few feet away from the basket maybe with your back to the basket and practicing like a little little Negron step little turn around a little crab job yeah all the little they have kids do the little drills you know. that you can practice like okay from this block I'm gonna make this move and from this block well you need to have all the moves if you're gonna be a true true baller but yeah you can I could show you a couple maybe maybe if we find a man that'd be sweet if we found a basketball hoop in Chicago yeah okay the little pickup game with the class that would be interesting that'd be hilarious do that yeah. I was just practicing shooting and then I was trying to do that before I came to the podcast you know uh-huh and you can't end on a missed shot correct. then I kept trying to shoot fast and of course I kept missing and I'm like this is kind of like the LSAT I guess I'm just rushing here yeah I slowed down and I after like 30 misses. you're shooting resources or 3-pointers or what I just kind of read them all over the place I am I'm not that bad of a shot really I'd say I make half of them and I'm shooting from pretty far away but um yeah it was really bad at the end because I wanted to come inside but I couldn't come in after missing that's why you have to quit early that's why you have to that's why you have to end on a good one right yeah you make make one or make a couple in a row and then just be like yep and then walk off I'm done yeah well uh do you want read this first snail mail it looks like well okay. I wanted to talk about there I put a bullet point about how to move forward from a disappointing September 2018 LSAT there's no email for this one it's just an agenda item that I wanted to talk about yeah how many phone calls and emails are you getting right now with people asking you what they should do Oh a good number yeah yeah like. many everybody this time of year I mean we have some people who are celebrating like yeah I killed the damn rails at my school or came back and I'm ready to go to school now it's okay good good for you yep but we also are hearing like oh shit I fucked up what do I do. I'm sure we've talked about this a million times but I just want to make sure we cover it again right now because it's timely but yeah the September test was a released LSAT yeah if you took the test you got your test back when they sent you your score you probably didn't even look at it that's what most people do they look at the score and that's it yeah. what should they do they should dig in and figure out where they got questions wrong and why they think they got them wrong yeah it's it's like people want to like reach out and go where do I go from here and I'm like well tell me what you were struggling with on that test why did you miss points on that test and it's funny how often they will have like oh I don't know at all yeah or they'll have just a broad like well I missed six on reading comprehension and I missed a total of twelve on logical reasoning and I missed an entire game yep and then it's like okay good a step in the right direction but why did you miss those points what specifically like let's talk about okay logical reasoning what questions did you miss when when you looked back at them when you reviewed them is it do you remember what you were thinking or like can you get it right now or like is there a certain question type you're missing a lot of or what's going on why did you miss that question and I just it's super consistent I get there's something in human nature that people just don't want to do that review and that is the clear and really only first step if you if you're trying to figure out how to move forward from a September crash yeah what happened did you miss the points and throughout the section or did you miss them all at the end those sort of things can tell you a little bit about how you took the test officially a lot of times when you're talking about crash you're talking about someone who scored lower or even sometimes a lot lower on the official test then their practice test scores led them to believe they would score. I can understand why they're panicking but it's it's it's just another test. you just need to go in and do some investigation and figure out what it was about test day that led you astray and like you said if you redo these questions because else AK does give you the whole test and you don't find them that challenging now then most likely you just rushed or did you even miss Bob well I mean I had someone who was scoring between 158 and 162 and she got a 142 which is. off that it's like hold on you you can't just say you can't do the test or there is something like maybe you miss bubbled do you have any idea and like you're saying she had not looked at it at all it just they just look at the score and that's it yeah. I wanted to make a pitch here for private tutoring actually if you're struggling to figure out why you had such a September LSAT that is a perfect opportunity you know maybe you need a little bit of motivation maybe you can't bear to face it on your own one tutoring session to go over that one test it has the potential to be transformative there's no guarantee but it's possible that if you sit down with Ben and look at that test I mean it's almost guaranteed that you sit down and look at that test and Ben is gonna tell you something that you're gonna be you know change your thinking about the test yeah and likewise if you work with me or likewise if you work with one of our tutors. consider doing that if you want a book with me it's Fox LSAT you can book me and you'll be able to put yourself right on to my calendar I do have openings for one-on-one tutoring. if you'd like to you know get crackin right now on your November retake or on your January retake or whatever it is let's sit down and do that and Ben if they want to reach out to you about tutoring how do they do that just a strategy prep calm and follow the stuff for tutoring yeah I mean especially if your practice test scores were higher and you did them timed you just need to figure out how to think about the test or your approach as you're taking the test officially fix it and bam you can take the next test you don't have to do as much as people think they do I think sometimes right yeah I you hear a lot of like well I I just think November's too soon. I'm gonna put it off till January yeah and I'm like wait I thought you were ready to take the test in September if you were ready to take the test in September I understand it didn't work out for you but if you were ready if your practice test scores were indicating that you're ready then you should also be ready to take it in November I mean yeah chip away at it a little bit every day like we're always talking about okay anyway I want to move on yep okay cool. what is this who is this this is amazing and we can post these in the newsletter because this first one Meghan already posted it on the Facebook group I assume if she can post it on the Facebook group we could post it out into the newsletter yeah or on thinking else that calm but this they sent her I oh I guess that's not snail mail I guess that's just an email it looks like oh really I thought this was snail mail. this is like a pamphlet or something this email okay well because that business card really confused me anyway what we're looking at here there's two images yeah and even is this the first one is a it's from Falkner law which apparently is in Montgomery Alabama and it has makin her first and last name and then it says attorney at law and then it says her last name and law office calm and it's a business card it was a fake business card yeah I don't know they that's it that's a stock photography they didn't actually send that to her that's it that's just a like a randomly generated oh no no I don't think that the the business card was sent to her I just think this this may be been was printed oh and then she photographed it yeah I'm see I'm seeing the top of the page there I think either way it's just such a stupid little gimmick come to Faulkner law and you could have a business card that looks like this people on the Facebook group we're busting on it including the fact that it doesn't say Esquire which probably any attorney would have on their business card yeah then the second thing is far more confusing yeah it's is that her holding it. now I think that that might be a photograph of her holding this thing yeah which they sent her a pamphlet or a flyer which looks like a door to an office home again but then it has the Faulkner law logo on it. then that ruins the illusion that it's a door like an office door that doesn't look like an office door if it says Faulkner law school of law on it and then the slogan at the bottom with open your door of opportunity work lever open your door of opportunity exclamation point oh shit and they gave her a custom URL Wow babe they really boy they went the marketing department at fucking our laws just going for it how much does all this cost well what do you think they're charging. much tuition for yeah I mean that's what you're getting for your money because you're certainly not getting like actual you know services you're it's I don't know boy just feels like a big Ponzi scheme huh big some weird big pyramid yeah I mean they figure if they can get one more student they've paid for all this marketing effort yeah absolutely yeah one person who's like dumb enough to be like can you imagine being dumb enough to be like holy shit I could have a business card and an office door like that with my name on it I'm gonna go to Falkner law just there they're gonna give me what I want I want to be a lawyer yeah I'm gonna be a big fancy lawyer with a business card and it and door and everything okay. that's one thing that they were laughing about on the Facebook group then the other thing is this next one from Andrew posted it on the Facebook group which is a entering class profile for Florida State University College of the law yeah and I just thought some of these stats were were pretty funny yeah they were specifically they were laughing about eight hundred ninety seven years of combined total years of work experience in the incoming class total I don't never understand that like when people say oh come work with our team we have a combined combined experience of over 50 years it's like what is okay like all there's 50 people here and they've all been working on this project for a year you know that's not super helpful how long the individuals have experienced anyways sorry now there's also what has to be an error on here it says first generation law 15% yeah that's crazy what 85% of your class are second generation law students eighty-five percent of the class is yeah coming from their mom and dad are lawyers there's no way yeah. what does that mean they're first generation like in this country our first generation graduate you know like getting a graduate degree or something I don't know I thought that it could be that 15% of them are first-generation undergrads yes yeah that's one thing that it could mean but there's no way in hell it's first generation because if it's if it's what we were saying the first instance which I think everybody would normally read it as oh wow. 85% of the class has family that are lawyers or parents right but there's no way that that's possibly the case that would be read a very depressing notion that would be yeah okay anyway there's some just random shit that law law schools think they want to send you yeah 31% have traveled abroad I know already saw that too I was laughing about that who's like 31% went to spring break in Cabo alright yeah though I don't I don't get it yeah I don't get it okay moving on yeah let's move on oh we got a LSAT question hell yeah all right let's do this oh I guess I'll read this I love how it's got some words I know I know I won't be able to pronounce where is this from this is from the June 2007 LSAT you can find that by just googling June 2007 that will pop up as a free PDF from El sack then we're in section 3 and we're looking at question 25 this is a logical reasoning question if you want if you're not driving stop and go do this question and then follow on yep okay. here's what it says some anthropologists argue that the human species could not have survived prehistoric times if the species had not evolved the ability to cope with diverse natural environments okay. all right now I'm thinking to myself this is what some anthropologists argue in other words that's what some other people think and I think that we wouldn't have made it if we didn't have this ability to cope with diverse natural environments which to me just means a variety of different kinds of weather or something like that hot cold dangerous not dangerous I wish I wish I could this is a good test for people I think like do you know what's coming next do you have an idea what's coming next because I feel something coming I feel something coming too I mean by starting out with this sentence some anthropologists argue yada yada it's possible that this person could say and they're right and here's why but in most cases they're gonna probably say I think they're wrong and here's why I think they're wrong yeah and I think smart asses will point out that the very next word is however. it's like well yeah there's the butt right there Nathan like who you know what's your point but my point is that you should if you're tuned in you should feel that coming it's a good test of whether you're you're doing this correctly because because you should you should have a pretty good idea that that's what's gonna happen next yeah okay cool. the next sentence however there is considerable evidence that I'm not even going to pronounce it. let's go Australopithecus Australopithecus perfect I see yeah I'm not is this is where I struggle and then the next word is something that starts with a. I'm just gonna say a a afarensis oh that's great dude a a there's considerable evidence that a a comma a prehistoric species related to early humans hmm okay. this this new species that we were introduced to is a prehistoric species that were related to early humans also thrived in a diverse array of environments but became extinct okay. they's they thrived in a random set of environments we survived or thrived in a random set of environments but these guys became extinct hence the anthropologists claim is false yeah this is I felt that common - yeah this is a well I don't know if you ever referred to it this is like a false contrapositive or you're confusing necessary and sufficient it's fucking up the contrapositive yep if you fuck up the contrapositive you have confused sufficient for necessary or necessary for sufficient I don't really know that you need to worry about that too much the difference between those two things nope you have you have fucked up the contrapositive and that is the else that's most common flaw and I knew they were gonna do it you know when they said just the way they put that together with however there's considerable evidence that a stir pull now I can't do it astral the Pittacus a forensics did thrive in a diverse array of environments but became extinct and I'm like oh no don't do it don't do it and then sure enough they do it and say yep therefore the anthropologist claim has to be false yeah. if you go back to the original claim the anthropologists argued that human species could not have survived if they had not evolved this ability to cope with adverse natural environments in other words if they wanted to survive then they had to have this ability to cope with a variety of environments that does not mean though that if they could cope with a wide variety of environments that they would survive it's not that this ability to cope guarantees survival it's something that is required for survival yep. the fact that this AAA species this prehistoric relative was able to survive or cope in in diverse environments and yet became extinct doesn't prove that that thing was not necessary it still could have been necessary it just wasn't sufficient that's right yep to say it again just different different way yep the anthropologists claim that this thing was necessary and then the speaker goes but because it's not sufficient therefore it's not necessary yeah and that makes no sense it's just a fancy version of the else that's most common flaw and this should be a relatively easy question if you're tuned into that most common flaw yeah and one thing that can help here is that the first sentence or the first claim is in if-then form it's not that claims that are in if-then form will always lead to a this kind of flaw confusing necessary and sufficient conditions but hey it's certainly prone to do that because we have an if-then statement and the person messed it up well I mean they just do it on every single test. yes you know this happens very frequently it's the first thing I think about when I see a conditional statement yeah it's just like okay don't don't fuck it up now which is how you do it every single time I mean actually I'm like okay I can't wait for you to fuck it up. that you can give me a free point that's what this would be sure lo and behold the question says their reasoning in the argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument whenever you see the phrase most vulnerable to criticism you know that you're looking at a flaw question which means you're going to be given five answer choices that describe the flaw and the correct answer has to be an answer choice that describes exactly what's happening in the argument and is a problem in the argument and we've already predicted the problem here this confusing necessary and sufficient conditions. we would expect that to be something in the correct answer and once again if we would have read the question stem first here it would have done absolutely no good for us because we spotted that flaw anyway and then they asked us about the flaw and that's easy and there was no value here to reading the question stem first if anything it would have just been more confusing that way sure hey does the argument confuse a conditions being required for a given result to occur in one case with the conditions being sufficient for such a result to occur in a similar case that sounds pretty good now that was he talking about yeah our case and then we're talking about a similar case in other words are prehistoric relatives. I would keep that open yeah I would be 99% but that's the answer sure absolutely B takes for granted that which just means necessarily assumes that if one species had a characteristic that happened to enable to it to survive certain condition at least one related extinct species must have had that same characteristic it doesn't assume that it had that characteristic a said that they did have that characteristic that they were able to cope in diverse natural environments. this is not describing what's happening and I would say it's out well it's just not trying to reach the conclusion that okay. this other extinct species must have had some same characteristic yeah it's like all the right words but the meaning of B is just not even close yeah okay C generalizes okay I'm already nervous because if you're gonna generalize from the fact that one species blah blah blah if you're generalizing from a fact that means your conclusion is a generalization and the here is that the anthropologist claim is false that's not a generalization that's a specific claim about the anthropologist claim. I'm inclined not to read the rest of this I don't think I would on the actual test the rest of it's wrong anywhere generalizes from the fact that one species with a certain characteristic survives certain conditions that all related species with the same characteristic must have survived exactly the same conditions no they never drew that conclusion this is wrong that would be a ridiculous thing to do yeah that would be a flaw but not the flaw here. it's not the fall here yeah good excellent D fails to consider the possibility that a a had one or more characteristics that lessened its chances of surviving prehistoric times okay it did fail to consider this possibility yeah it's not something that really matters because we're not talking about your chances of survival we're just saying they didn't survive and whether or not this thing was sufficient to guarantee their survival right yeah why it didn't survive it's just not the point the point is it had this one characteristic that the speaker said or the that the anthropologist said was necessary when the speaker says because they had this characteristic but they didn't survive therefore it's not sufficient and that's just misunderstanding the idea that mr. understanding the difference between necessary and sufficient whatever DS talking about is not that. it's not D yeah e fails to consider the possibility that even if a condition caused a result to occur in one case it was not necessary to cause the result to occur in a similar case even if a condition caused a result to occur in one case that's wrong at that point we don't know if any condition caused a result to occur all we know is that one condition is necessary but whether it causes is a totally different issue and we don't know that whether this case in our humans or in the pre our prehistoric ancestors. this is out I mean I guess they did fail to consider causation sure that's true for almost all answer choices that start with to consider the possibility right it's almost always the case that the argument did fail to consider the possibility the question just becomes is that a problem should they have considered it and in this case it doesn't matter whether they consider this or not because it's irrelevant to the conclusion good ok anything else to add to that note the difference between takes for granted that and fails to consider people sometimes think that those mean the same thing but they don't been said yeah takes for granted means necessarily assumes. it's part of their argument that must be true in order for their argument to make sense that's what takes for granted means fails to consider is just didn't talk about this yep didn't talk about it didn't think about it and that's usually the case but then the question becomes okay well should it right they have thought about it either one can be the answer yeah but in order for it takes for granted to be the right answer they have to have necessarily assumed this thing and you know like without justification or yeah necessarily assuming something that they should not necessarily assume in order for a fails to consider to be the answer it's something that they didn't talk about that would be a big problem if it were true. the big difference is would this be a problem if it were true or would be would it be a problem if it were false yeah right yeah it's like fails to consider the possibility answer choices are basically weakened or exactly it's not sort of like turns the question into a weakened or if that's the correct answer it's like well they didn't talk about this and if it's true it's a big problem yep with takes for granted it's yeah they necessarily assumed this and if this is false it's a problem yeah and. you can get rid of thanks for granted answer choices if they never even assumed it you're like even though they didn't assume this. this is not a bad assumption it doesn't matter it didn't happen yeah you could just say this is not a necessary assumption of the argument like this can be false without ruining the argument they did not necessarily assume this same for answer choices to start with presumes without providing justification the exact same thing that's also takes for granted yeah yeah yep cool all right. the answer is a cool that easy I mean I you know the the big s take away from all that is boy you could have made that a much much easier question if you would have just spotted that it was a sufficient and necessary flaw yeah it's on every test it's on every test multiple times you have to get tuned into that it's like free points yep and if you didn't spot it then now you're down there in the answer choices like trying to compare them all to one another and it's just like really really doing the test the hard way 100% I agree okay cool move on yeah you want to take this one yes says hey Ben and Nathan I posted in the Facebook group and received some feedback from numerous people wondering how to tackle the y-x law school essays I know it's not the most important factor but I believe it can show that you genuinely want the school and could potentially bump you if you're an on the fence applicant I attached my UC Irvine interest essay with the prompt below if this makes it on the podcast feel free to rip my essay to shreds and help a girl out you can also use my name if not give some tips on what to do thanks. here it is this is for UC Irvine and it says the prompt is we know that you have many options when applying to law school tell us why you are interested in the School of Law at the University of California Irvine what do you believe we have to offer you what will you bring to the School of Law how would your experiences and perspectives enhance and enrich the quality and breadth of our law school community please write a minimum of 350 words and a maximum of 500 words it says PS I'm a pretty tough crowd when it comes to humor and you guys make me genuinely laugh my ass off thanks for making this whole process fun and stimulating sure by the way I hate this prompt I do too I was gonna complain about it as well what do you hate about I hate that there are. many questions yeah I want to know from me you want to know why I want to go to your school or do you want to know why you should want me or like these are two totally different questions I mean it's in some ways they could overlap but well the first question what do you believe we have to offer you that's like okay clearly they want you to write about Irvine UC Irvine law specifically and why you're picking that school yeah. you're gonna have to come up with some reasons and you know to be honest you're gonna probably go on their website and pull up some shit about their school that's exactly what it is and. it kind of feels like a little like a bit of a a game like have you looked at us that much more than our ranking but really all law schools are very similar. does it matter that much but let's break it down why are they asking this question I think I know mmm to see if you're serious and therefore protect their yield yes this seems to be obvious yield protection they want to know if you're just applying to every school and you're gonna deny them they don't want to get shot down by you sure they don't wanna see feelings hurt yeah no they want to protect their yield and yield is you know how many of the people they admit how many people actually go to their school. they wanted to see if you're willing to jump through this one extra hoop because look at how specific it is to 350 words to 500 words mm-hmm and they want you to mention Irvine yeah. many people are not going to read that instruction many people aren't gonna care about it enough to actually follow those instructions yeah and. if you if they're on the fence about you they're gonna just deny you because well you you didn't you didn't do our you didn't do our special essay it's an easy way for them to try to filter out people who they think aren't gonna say yes to them yeah I kind of have a feeling it might have something to do with scholarship negotiations as well okay like if you tipped your hand here and said I have a baby and my mom lives in Orange County and I you see is my only choice yeah I think that might help your case for admissions and it would probably also hurt your case for scholarships mmm because they you start looking like you can't go anywhere else Yeah right that's if you're a borderline scholarship candidate to begin with yeah that make sense. that's that first question what do you believe we have to offer you but then Ben and I both got pissed when it said what will you bring to the School of Law it's like whoa wait a minute you did you read my personal statement yeah is that what are you wanting another personal statement like I'm gonna bring something different to a vine that I'm gonna bring to that's a stupid fucking question it's like well at Irvine I'm gonna make sure to bring my sunscreen because it's super nice whether in the OC I don't get it yeah I'm gonna make sure to bring my rich white entitled racism since the orange have you been to Orange County much Ben no it's a weird place well where did that what what oh the OSI is its it's weirdly conservative it's okay like Irvine specifically is is like sort of like very police heavy like it's it's like very it's very very clean put it that way okay well it's like it's uh yeah it's just like got a reputation for being like super white and conservative okay anyway I'm complaining about this dumb question they're they're they're going from I thought it was supposed to be about them now it's about me again yep and then this third question how would your experiences and perspectives enhance and enrich the quality and breadth of our law of our law school community that now sounds like they want a diversity statement or another personal statement yeah what else do you have to say about yourself this is just a writing tip and I see it in the personal statements that we're reviewing but people have trouble sometimes choosing like one of two words and it's rarely the case that that we need the completeness of having both words. how would your experiences and perspectives enhance and enrich like really not just enhance yeah just enrich but enhance and enrich as if as if one of those words adds meaning to this sentence that now I'm going to say more than I would have had just said enhance enrich the quality and breadth of our law school community okay just choose one of those words enhance quality or breath it doesn't really matter and I see this in law school statements people are like what was the one I just saw yesterday someone that we were working with a camera what they said but it was kind of like quality and breath and it's like you you just choose one dude to go with it this is hilarious they did it three times in one sentence how would your experiences and perspectives enhance and enrich the quality and breadth of our law school community it's like I mean what the question really is is how would your shit help our shit yep you know like what they're asking is it's an and it's like well you just asked what will you bring to the School of Law yeah what they want they want to know what they're getting what are we getting here I don't know make our community better done yeah yeah they go into this lawyer speak you know it's it's like the no tampering with disabling or something else the smoke detector in the lavatory on the plane it's like you could have just said don't fuck with the smoke detector yeah don't break it you didn't need to say no tampering with disabling or whatever I'd like come on it's just lawyers I wasn't disabling I was just tampering or I was tampering not diseased man that's okay you know I'm Lessing while we're on it the sentence before said what do you believe we have to offer you oh actually that's well anyways in it when you say you believe or whatever that's always implied what do we have to offer you well when you start saying what you think they have to offer you you're telling them what you think are you believe yeah right. whenever people say that in their personal statement it's almost always a cut yep that's right I agree I would like to contrast this prompt with the prompt that Dave sent us the other day yes. Dave another long one right but he thought he was looking at a y-x law school prompt that's true but I don't think he was I think he was just looking at a normal personal statement prompt. I agree there's times where if they're asking you to submit one essay if they're asking you for a personal statement and they happen to mention their own name in that prompt. Dave's won it was it was like well why are you interested in it was suffolk huh it was like tell us why you're applying to Suffolk law basically mm-hmm but that was part of their personal statement prompt yeah and Ben and I agreed that we didn't think that they actually cared that you mentioned Suffolk law it's just that they happen to like accidentally mentioned themselves mm-hmm does that make sense you you you did you felt that same way right yeah yeah yeah no exactly okay but this is different because this is a special essay with its own word count mm-hmm saying not only tell us why you're interested in the School of Law at the University of california-irvine that by itself doesn't do anything but the next sentence what do you believe we have to offer you at that point now you really do have to write about Irvine yeah do you think this is an optional essay yes sir oh it's optional I'm pretty sure yeah I mean these are normally optional I mean one thing is if your scores are high enough you and you're applying to a lot of schools and you don't really care about our vine then just skip this stuff no I wouldn't I if you're going to go through with the application if you're gonna pay the $45 l sac fee I mean either don't apply to the school or go ahead and do it I would say but I mean you could do it if you're like really a lawyer you could do this in two minutes right you go on their website you find some bullshit about some stupid program like whatever their marketing department is talking about on the website yeah right bobblehead collections the bobblehead collection would be actually perfect here you imagine like if you started talking about the like whimsy aspect of the school the whimsical nature they would love that they went there to get up yeah they would love that shit okay are we ready for this yeah we're ready okay first thing first this looks long Oh how many words is this no I'm gonna do the word count right now yeah this is gonna be the very first test here what has it been I got four hundred and eighty nine okay I might prefer something shorter it's a head it's a 350 to 500 although then again this person is answering one two three four questions taking it very seriously yeah okay well I mean they they knew that they were sending it into the show and we were gonna rip the shit out of it. oh we didn't get the name here. anyway whoever this person is it's a she she because that girl girl okay I knew I would start my career on the west coast from an early age oh no I hate it I hate it stop talking about your youth [Laughter] Irvine is on the west coast but there are dozens of schools on the west coast. that by itself doesn't really do much and yeah because you were a child oh my god okay cut that all right here we go being a Floridian the first time I saw a 200-foot Sequoia tree I fell in love with California and everything the West had to offer high taxes droughts that's why I was just thinking of things I loved about my home state I have to push back I mean I sequoia trees I don't think there's an e sequoias in Orange County I'm sorry that's a Northern California thing no that's well you know Sequoia National Park is kind of like south of Yosemite and people do go camping in Sequoia from here but I think it's a solid four hour drive from Irvine okay. I don't if you say Sequoia is I think the people in the office in Irvine are gonna be like um what yeah I'm thinking of redwoods I guess up north but anyway sorry yeah yeah Sequoia is a it's a brand of ro it is a redwood yeah there we go yeah that's why I'm confused okay got it being a Floridian the first time I saw a 200-foot Sequoia tree I fell in love with California and everything the West had to offer coastal beaches mountains forests snow and everything in between. why are you going to law school why not become a forest ranger yeah but besides location as my law school search narrowed eyes owned in on the University of California Irvine for the leading edge educational approaches and the rates of upward mobility inspiring students to succeed no matter their backgrounds while simultaneously giving back to the community that's not bad that's just some like probably bullshit boilerplate that you pulled off their website or something I'm sure they said that yeah and and anyway they're gonna they like to think that whether or not it's true they love they love to think leading-edge educational approaches and rates of upward mode and inspiring our students to succeed no matter their backgrounds while simultaneously giving back to the community that they'd like to hear that about themselves that's sure what would be I think more impressive though is if you could take their sort of vacuous BS and talk specifically about something that they're doing that's accomplishing these things mmm yeah just regurgitating marketing mumbo jumbo from their website because this is just like is are they what what do they mean when they say leading-edge do they mean cutting-edge educational approach to our leading edge is not a thing and. did you get this from their website and if you drilled into their website what what educational approaches are they actually taking are they actually leading-edge I suspect many of them are not but if there is one in there that is talk about that or when they talk about rates of upward mobility or is there a particular group that they felt like they've been successful with and are they actually successful with them compared to other law schools in their tier now that tiers are such a thing like I would really want to know are they successful in these things that they claim to be successful and talk about one that actually impresses you you're one you'll have more to say about it because you're impressed by it you know this next thing is actually a fact about the school. that's good the young age of the law school piqued my interest and as a racer misspelled I know yeah yeah peaked had spelled here P EA ke D it's not correct it's not like you're going to the peak I mean it makes sense that you would be at the peak of your interest but that's not the word the word is peaked piq you EDD it's also this is a symptom of like do you really speak that way yeah if you don't have written this if you don't speak that way then don't write that way because you'll end up making mistakes like that and as I researched the inaugural class I felt inspired and excited inspired and excited to join a school that began rooted in pro bono work and committed to public interest okay. there's facts about I mean whatever alleged facts about the school but what I'm sorry what is the young age of the law school have to do with its roots in pro bono work yeah public interest like you could just say hey the fact that you began with this kind of work is Right inspiring I kind of liked it that she was spitting out a fact about Irvine like that she knows that it's a new law school yeah but then again like the fact that it's a new law school is that why is that a selling point and it doesn't really have anything to do with the thing that she goes on to next with the program stuff all right as I read more alumni profiles I felt the graduates uh the word graduate apostrophe s as I read more alumni profiles I felt the Graduate apostrophe s genuine appreciation for their education and fondness of their time spent at UCI law okay I feel like this is look I did research let me show you that I did research yeah as opposed to actually doing research and figuring out something like so-and-so said this and that touched me because I have a family member who did this and was successful or something it's very vague they just have appreciation for their education yep and fondness for their time we're great we're the greatest administration since the first one what sets UCI apart for me is the characteristics publicly portrayed that not every Law School advertises or even claims to have civility mutual respect and overall basic kindness whoa wait those are all vague yeah but I mean if they're making a big deal about that on their website if they're like you know UCI is trying to brand itself as the like kinder gentler Law School or something yeah then okay I could see how you could say that I mean that sounds sounds like it must come from the website they must be advertising it yeah it's inspiring to see a law school with such a respected reputation and leading legal education to be connecting to real people with genuine characteristics it really feels like she's just trying to fill space here yeah it's like keep it short man you got to cut this way down like if it's 350 to 500 it just just get it up get it over 350 but but you got to cut out a lot of this just like filler or I mean dig into the substance like what why is she saying this is did she see an example of this I mean I realized that they're not making the best argument for themselves because they're just talking in market speak and they're using general proclamations of their greatness but if there really is greatness behind the proclamations then go find one or two examples that illustrate that and talk about that and how that hit you it will be easy to talk about too because you'll actually feel quote inspired and excited to talk about that agreed yeah there's no proper nouns in this first I mean there's no like you didn't name a professor you didn't name an alum you didn't talk about any particular pro bono program it's all just like these kind of platitudes and vagaries yeah you talk about a tree though you saw it true that's true we did get a Sequoia in there that's right which unfortunately is hours and hours away as a first-generation college student I am dedicated and no perseverance wait dude you skipped a sentence which has the same problem wait what the last end of the bow I believe UCI law can offer me a legal education that is not only intellectually challenging but genuinely enjoyable that's she's answering the what can we give you what do you believe it's like no shit that's what I'm trying to get a JD what do you think I'm trying to do and I think it'll be fun trying to get an education and I wouldn't do it if I thought I was gonna hate it. that's why I'm here yeah okay all right that's vague again um as a first-generation college student I am dedicated and no perseverance hmm. the list is broken it's not parallel I am dedicated and no perseverance yeah mmm I'm not even sure what that means you know perseverance like you know of it I've heard of it yeah my friends got a whole lot saying you know something is like if you say you like I know I know I know hunger if you say that that's like you've been hungry before yeah. I know perseverance it's like you've been perseverant before I guess but it's just and don't say that don't stop either way this is just a claim right there's no evidence here yeah I believe these traits are essential skills I can bring to UCLA UCI law along with feel intellectual curiosity that has motivated me to continue higher education okay. she's clearly like she's really following the directions here yeah which on the one hand I want to give her credit for but she just needs to tighten it way up and use more specifics and not all this just vague bullshit well the other thing is you have to realize that when people ask you questions they're not really asking you these questions directly they're idiots they don't realize that what they're really asking you to do is give them examples that show what they're asking you to say because they're saying please tell us why you believe you know you're great or whatever but that's not really what they're asking for they're asking you to give examples that show why you think you're great you give I'm saying is like the prompt is almost inviting her to tell instead of show right right right not yes and I think what they really want to hear about in this essay is about themselves not about you I don't I don't think they really meant you to be writing another personal statement yeah I think they wanted to know about Irvine and maybe why you're specifically a fit for Irvine but like if you're just gonna go with your generic traits of intellectual curiosity that has nothing to do with Irvine that's true like the only reason these questions are together even though they seem very different is that they want to see what you know about the school and therefore what you know you can contribute to the community because you're familiar with the community and. unlike your personal statement which could be sent to any school you have to think about something that would contribute to this school given the fact that they have the community that they have yeah and I might I might actually in if I were this particular applicant I might talk about I mean just one idea would be I'm from Florida I'm gonna bring a diverse perspective to Orange County my god I'm from a different place I'm from the entire different part of the country entire different side of the country that would be a way of a way of answering their question in you know like genuinely yeah not that that's like a Wow holy shit you're from Florida but like you're at least recognizing that like I am coming across country to come to your law school I was thinking that the the school apparently prides itself on being kind or nice yeah choose one thing and then talk about how you would add to that characteristic of their community and absolutely yeah yep that would be great I believe my experience stop saying I believe even though it said in the prompt I believe it asked do you believe she is she kidding with this next sentence I don't know I don't know hold on I was looking back at the prompt for just a second yeah okay hold on I believe my experiences and perspectives can enhance the law school community by embracing the rooted characteristics of the school I thought she might be joking with this end it's cuz she's like basically quoting them verbatim she'd should she forgot to include the word enriched I believe my experiences and perspectives can enhance and enrich yeah she's you know she's a good like you can tell that she's like a um like a diligent earnest serious applicant she is following the directions yeah and you know they're gonna give you some bonus for that although it the result is a just unreadable mush of an essay that doesn't have a point mm-hmm specifically the pre-law outreach program P o P coma helping students from disadvantaged backgrounds prepare for law school , demonstrated the type of culture I want to be a part of I don't know why that's in the past tense demonstrates or illustrates the type of culture that I want to be a part of why does it illustrates that what do they do also you don't need to do pop P o P no you don't and you can just say we're gonna use it again you could just say I plan to take advantage of the pre-law outreach program yes that would show what you're gonna do and how that ties in to what you value okay coming from a disadvantaged background myself I know the advantages of peer mentoring and networking just cut that sentence entirely the ability to give that to another student inspires me as my admiration for UCI law grows let's lay it on a little thick haha I love you I love your law school and I will promote you to everyone I meet I have this feeling inside of me it's it's growing the spark okay I didn't know what it was at first. now it's just just it's grown into something more moreover I hold in high regard you see eyes interdisciplinary approach in their curriculum recognizing and adapting to a changing world where law interacts and is dependent upon a variety of disciplines who whole thing is. vague in just generalizations it's vague that sentence is way too long you're like you notice it one tip is you should read your stuff out loud and when you notice that you're like running out of breath at the end of a sentence that means the sentence is too long yeah or if you get tripped up in your own sentence that's a problem you know that this but the sentence is just broken because the subject of the sentence is supposed to be I right mm-hmm moreover I hold in high regard you see is interdisciplinary approach in their curriculum , recognizing and adapting to a changing way hold on who's losing the action yeah who's recognizing and who's adapting you or the curriculum or the people who create the curriculum and then it goes in a changing world where law interacts and is independent upon a variety of disciplines. now law we've got another subject popping up here. first of all the school is being described as having an interdisciplinary approach and then the school is recognizing and adapting to a changing world where law interacts and is dependent upon now law is a subject law interacts is dependent upon a variety of discipline what the fuck is that sentence by the way clear writing and clear thinking are deeply connected. if you're having trouble articulating what you want to say it's very possible that you don't know exactly what you want to say you have some vague notion of what you think is going on but if you're struggling to write that it might be the case that you just need to think about what you're actually trying to say yeah there's a concept I mean she's she's trying to answer all of their stupid questions in their stupid prompt and I think she should focus on the first question why a vine yeah and I think she should answer that in one sentence and then flush it out and connect herself to that but by if you have a sincere response as to why you want or why you're impressed by them that will inevitably or should connect to you in some way shape or form because if that is what is attracting you to them there's something about it that relates to you I am particularly attracted to UC Irvine because of the pre-law outreach program period yep I intend not only to benefit from this program before I start law school but to give back to the UC Irvine community by participating as a peer mentor in my later years of school or whatever yeah I was most impressed by. and. who did XYZ as that's what happened to me or that's similar to my background or something I come from blah blah blah and I know that our vines the environment of civility mutual respect and overall basic kindness will blah blah blah all those sentences by the way are starting with the word I yeah and not I believe just I am I want I plan I will that would be much better yeah even that thing you quoted civility mutual respect and overall basic kindness this is again their problem with having trouble choosing a word just choose one word yeah right like one civility or respect or kindness what's the fucking difference yeah yeah yep I agree with my environmental science degree , I hope to bring to UCL UCI law a unique perspective of an environmental scientist and use my degree specific knowledge to launch myself and my peers deeper into our work in the Environmental Law Clinic learning different litigation and policy matters oh by the way this is a random side note but she references UCI law a lot you don't have to say their school name over and over again you can also just say your school or the law school to vary it up yeah she could definitely mix it up I mean you don't want to put it in there more than once probably for this type of essay just because it's like it is a school specific thing and they want to they want to know that you're actually talking about them but I mean you are all. when it says she later it says UC Irvine I like this. much more than UCI law yeah me too anyways um this again i okay i don't like starting that sentence with with mm-hmm that's a very that's like bad writing almost always when people start a sentence with with sure because people do it this way with my this then they say the actual subject mm-hmm it's like just start with the subject of the sentence she says the word unique which people just really have their privileges revoked on that yeah and then I hope to bring to UCI law a unique perspective of an environmental scientist if anything it feels like it should be the unique perspective but I hmm it just needs to be shorter it needs to be tighter you got to get you got to get more declarative and you gotta you gotta have shorter sentences like you don't need to say all this it's more down do you have a unique perspective just say as an environmental scientist I'm excited I look forward to working in the environmental automatic right period and this like comma learning different litigation and policy matters what what is that what is that even about what what are you doing are you just putting in words the variety of issues in the clinic students were able to engage in comma enforcing the Clean Water Act comma assisting coastal communities for climate change comma and protecting desert lands against development and exploitation comma all helped solidify UC Irvine as my top law school choice you want an essay pick one of those things and write about it and then pick another one and write about it there's a ton of stuff in here oh the first like to Thursday's essay are all vague mumbo-jumbo here we actually have some details what about these things did you actually like talk about those that would say why you like the school and they would tell us about you and how you fit into that school I feel like this essay finally started it's just ending yeah like the Environmental Law Clinic we're learning about that right now and we're learning about that she's an environmental scientist I hate this sentence I hate that the subject of this sentence is the variety of issues yeah the variety of issues helped solidify UC Irvine as my top law school choice yeah pick one really is it the variety of issues that they're doing that that's what really helps boy I'm. but that variety yeah I was really doing it for me no it's not it's one thing if there's a thing there that you that you're passionate about or that you're experienced in if accepted I will happily join UCI law immediately and to begin my education with a school I believe fits my character skillset and intellectual curiosity best cut yeah and and also like why are you promising that you're gonna just say yes right away please don't give me scholarship money I'm ready right that's that's like you tell your crush that you would just I would marry you right on the spot like oh if you gave me a chant if you if you just would give me a date I'll do anything for you it's like mmm mmm not interested anymore yeah I think okay. take aways from all of this thank you very much for sending this in girl without a name we we really appreciate it it needs to be tightened up it needs a thesis I mean it's like go back to your like junior high days of writing and when they like made you have a like thesis sentence cuz this is all over the place and it just doesn't like it doesn't I don't know what do you think Ben I agree I'm just stepping back and thinking about this and thinking about all the statements that we keep reading on the show off the show and it surprises me how much people do have to say there are things from their life that would be interesting concrete and worthy of discussion and they somehow miss it all and they just stick to the general vague and uninformative it's like you're an environmental scientist well Wow like okay you can talk about how you're attracted to the overall basic kindness of the school but that seems like something that would be true for a lot of people um not necessarily maybe some people are interested in a cut-through at school but you're talking about the clean water act what do you know about that I just feel like people have. much to say that would be interesting but they don't know that that's interesting I mean if she's an environmental scientist she must have spent four years studying this there's got to be interesting stuff to talk about here what what have you done in this. lead with that and tie it to their Environmental Law Clinic if you want to sell it that way yeah lead with your first generation status and talk about their pre-law outreach program if you want to do it that way yeah exactly like how much could you say about that either waters generation yeah either one of those leave the when you're a little kid you love California leave that out of it anybody could say that and all these vague statements it's inspiring to see a law school with such a respected reputation and a legal leading legal education to be connecting real people with genuine characteristics what okay is that under percent what is what is that like what happened in who and why right it's not about you it's not interesting yep it's big yep that's all okay all right thanks very much for sending that in and letting us roast it yeah thank you it wasn't hilariously bad no I mean it was bad it was way too long and it was way too vague and it needed to have a focus and you need to basically start over I would say pick either the Environmental Law Clinic or the pre-law outreach program and just focused the whole thing on that mm-hmm and you'll be much better off should we leave it there I think we should yeah all right that was show number 161 thanks all y'all for listening nice knowing you don't fit for Law School

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Episode 161: Bad LSAT Score? How to Move On.

hello and welcome to episode 161 of the thinking LSAT podcast in Vienna Virginia this is Ben Olsen with me as Nathan Fox in Los Angeles how's it going nation awesome man I'm excited for another excellent episode what are we talking about today we're gonna be talking about some I guess another we have another email about a disappointing LSAT score from the September LSAT and how to move forward from that we have some more dumb emails from law schools some snail mail to apparently we're going to go over a flaw question from the June 2007 LSAT. that's a logical reasoning question and we're parently gonna roast a white law school essay yeah we are Wow okay good you all can always email us at help at thinking LSAT calm we will not see those emails but Sarah will and she can help you out or annalisa will as well if you have not joined the facebook group the facebook group now has nine hundred and thirty nine members there's a lot of chatter over there people asking all sorts of questions all the time. it's a great resource I which I never shut up I'm gonna have to filter those emails out of my inbox I get. many notifications now from the thinking LSAT podcast we've already put you wait you get facebook emails I might add stupid for that I used to get those and I was like stop this ridiculousness like I'm just go into the app yeah I mean well basically I just don't go into the app very often but I enjoy I mean in fact the only thing I ever do on Facebook now is the thinking else that podcast group because you know there are like buddies in there and they're laughing about our stupid jokes. it's fun to check in and see what they're talking about we're getting a lot of the content from the show now for the show from the Facebook group. that that actually is really good. I like those notifications for that purpose but yeah it does seem a little bit oppressive when it's like every single comment that every person makes and you get email notifications for Nathan if you want to blow up Nathan's inbox continue posting posting of anything else that podcast group yeah and make sure to tag him yeah you can always tweet us at thinking Elsa you can tweet Nathan and Fox and Mia Olson Benjamin we both provide Elsa classes and tutoring and online courses I am at strategy prep comm Nathan is at Fox Elsa calm I'm in DC Nathan is in LA and San Francisco we also have a joint project it's the Elsa demon you can go to LSAT demon comm basically it's a tool to practice LSAT questions on the go and get our explanations both of our explanations are in there and the demon tracks your progress and tries to figure out what questions it should give you based on how well you're doing. the difficulty can go up and down as you work through those questions speaking of joint projects we also have a class coming up in Chicago October 20th and 21st by the time you listen to this it's probably almost close of registration for that wouldn't you say Ben yeah it is getting close that's gonna be exciting and then you said some cool places that we were gonna go for eating and I already forgot them but I'm excited to go and I will just depend on you to tell me where to go when we arrive yeah all and I'll announce that via the Facebook group and an email out everybody sometime before we go. that everybody knows where we're gonna meet up for beers on Friday night yeah and that's where is that again the class the class is at DePaul University Lincoln Park campus it's a cool part of town on the north side up by Wrigleyville the Cubs are in a one-game wildcard playoff. the Cubs may or may not be in the playoffs I'm hoping that the Cubs are gonna still be sticking around in the playoffs because it'll be super fun to be in that part of the world while the Cubs are in the playoffs yeah that's cool yeah if you are familiar with your pre-law Society or connected to it in any way please have them connect with us the email is odd cast at thinking LSAT calm again that's podcast at thinking LSAT calm it's also for like newsletter like if you have a pre-law newsletter or sometimes like maybe your political science department has a newsletter that goes out that's popular or maybe you just have a an advisor a pre-law advisor who you think could benefit from knowing us please email podcast at thinking LSAT calm and we will send them some goodies. that we can introduce ourselves yeah we've received a lot of reviews on iTunes we have three hundred and forty four ratings and ninety six reviews we appreciate it very much if you liked the show just head over to iTunes hit five stars tell people why you like the show the last five reviews are all good too we got like five good ones in a row. it's been one yeah we need one of those you know those like workplace it's 210 days since the last like decapitation or whatever signs that they have you know yeah yeah sure wow that would Wow that would be disturbing okay we've got like we've got like two months since our last bad review on iTunes. I'll try to say something super offensive today we'll get that back to zero all right yeah thank you I appreciate that yeah how many days yeah that's what we have two new staff that we should have on here. right now it's two weeks I think it's more like two months yes now we're like baiting people to go in there okay you can also listen to the podcast on YouTube if that's your thing right now there are 385 subscribers on YouTube unfortunately you will not see either of us on YouTube you will just see a nice thinking LSAT logo which is a kid in red glasses by the way that image is just a random stock photography image that we found at the very beginning of the show when we had no idea that people would actually subscribe to us. hope you like that image but I hope you liked our theme music which is also a random stock sound clip that we bought for like $10 I got I picked it because I thought it sounded like dr. dre and I'm a fan. that's there you go okay cool we have 191 followers on Instagram that is just our handle is that what they say that our Instagram username is thinking LSAT and ELISA posts cool things there she's becoming more active on that I noticed the other day and it's really neat. thank you Anna Lisa you can also find me on instagram at innovator Ben or Nathan at Fox LSAT we have 36 patrons donated on patreon one hundred and forty three dollars every month that's very helpful thank you. much that covers 14% of our monthly costs we have now hit oh I this is a new stat I like this 1 million 28,000 630 downloads. by the way does this count all downloads across all platforms are just iTunes I think it's all downloads across all platforms hmm and then we have to do the multiplier how many f-bombs per show say four f-bombs per show yeah and we need to divide that by host I think. it's uh it's yeah good because that means you get half of them and I that decreases my actual number. I would say four I wasn't saying automatically I was saying like divide out the data right. oh you want to know anything f-bombs and bent f-bombs that would be good it's gonna be something like 3 to 4 million Nathan f-bombs and more like let's see you've probably said it four times total well no way I think it is more than that and you'll see if we had a graph it would be this like plateau of zero forever for no huge spike in yeah it's a form of cheap therapy you know to deal with life changes all right. then if you're into LinkedIn there is a LinkedIn thinking else that podcast group it has 70 members and it's moderated by Ezra who is the infamous author of the man with kind eyes. if you'd like to chat it up with Ezra go to the Facebook group or LinkedIn and check it out beautiful yeah all right man we didn't I didn't know I don't know what's going on in your life we just jumped into those stats but I'm sure I'll find out as we talk about these things for example I just learned that you get email notifications from Facebook yeah I I don't know man what's going on with me I I just I have a very busy month of travel coming up I'm flying to New Orleans tomorrow to go to my friend Nicky and Danielle's wedding in New Orleans on Thursday. there's gonna be a lot of boozing that's gonna happen on the next three or four days of my life okay I well then I've got the next three weekends after that our San Francisco Chicago San Francisco for me. I've got four weekends in a row of flying around all over the place other than that I am super super into dungeons dragons like super into it like check this out my mom and my niece came and visited me I think I mentioned that on the last show yeah and on Friday night we were looking for something to do just kind of bumming around after dinner and I started a little Dungeons & Dragons game with my mom and my niece as the players and I was like master and my niece went apeshit she lost her mind about how awesome Dungeons & Dragons is and then we ended up playing a little bit more on Saturday and a little bit more on Sunday Wow wait how old is your niece again she's like 11 11 yeah okay when you talk about Dungeons & Dragons I think about my friend who ran a shop when we were in high school that sold those kind of cards there's cars right or something yeah you might be thinking a magic oh shoot okay nevermind that's okay yeah he's magic it says it's it's all nerd shit it's fine it's all I've never played magic but DNG is the just greatest game of all time it's. if you like dee dee is like an old game it is but it's it's also like very popular people it's having a resurgence or even popular all along I defy you to find someone who plays who has played D&D and doesn't like it it's just like everybody that I I was at the bar this like super cool like hipster bar here in Los Feliz the other day with my friend and we were geeking out sitting at the bar talking about Dungeons & Dragons and the super cool hipster like looks like punk-rock bartender is like hey you guys talking about Dungeons and Dragons yeah I write for a Dungeons & Dragons newsletter it's like immediately like giving us a free shot because of how we were talking about Dungeons & Dragons at the bar yeah okay cool man yeah what's up with you Oh life is good I was just playing some basketball whoa and by myself I didn't know you were a baller I don't know that I am I just have a hoop in my driveway. and I have a basketball. sometimes I go out there and shoot hoops were you practicing your sweet post moves well okay apparently I'm not a baller because I'm not sure what you mean by that don't worry about it don't worry about it come on tell me I got to learn at least one new word post post move if you're practicing your post moves you would be like sort of standing a few feet away from the basket maybe with your back to the basket and practicing like a little little Negron step little turn around a little crab job yeah all the little they have kids do the little drills you know. that you can practice like okay from this block I'm gonna make this move and from this block well you need to have all the moves if you're gonna be a true true baller but yeah you can I could show you a couple maybe maybe if we find a man that'd be sweet if we found a basketball hoop in Chicago yeah okay the little pickup game with the class that would be interesting that'd be hilarious do that yeah. I was just practicing shooting and then I was trying to do that before I came to the podcast you know uh-huh and you can't end on a missed shot correct. then I kept trying to shoot fast and of course I kept missing and I'm like this is kind of like the LSAT I guess I'm just rushing here yeah I slowed down and I after like 30 misses. you're shooting resources or 3-pointers or what I just kind of read them all over the place I am I'm not that bad of a shot really I'd say I make half of them and I'm shooting from pretty far away but um yeah it was really bad at the end because I wanted to come inside but I couldn't come in after missing that's why you have to quit early that's why you have to that's why you have to end on a good one right yeah you make make one or make a couple in a row and then just be like yep and then walk off I'm done yeah well uh do you want read this first snail mail it looks like well okay. I wanted to talk about there I put a bullet point about how to move forward from a disappointing September 2018 LSAT there's no email for this one it's just an agenda item that I wanted to talk about yeah how many phone calls and emails are you getting right now with people asking you what they should do Oh a good number yeah yeah like. many everybody this time of year I mean we have some people who are celebrating like yeah I killed the damn rails at my school or came back and I'm ready to go to school now it's okay good good for you yep but we also are hearing like oh shit I fucked up what do I do. I'm sure we've talked about this a million times but I just want to make sure we cover it again right now because it's timely but yeah the September test was a released LSAT yeah if you took the test you got your test back when they sent you your score you probably didn't even look at it that's what most people do they look at the score and that's it yeah. what should they do they should dig in and figure out where they got questions wrong and why they think they got them wrong yeah it's it's like people want to like reach out and go where do I go from here and I'm like well tell me what you were struggling with on that test why did you miss points on that test and it's funny how often they will have like oh I don't know at all yeah or they'll have just a broad like well I missed six on reading comprehension and I missed a total of twelve on logical reasoning and I missed an entire game yep and then it's like okay good a step in the right direction but why did you miss those points what specifically like let's talk about okay logical reasoning what questions did you miss when when you looked back at them when you reviewed them is it do you remember what you were thinking or like can you get it right now or like is there a certain question type you're missing a lot of or what's going on why did you miss that question and I just it's super consistent I get there's something in human nature that people just don't want to do that review and that is the clear and really only first step if you if you're trying to figure out how to move forward from a September crash yeah what happened did you miss the points and throughout the section or did you miss them all at the end those sort of things can tell you a little bit about how you took the test officially a lot of times when you're talking about crash you're talking about someone who scored lower or even sometimes a lot lower on the official test then their practice test scores led them to believe they would score. I can understand why they're panicking but it's it's it's just another test. you just need to go in and do some investigation and figure out what it was about test day that led you astray and like you said if you redo these questions because else AK does give you the whole test and you don't find them that challenging now then most likely you just rushed or did you even miss Bob well I mean I had someone who was scoring between 158 and 162 and she got a 142 which is. off that it's like hold on you you can't just say you can't do the test or there is something like maybe you miss bubbled do you have any idea and like you're saying she had not looked at it at all it just they just look at the score and that's it yeah. I wanted to make a pitch here for private tutoring actually if you're struggling to figure out why you had such a September LSAT that is a perfect opportunity you know maybe you need a little bit of motivation maybe you can't bear to face it on your own one tutoring session to go over that one test it has the potential to be transformative there's no guarantee but it's possible that if you sit down with Ben and look at that test I mean it's almost guaranteed that you sit down and look at that test and Ben is gonna tell you something that you're gonna be you know change your thinking about the test yeah and likewise if you work with me or likewise if you work with one of our tutors. consider doing that if you want a book with me it's Fox LSAT you can book me and you'll be able to put yourself right on to my calendar I do have openings for one-on-one tutoring. if you'd like to you know get crackin right now on your November retake or on your January retake or whatever it is let's sit down and do that and Ben if they want to reach out to you about tutoring how do they do that just a strategy prep calm and follow the stuff for tutoring yeah I mean especially if your practice test scores were higher and you did them timed you just need to figure out how to think about the test or your approach as you're taking the test officially fix it and bam you can take the next test you don't have to do as much as people think they do I think sometimes right yeah I you hear a lot of like well I I just think November's too soon. I'm gonna put it off till January yeah and I'm like wait I thought you were ready to take the test in September if you were ready to take the test in September I understand it didn't work out for you but if you were ready if your practice test scores were indicating that you're ready then you should also be ready to take it in November I mean yeah chip away at it a little bit every day like we're always talking about okay anyway I want to move on yep okay cool. what is this who is this this is amazing and we can post these in the newsletter because this first one Meghan already posted it on the Facebook group I assume if she can post it on the Facebook group we could post it out into the newsletter yeah or on thinking else that calm but this they sent her I oh I guess that's not snail mail I guess that's just an email it looks like oh really I thought this was snail mail. this is like a pamphlet or something this email okay well because that business card really confused me anyway what we're looking at here there's two images yeah and even is this the first one is a it's from Falkner law which apparently is in Montgomery Alabama and it has makin her first and last name and then it says attorney at law and then it says her last name and law office calm and it's a business card it was a fake business card yeah I don't know they that's it that's a stock photography they didn't actually send that to her that's it that's just a like a randomly generated oh no no I don't think that the the business card was sent to her I just think this this may be been was printed oh and then she photographed it yeah I'm see I'm seeing the top of the page there I think either way it's just such a stupid little gimmick come to Faulkner law and you could have a business card that looks like this people on the Facebook group we're busting on it including the fact that it doesn't say Esquire which probably any attorney would have on their business card yeah then the second thing is far more confusing yeah it's is that her holding it. now I think that that might be a photograph of her holding this thing yeah which they sent her a pamphlet or a flyer which looks like a door to an office home again but then it has the Faulkner law logo on it. then that ruins the illusion that it's a door like an office door that doesn't look like an office door if it says Faulkner law school of law on it and then the slogan at the bottom with open your door of opportunity work lever open your door of opportunity exclamation point oh shit and they gave her a custom URL Wow babe they really boy they went the marketing department at fucking our laws just going for it how much does all this cost well what do you think they're charging. much tuition for yeah I mean that's what you're getting for your money because you're certainly not getting like actual you know services you're it's I don't know boy just feels like a big Ponzi scheme huh big some weird big pyramid yeah I mean they figure if they can get one more student they've paid for all this marketing effort yeah absolutely yeah one person who's like dumb enough to be like can you imagine being dumb enough to be like holy shit I could have a business card and an office door like that with my name on it I'm gonna go to Falkner law just there they're gonna give me what I want I want to be a lawyer yeah I'm gonna be a big fancy lawyer with a business card and it and door and everything okay. that's one thing that they were laughing about on the Facebook group then the other thing is this next one from Andrew posted it on the Facebook group which is a entering class profile for Florida State University College of the law yeah and I just thought some of these stats were were pretty funny yeah they were specifically they were laughing about eight hundred ninety seven years of combined total years of work experience in the incoming class total I don't never understand that like when people say oh come work with our team we have a combined combined experience of over 50 years it's like what is okay like all there's 50 people here and they've all been working on this project for a year you know that's not super helpful how long the individuals have experienced anyways sorry now there's also what has to be an error on here it says first generation law 15% yeah that's crazy what 85% of your class are second generation law students eighty-five percent of the class is yeah coming from their mom and dad are lawyers there's no way yeah. what does that mean they're first generation like in this country our first generation graduate you know like getting a graduate degree or something I don't know I thought that it could be that 15% of them are first-generation undergrads yes yeah that's one thing that it could mean but there's no way in hell it's first generation because if it's if it's what we were saying the first instance which I think everybody would normally read it as oh wow. 85% of the class has family that are lawyers or parents right but there's no way that that's possibly the case that would be read a very depressing notion that would be yeah okay anyway there's some just random shit that law law schools think they want to send you yeah 31% have traveled abroad I know already saw that too I was laughing about that who's like 31% went to spring break in Cabo alright yeah though I don't I don't get it yeah I don't get it okay moving on yeah let's move on oh we got a LSAT question hell yeah all right let's do this oh I guess I'll read this I love how it's got some words I know I know I won't be able to pronounce where is this from this is from the June 2007 LSAT you can find that by just googling June 2007 that will pop up as a free PDF from El sack then we're in section 3 and we're looking at question 25 this is a logical reasoning question if you want if you're not driving stop and go do this question and then follow on yep okay. here's what it says some anthropologists argue that the human species could not have survived prehistoric times if the species had not evolved the ability to cope with diverse natural environments okay. all right now I'm thinking to myself this is what some anthropologists argue in other words that's what some other people think and I think that we wouldn't have made it if we didn't have this ability to cope with diverse natural environments which to me just means a variety of different kinds of weather or something like that hot cold dangerous not dangerous I wish I wish I could this is a good test for people I think like do you know what's coming next do you have an idea what's coming next because I feel something coming I feel something coming too I mean by starting out with this sentence some anthropologists argue yada yada it's possible that this person could say and they're right and here's why but in most cases they're gonna probably say I think they're wrong and here's why I think they're wrong yeah and I think smart asses will point out that the very next word is however. it's like well yeah there's the butt right there Nathan like who you know what's your point but my point is that you should if you're tuned in you should feel that coming it's a good test of whether you're you're doing this correctly because because you should you should have a pretty good idea that that's what's gonna happen next yeah okay cool. the next sentence however there is considerable evidence that I'm not even going to pronounce it. let's go Australopithecus Australopithecus perfect I see yeah I'm not is this is where I struggle and then the next word is something that starts with a. I'm just gonna say a a afarensis oh that's great dude a a there's considerable evidence that a a comma a prehistoric species related to early humans hmm okay. this this new species that we were introduced to is a prehistoric species that were related to early humans also thrived in a diverse array of environments but became extinct okay. they's they thrived in a random set of environments we survived or thrived in a random set of environments but these guys became extinct hence the anthropologists claim is false yeah this is I felt that common - yeah this is a well I don't know if you ever referred to it this is like a false contrapositive or you're confusing necessary and sufficient it's fucking up the contrapositive yep if you fuck up the contrapositive you have confused sufficient for necessary or necessary for sufficient I don't really know that you need to worry about that too much the difference between those two things nope you have you have fucked up the contrapositive and that is the else that's most common flaw and I knew they were gonna do it you know when they said just the way they put that together with however there's considerable evidence that a stir pull now I can't do it astral the Pittacus a forensics did thrive in a diverse array of environments but became extinct and I'm like oh no don't do it don't do it and then sure enough they do it and say yep therefore the anthropologist claim has to be false yeah. if you go back to the original claim the anthropologists argued that human species could not have survived if they had not evolved this ability to cope with adverse natural environments in other words if they wanted to survive then they had to have this ability to cope with a variety of environments that does not mean though that if they could cope with a wide variety of environments that they would survive it's not that this ability to cope guarantees survival it's something that is required for survival yep. the fact that this AAA species this prehistoric relative was able to survive or cope in in diverse environments and yet became extinct doesn't prove that that thing was not necessary it still could have been necessary it just wasn't sufficient that's right yep to say it again just different different way yep the anthropologists claim that this thing was necessary and then the speaker goes but because it's not sufficient therefore it's not necessary yeah and that makes no sense it's just a fancy version of the else that's most common flaw and this should be a relatively easy question if you're tuned into that most common flaw yeah and one thing that can help here is that the first sentence or the first claim is in if-then form it's not that claims that are in if-then form will always lead to a this kind of flaw confusing necessary and sufficient conditions but hey it's certainly prone to do that because we have an if-then statement and the person messed it up well I mean they just do it on every single test. yes you know this happens very frequently it's the first thing I think about when I see a conditional statement yeah it's just like okay don't don't fuck it up now which is how you do it every single time I mean actually I'm like okay I can't wait for you to fuck it up. that you can give me a free point that's what this would be sure lo and behold the question says their reasoning in the argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument whenever you see the phrase most vulnerable to criticism you know that you're looking at a flaw question which means you're going to be given five answer choices that describe the flaw and the correct answer has to be an answer choice that describes exactly what's happening in the argument and is a problem in the argument and we've already predicted the problem here this confusing necessary and sufficient conditions. we would expect that to be something in the correct answer and once again if we would have read the question stem first here it would have done absolutely no good for us because we spotted that flaw anyway and then they asked us about the flaw and that's easy and there was no value here to reading the question stem first if anything it would have just been more confusing that way sure hey does the argument confuse a conditions being required for a given result to occur in one case with the conditions being sufficient for such a result to occur in a similar case that sounds pretty good now that was he talking about yeah our case and then we're talking about a similar case in other words are prehistoric relatives. I would keep that open yeah I would be 99% but that's the answer sure absolutely B takes for granted that which just means necessarily assumes that if one species had a characteristic that happened to enable to it to survive certain condition at least one related extinct species must have had that same characteristic it doesn't assume that it had that characteristic a said that they did have that characteristic that they were able to cope in diverse natural environments. this is not describing what's happening and I would say it's out well it's just not trying to reach the conclusion that okay. this other extinct species must have had some same characteristic yeah it's like all the right words but the meaning of B is just not even close yeah okay C generalizes okay I'm already nervous because if you're gonna generalize from the fact that one species blah blah blah if you're generalizing from a fact that means your conclusion is a generalization and the here is that the anthropologist claim is false that's not a generalization that's a specific claim about the anthropologist claim. I'm inclined not to read the rest of this I don't think I would on the actual test the rest of it's wrong anywhere generalizes from the fact that one species with a certain characteristic survives certain conditions that all related species with the same characteristic must have survived exactly the same conditions no they never drew that conclusion this is wrong that would be a ridiculous thing to do yeah that would be a flaw but not the flaw here. it's not the fall here yeah good excellent D fails to consider the possibility that a a had one or more characteristics that lessened its chances of surviving prehistoric times okay it did fail to consider this possibility yeah it's not something that really matters because we're not talking about your chances of survival we're just saying they didn't survive and whether or not this thing was sufficient to guarantee their survival right yeah why it didn't survive it's just not the point the point is it had this one characteristic that the speaker said or the that the anthropologist said was necessary when the speaker says because they had this characteristic but they didn't survive therefore it's not sufficient and that's just misunderstanding the idea that mr. understanding the difference between necessary and sufficient whatever DS talking about is not that. it's not D yeah e fails to consider the possibility that even if a condition caused a result to occur in one case it was not necessary to cause the result to occur in a similar case even if a condition caused a result to occur in one case that's wrong at that point we don't know if any condition caused a result to occur all we know is that one condition is necessary but whether it causes is a totally different issue and we don't know that whether this case in our humans or in the pre our prehistoric ancestors. this is out I mean I guess they did fail to consider causation sure that's true for almost all answer choices that start with to consider the possibility right it's almost always the case that the argument did fail to consider the possibility the question just becomes is that a problem should they have considered it and in this case it doesn't matter whether they consider this or not because it's irrelevant to the conclusion good ok anything else to add to that note the difference between takes for granted that and fails to consider people sometimes think that those mean the same thing but they don't been said yeah takes for granted means necessarily assumes. it's part of their argument that must be true in order for their argument to make sense that's what takes for granted means fails to consider is just didn't talk about this yep didn't talk about it didn't think about it and that's usually the case but then the question becomes okay well should it right they have thought about it either one can be the answer yeah but in order for it takes for granted to be the right answer they have to have necessarily assumed this thing and you know like without justification or yeah necessarily assuming something that they should not necessarily assume in order for a fails to consider to be the answer it's something that they didn't talk about that would be a big problem if it were true. the big difference is would this be a problem if it were true or would be would it be a problem if it were false yeah right yeah it's like fails to consider the possibility answer choices are basically weakened or exactly it's not sort of like turns the question into a weakened or if that's the correct answer it's like well they didn't talk about this and if it's true it's a big problem yep with takes for granted it's yeah they necessarily assumed this and if this is false it's a problem yeah and. you can get rid of thanks for granted answer choices if they never even assumed it you're like even though they didn't assume this. this is not a bad assumption it doesn't matter it didn't happen yeah you could just say this is not a necessary assumption of the argument like this can be false without ruining the argument they did not necessarily assume this same for answer choices to start with presumes without providing justification the exact same thing that's also takes for granted yeah yeah yep cool all right. the answer is a cool that easy I mean I you know the the big s take away from all that is boy you could have made that a much much easier question if you would have just spotted that it was a sufficient and necessary flaw yeah it's on every test it's on every test multiple times you have to get tuned into that it's like free points yep and if you didn't spot it then now you're down there in the answer choices like trying to compare them all to one another and it's just like really really doing the test the hard way 100% I agree okay cool move on yeah you want to take this one yes says hey Ben and Nathan I posted in the Facebook group and received some feedback from numerous people wondering how to tackle the y-x law school essays I know it's not the most important factor but I believe it can show that you genuinely want the school and could potentially bump you if you're an on the fence applicant I attached my UC Irvine interest essay with the prompt below if this makes it on the podcast feel free to rip my essay to shreds and help a girl out you can also use my name if not give some tips on what to do thanks. here it is this is for UC Irvine and it says the prompt is we know that you have many options when applying to law school tell us why you are interested in the School of Law at the University of California Irvine what do you believe we have to offer you what will you bring to the School of Law how would your experiences and perspectives enhance and enrich the quality and breadth of our law school community please write a minimum of 350 words and a maximum of 500 words it says PS I'm a pretty tough crowd when it comes to humor and you guys make me genuinely laugh my ass off thanks for making this whole process fun and stimulating sure by the way I hate this prompt I do too I was gonna complain about it as well what do you hate about I hate that there are. many questions yeah I want to know from me you want to know why I want to go to your school or do you want to know why you should want me or like these are two totally different questions I mean it's in some ways they could overlap but well the first question what do you believe we have to offer you that's like okay clearly they want you to write about Irvine UC Irvine law specifically and why you're picking that school yeah. you're gonna have to come up with some reasons and you know to be honest you're gonna probably go on their website and pull up some shit about their school that's exactly what it is and. it kind of feels like a little like a bit of a a game like have you looked at us that much more than our ranking but really all law schools are very similar. does it matter that much but let's break it down why are they asking this question I think I know mmm to see if you're serious and therefore protect their yield yes this seems to be obvious yield protection they want to know if you're just applying to every school and you're gonna deny them they don't want to get shot down by you sure they don't wanna see feelings hurt yeah no they want to protect their yield and yield is you know how many of the people they admit how many people actually go to their school. they wanted to see if you're willing to jump through this one extra hoop because look at how specific it is to 350 words to 500 words mm-hmm and they want you to mention Irvine yeah. many people are not going to read that instruction many people aren't gonna care about it enough to actually follow those instructions yeah and. if you if they're on the fence about you they're gonna just deny you because well you you didn't you didn't do our you didn't do our special essay it's an easy way for them to try to filter out people who they think aren't gonna say yes to them yeah I kind of have a feeling it might have something to do with scholarship negotiations as well okay like if you tipped your hand here and said I have a baby and my mom lives in Orange County and I you see is my only choice yeah I think that might help your case for admissions and it would probably also hurt your case for scholarships mmm because they you start looking like you can't go anywhere else Yeah right that's if you're a borderline scholarship candidate to begin with yeah that make sense. that's that first question what do you believe we have to offer you but then Ben and I both got pissed when it said what will you bring to the School of Law it's like whoa wait a minute you did you read my personal statement yeah is that what are you wanting another personal statement like I'm gonna bring something different to a vine that I'm gonna bring to that's a stupid fucking question it's like well at Irvine I'm gonna make sure to bring my sunscreen because it's super nice whether in the OC I don't get it yeah I'm gonna make sure to bring my rich white entitled racism since the orange have you been to Orange County much Ben no it's a weird place well where did that what what oh the OSI is its it's weirdly conservative it's okay like Irvine specifically is is like sort of like very police heavy like it's it's like very it's very very clean put it that way okay well it's like it's uh yeah it's just like got a reputation for being like super white and conservative okay anyway I'm complaining about this dumb question they're they're they're going from I thought it was supposed to be about them now it's about me again yep and then this third question how would your experiences and perspectives enhance and enrich the quality and breadth of our law of our law school community that now sounds like they want a diversity statement or another personal statement yeah what else do you have to say about yourself this is just a writing tip and I see it in the personal statements that we're reviewing but people have trouble sometimes choosing like one of two words and it's rarely the case that that we need the completeness of having both words. how would your experiences and perspectives enhance and enrich like really not just enhance yeah just enrich but enhance and enrich as if as if one of those words adds meaning to this sentence that now I'm going to say more than I would have had just said enhance enrich the quality and breadth of our law school community okay just choose one of those words enhance quality or breath it doesn't really matter and I see this in law school statements people are like what was the one I just saw yesterday someone that we were working with a camera what they said but it was kind of like quality and breath and it's like you you just choose one dude to go with it this is hilarious they did it three times in one sentence how would your experiences and perspectives enhance and enrich the quality and breadth of our law school community it's like I mean what the question really is is how would your shit help our shit yep you know like what they're asking is it's an and it's like well you just asked what will you bring to the School of Law yeah what they want they want to know what they're getting what are we getting here I don't know make our community better done yeah yeah they go into this lawyer speak you know it's it's like the no tampering with disabling or something else the smoke detector in the lavatory on the plane it's like you could have just said don't fuck with the smoke detector yeah don't break it you didn't need to say no tampering with disabling or whatever I'd like come on it's just lawyers I wasn't disabling I was just tampering or I was tampering not diseased man that's okay you know I'm Lessing while we're on it the sentence before said what do you believe we have to offer you oh actually that's well anyways in it when you say you believe or whatever that's always implied what do we have to offer you well when you start saying what you think they have to offer you you're telling them what you think are you believe yeah right. whenever people say that in their personal statement it's almost always a cut yep that's right I agree I would like to contrast this prompt with the prompt that Dave sent us the other day yes. Dave another long one right but he thought he was looking at a y-x law school prompt that's true but I don't think he was I think he was just looking at a normal personal statement prompt. I agree there's times where if they're asking you to submit one essay if they're asking you for a personal statement and they happen to mention their own name in that prompt. Dave's won it was it was like well why are you interested in it was suffolk huh it was like tell us why you're applying to Suffolk law basically mm-hmm but that was part of their personal statement prompt yeah and Ben and I agreed that we didn't think that they actually cared that you mentioned Suffolk law it's just that they happen to like accidentally mentioned themselves mm-hmm does that make sense you you you did you felt that same way right yeah yeah yeah no exactly okay but this is different because this is a special essay with its own word count mm-hmm saying not only tell us why you're interested in the School of Law at the University of california-irvine that by itself doesn't do anything but the next sentence what do you believe we have to offer you at that point now you really do have to write about Irvine yeah do you think this is an optional essay yes sir oh it's optional I'm pretty sure yeah I mean these are normally optional I mean one thing is if your scores are high enough you and you're applying to a lot of schools and you don't really care about our vine then just skip this stuff no I wouldn't I if you're going to go through with the application if you're gonna pay the $45 l sac fee I mean either don't apply to the school or go ahead and do it I would say but I mean you could do it if you're like really a lawyer you could do this in two minutes right you go on their website you find some bullshit about some stupid program like whatever their marketing department is talking about on the website yeah right bobblehead collections the bobblehead collection would be actually perfect here you imagine like if you started talking about the like whimsy aspect of the school the whimsical nature they would love that they went there to get up yeah they would love that shit okay are we ready for this yeah we're ready okay first thing first this looks long Oh how many words is this no I'm gonna do the word count right now yeah this is gonna be the very first test here what has it been I got four hundred and eighty nine okay I might prefer something shorter it's a head it's a 350 to 500 although then again this person is answering one two three four questions taking it very seriously yeah okay well I mean they they knew that they were sending it into the show and we were gonna rip the shit out of it. oh we didn't get the name here. anyway whoever this person is it's a she she because that girl girl okay I knew I would start my career on the west coast from an early age oh no I hate it I hate it stop talking about your youth [Laughter] Irvine is on the west coast but there are dozens of schools on the west coast. that by itself doesn't really do much and yeah because you were a child oh my god okay cut that all right here we go being a Floridian the first time I saw a 200-foot Sequoia tree I fell in love with California and everything the West had to offer high taxes droughts that's why I was just thinking of things I loved about my home state I have to push back I mean I sequoia trees I don't think there's an e sequoias in Orange County I'm sorry that's a Northern California thing no that's well you know Sequoia National Park is kind of like south of Yosemite and people do go camping in Sequoia from here but I think it's a solid four hour drive from Irvine okay. I don't if you say Sequoia is I think the people in the office in Irvine are gonna be like um what yeah I'm thinking of redwoods I guess up north but anyway sorry yeah yeah Sequoia is a it's a brand of ro it is a redwood yeah there we go yeah that's why I'm confused okay got it being a Floridian the first time I saw a 200-foot Sequoia tree I fell in love with California and everything the West had to offer coastal beaches mountains forests snow and everything in between. why are you going to law school why not become a forest ranger yeah but besides location as my law school search narrowed eyes owned in on the University of California Irvine for the leading edge educational approaches and the rates of upward mobility inspiring students to succeed no matter their backgrounds while simultaneously giving back to the community that's not bad that's just some like probably bullshit boilerplate that you pulled off their website or something I'm sure they said that yeah and and anyway they're gonna they like to think that whether or not it's true they love they love to think leading-edge educational approaches and rates of upward mode and inspiring our students to succeed no matter their backgrounds while simultaneously giving back to the community that they'd like to hear that about themselves that's sure what would be I think more impressive though is if you could take their sort of vacuous BS and talk specifically about something that they're doing that's accomplishing these things mmm yeah just regurgitating marketing mumbo jumbo from their website because this is just like is are they what what do they mean when they say leading-edge do they mean cutting-edge educational approach to our leading edge is not a thing and. did you get this from their website and if you drilled into their website what what educational approaches are they actually taking are they actually leading-edge I suspect many of them are not but if there is one in there that is talk about that or when they talk about rates of upward mobility or is there a particular group that they felt like they've been successful with and are they actually successful with them compared to other law schools in their tier now that tiers are such a thing like I would really want to know are they successful in these things that they claim to be successful and talk about one that actually impresses you you're one you'll have more to say about it because you're impressed by it you know this next thing is actually a fact about the school. that's good the young age of the law school piqued my interest and as a racer misspelled I know yeah yeah peaked had spelled here P EA ke D it's not correct it's not like you're going to the peak I mean it makes sense that you would be at the peak of your interest but that's not the word the word is peaked piq you EDD it's also this is a symptom of like do you really speak that way yeah if you don't have written this if you don't speak that way then don't write that way because you'll end up making mistakes like that and as I researched the inaugural class I felt inspired and excited inspired and excited to join a school that began rooted in pro bono work and committed to public interest okay. there's facts about I mean whatever alleged facts about the school but what I'm sorry what is the young age of the law school have to do with its roots in pro bono work yeah public interest like you could just say hey the fact that you began with this kind of work is Right inspiring I kind of liked it that she was spitting out a fact about Irvine like that she knows that it's a new law school yeah but then again like the fact that it's a new law school is that why is that a selling point and it doesn't really have anything to do with the thing that she goes on to next with the program stuff all right as I read more alumni profiles I felt the graduates uh the word graduate apostrophe s as I read more alumni profiles I felt the Graduate apostrophe s genuine appreciation for their education and fondness of their time spent at UCI law okay I feel like this is look I did research let me show you that I did research yeah as opposed to actually doing research and figuring out something like so-and-so said this and that touched me because I have a family member who did this and was successful or something it's very vague they just have appreciation for their education yep and fondness for their time we're great we're the greatest administration since the first one what sets UCI apart for me is the characteristics publicly portrayed that not every Law School advertises or even claims to have civility mutual respect and overall basic kindness whoa wait those are all vague yeah but I mean if they're making a big deal about that on their website if they're like you know UCI is trying to brand itself as the like kinder gentler Law School or something yeah then okay I could see how you could say that I mean that sounds sounds like it must come from the website they must be advertising it yeah it's inspiring to see a law school with such a respected reputation and leading legal education to be connecting to real people with genuine characteristics it really feels like she's just trying to fill space here yeah it's like keep it short man you got to cut this way down like if it's 350 to 500 it just just get it up get it over 350 but but you got to cut out a lot of this just like filler or I mean dig into the substance like what why is she saying this is did she see an example of this I mean I realized that they're not making the best argument for themselves because they're just talking in market speak and they're using general proclamations of their greatness but if there really is greatness behind the proclamations then go find one or two examples that illustrate that and talk about that and how that hit you it will be easy to talk about too because you'll actually feel quote inspired and excited to talk about that agreed yeah there's no proper nouns in this first I mean there's no like you didn't name a professor you didn't name an alum you didn't talk about any particular pro bono program it's all just like these kind of platitudes and vagaries yeah you talk about a tree though you saw it true that's true we did get a Sequoia in there that's right which unfortunately is hours and hours away as a first-generation college student I am dedicated and no perseverance wait dude you skipped a sentence which has the same problem wait what the last end of the bow I believe UCI law can offer me a legal education that is not only intellectually challenging but genuinely enjoyable that's she's answering the what can we give you what do you believe it's like no shit that's what I'm trying to get a JD what do you think I'm trying to do and I think it'll be fun trying to get an education and I wouldn't do it if I thought I was gonna hate it. that's why I'm here yeah okay all right that's vague again um as a first-generation college student I am dedicated and no perseverance hmm. the list is broken it's not parallel I am dedicated and no perseverance yeah mmm I'm not even sure what that means you know perseverance like you know of it I've heard of it yeah my friends got a whole lot saying you know something is like if you say you like I know I know I know hunger if you say that that's like you've been hungry before yeah. I know perseverance it's like you've been perseverant before I guess but it's just and don't say that don't stop either way this is just a claim right there's no evidence here yeah I believe these traits are essential skills I can bring to UCLA UCI law along with feel intellectual curiosity that has motivated me to continue higher education okay. she's clearly like she's really following the directions here yeah which on the one hand I want to give her credit for but she just needs to tighten it way up and use more specifics and not all this just vague bullshit well the other thing is you have to realize that when people ask you questions they're not really asking you these questions directly they're idiots they don't realize that what they're really asking you to do is give them examples that show what they're asking you to say because they're saying please tell us why you believe you know you're great or whatever but that's not really what they're asking for they're asking you to give examples that show why you think you're great you give I'm saying is like the prompt is almost inviting her to tell instead of show right right right not yes and I think what they really want to hear about in this essay is about themselves not about you I don't I don't think they really meant you to be writing another personal statement yeah I think they wanted to know about Irvine and maybe why you're specifically a fit for Irvine but like if you're just gonna go with your generic traits of intellectual curiosity that has nothing to do with Irvine that's true like the only reason these questions are together even though they seem very different is that they want to see what you know about the school and therefore what you know you can contribute to the community because you're familiar with the community and. unlike your personal statement which could be sent to any school you have to think about something that would contribute to this school given the fact that they have the community that they have yeah and I might I might actually in if I were this particular applicant I might talk about I mean just one idea would be I'm from Florida I'm gonna bring a diverse perspective to Orange County my god I'm from a different place I'm from the entire different part of the country entire different side of the country that would be a way of a way of answering their question in you know like genuinely yeah not that that's like a Wow holy shit you're from Florida but like you're at least recognizing that like I am coming across country to come to your law school I was thinking that the the school apparently prides itself on being kind or nice yeah choose one thing and then talk about how you would add to that characteristic of their community and absolutely yeah yep that would be great I believe my experience stop saying I believe even though it said in the prompt I believe it asked do you believe she is she kidding with this next sentence I don't know I don't know hold on I was looking back at the prompt for just a second yeah okay hold on I believe my experiences and perspectives can enhance the law school community by embracing the rooted characteristics of the school I thought she might be joking with this end it's cuz she's like basically quoting them verbatim she'd should she forgot to include the word enriched I believe my experiences and perspectives can enhance and enrich yeah she's you know she's a good like you can tell that she's like a um like a diligent earnest serious applicant she is following the directions yeah and you know they're gonna give you some bonus for that although it the result is a just unreadable mush of an essay that doesn't have a point mm-hmm specifically the pre-law outreach program P o P coma helping students from disadvantaged backgrounds prepare for law school , demonstrated the type of culture I want to be a part of I don't know why that's in the past tense demonstrates or illustrates the type of culture that I want to be a part of why does it illustrates that what do they do also you don't need to do pop P o P no you don't and you can just say we're gonna use it again you could just say I plan to take advantage of the pre-law outreach program yes that would show what you're gonna do and how that ties in to what you value okay coming from a disadvantaged background myself I know the advantages of peer mentoring and networking just cut that sentence entirely the ability to give that to another student inspires me as my admiration for UCI law grows let's lay it on a little thick haha I love you I love your law school and I will promote you to everyone I meet I have this feeling inside of me it's it's growing the spark okay I didn't know what it was at first. now it's just just it's grown into something more moreover I hold in high regard you see eyes interdisciplinary approach in their curriculum recognizing and adapting to a changing world where law interacts and is dependent upon a variety of disciplines who whole thing is. vague in just generalizations it's vague that sentence is way too long you're like you notice it one tip is you should read your stuff out loud and when you notice that you're like running out of breath at the end of a sentence that means the sentence is too long yeah or if you get tripped up in your own sentence that's a problem you know that this but the sentence is just broken because the subject of the sentence is supposed to be I right mm-hmm moreover I hold in high regard you see is interdisciplinary approach in their curriculum , recognizing and adapting to a changing way hold on who's losing the action yeah who's recognizing and who's adapting you or the curriculum or the people who create the curriculum and then it goes in a changing world where law interacts and is independent upon a variety of disciplines. now law we've got another subject popping up here. first of all the school is being described as having an interdisciplinary approach and then the school is recognizing and adapting to a changing world where law interacts and is dependent upon now law is a subject law interacts is dependent upon a variety of discipline what the fuck is that sentence by the way clear writing and clear thinking are deeply connected. if you're having trouble articulating what you want to say it's very possible that you don't know exactly what you want to say you have some vague notion of what you think is going on but if you're struggling to write that it might be the case that you just need to think about what you're actually trying to say yeah there's a concept I mean she's she's trying to answer all of their stupid questions in their stupid prompt and I think she should focus on the first question why a vine yeah and I think she should answer that in one sentence and then flush it out and connect herself to that but by if you have a sincere response as to why you want or why you're impressed by them that will inevitably or should connect to you in some way shape or form because if that is what is attracting you to them there's something about it that relates to you I am particularly attracted to UC Irvine because of the pre-law outreach program period yep I intend not only to benefit from this program before I start law school but to give back to the UC Irvine community by participating as a peer mentor in my later years of school or whatever yeah I was most impressed by. and. who did XYZ as that's what happened to me or that's similar to my background or something I come from blah blah blah and I know that our vines the environment of civility mutual respect and overall basic kindness will blah blah blah all those sentences by the way are starting with the word I yeah and not I believe just I am I want I plan I will that would be much better yeah even that thing you quoted civility mutual respect and overall basic kindness this is again their problem with having trouble choosing a word just choose one word yeah right like one civility or respect or kindness what's the fucking difference yeah yeah yep I agree with my environmental science degree , I hope to bring to UCL UCI law a unique perspective of an environmental scientist and use my degree specific knowledge to launch myself and my peers deeper into our work in the Environmental Law Clinic learning different litigation and policy matters oh by the way this is a random side note but she references UCI law a lot you don't have to say their school name over and over again you can also just say your school or the law school to vary it up yeah she could definitely mix it up I mean you don't want to put it in there more than once probably for this type of essay just because it's like it is a school specific thing and they want to they want to know that you're actually talking about them but I mean you are all. when it says she later it says UC Irvine I like this. much more than UCI law yeah me too anyways um this again i okay i don't like starting that sentence with with mm-hmm that's a very that's like bad writing almost always when people start a sentence with with sure because people do it this way with my this then they say the actual subject mm-hmm it's like just start with the subject of the sentence she says the word unique which people just really have their privileges revoked on that yeah and then I hope to bring to UCI law a unique perspective of an environmental scientist if anything it feels like it should be the unique perspective but I hmm it just needs to be shorter it needs to be tighter you got to get you got to get more declarative and you gotta you gotta have shorter sentences like you don't need to say all this it's more down do you have a unique perspective just say as an environmental scientist I'm excited I look forward to working in the environmental automatic right period and this like comma learning different litigation and policy matters what what is that what is that even about what what are you doing are you just putting in words the variety of issues in the clinic students were able to engage in comma enforcing the Clean Water Act comma assisting coastal communities for climate change comma and protecting desert lands against development and exploitation comma all helped solidify UC Irvine as my top law school choice you want an essay pick one of those things and write about it and then pick another one and write about it there's a ton of stuff in here oh the first like to Thursday's essay are all vague mumbo-jumbo here we actually have some details what about these things did you actually like talk about those that would say why you like the school and they would tell us about you and how you fit into that school I feel like this essay finally started it's just ending yeah like the Environmental Law Clinic we're learning about that right now and we're learning about that she's an environmental scientist I hate this sentence I hate that the subject of this sentence is the variety of issues yeah the variety of issues helped solidify UC Irvine as my top law school choice yeah pick one really is it the variety of issues that they're doing that that's what really helps boy I'm. but that variety yeah I was really doing it for me no it's not it's one thing if there's a thing there that you that you're passionate about or that you're experienced in if accepted I will happily join UCI law immediately and to begin my education with a school I believe fits my character skillset and intellectual curiosity best cut yeah and and also like why are you promising that you're gonna just say yes right away please don't give me scholarship money I'm ready right that's that's like you tell your crush that you would just I would marry you right on the spot like oh if you gave me a chant if you if you just would give me a date I'll do anything for you it's like mmm mmm not interested anymore yeah I think okay. take aways from all of this thank you very much for sending this in girl without a name we we really appreciate it it needs to be tightened up it needs a thesis I mean it's like go back to your like junior high days of writing and when they like made you have a like thesis sentence cuz this is all over the place and it just doesn't like it doesn't I don't know what do you think Ben I agree I'm just stepping back and thinking about this and thinking about all the statements that we keep reading on the show off the show and it surprises me how much people do have to say there are things from their life that would be interesting concrete and worthy of discussion and they somehow miss it all and they just stick to the general vague and uninformative it's like you're an environmental scientist well Wow like okay you can talk about how you're attracted to the overall basic kindness of the school but that seems like something that would be true for a lot of people um not necessarily maybe some people are interested in a cut-through at school but you're talking about the clean water act what do you know about that I just feel like people have. much to say that would be interesting but they don't know that that's interesting I mean if she's an environmental scientist she must have spent four years studying this there's got to be interesting stuff to talk about here what what have you done in this. lead with that and tie it to their Environmental Law Clinic if you want to sell it that way yeah lead with your first generation status and talk about their pre-law outreach program if you want to do it that way yeah exactly like how much could you say about that either waters generation yeah either one of those leave the when you're a little kid you love California leave that out of it anybody could say that and all these vague statements it's inspiring to see a law school with such a respected reputation and a legal leading legal education to be connecting real people with genuine characteristics what okay is that under percent what is what is that like what happened in who and why right it's not about you it's not interesting yep it's big yep that's all okay all right thanks very much for sending that in and letting us roast it yeah thank you it wasn't hilariously bad no I mean it was bad it was way too long and it was way too vague and it needed to have a focus and you need to basically start over I would say pick either the Environmental Law Clinic or the pre-law outreach program and just focused the whole thing on that mm-hmm and you'll be much better off should we leave it there I think we should yeah all right that was show number 161 thanks all y'all for listening nice knowing you don't fit for Law School