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Thinking LSAT

Kill the Clock (Ep. 497)

Thinking LSAT

Nathan Fox and Ben Olson

Education

4.8868 Ratings

🗓️ 10 March 2025

⏱️ 99 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The clock shouldn’t affect you on the LSAT—but you still need to practice ignoring it. This week, Ben and Nathan advise a student to use timed sections to learn how to take the test like the clock doesn’t exist. Then, the guys explain how to approach the LSAT in an intuitive way. 

Later, Ben and Nathan encourage a student to try to get high school dual enrollment courses removed from their transcript, and they investigate Baylor University School of Law. 

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 0:30 - It Sure Feels Like Timing Is the Issue  - A student scored a 170 on an untimed diagnostic test. The guys encourage him to complete timed sections in practice to learn to ignore the clock while keeping the accuracy high.  

11:30 - You Play Like You Practice - Ben and Nathan encourage students to play like you practice. Read for understanding and learn to do the LSAT intuitively. Diagramming is only going to get in your way. 

20:25 - Feeling vs. Performance - One listener expresses disappointment in her February score after feeling confident at the end of the test. Nathan and Ben suggest that a score in her practice test range shouldn’t be surprising. 

30:40 - Dealing with High School Dual Enrollment Courses - Gabe has a few grades from high school dual enrollment courses dragging down his GPA. The guys encourage him to make his best effort to get those credits removed from his transcript. If he’s unsuccessful, a one-sentence addendum highlighting his college grades could be beneficial. 

40:10 - The Cost of the LSAT and Law School Applications -Nathan and Ben shed light on the cost of the LSAT and law school applications. 

57:55 - What’s the Deal with Baylor University School of Law? - Benjamin wants to know if Baylor University School of Law is worth the cost. 

1:32:39 - Word of the Week - Were it possible to identify and zap all of that fraud in real time—an extremely tall order—it would still not get Mr. Musk close to his ultra-abstemious targets.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Look, as long as you're doing an official question, and then you're reviewing it thoroughly enough to learn from it, and then you're alternating between time sections and drilling, that's the perfect schedule.

0:17.9

Hello and welcome to episode 497 of the ThinkingSF podcast.

0:24.5

I'm Ben Olson.

0:25.5

With me is Nathan Fox.

0:26.9

We're the co-founders of Elsaid Demon.com and the Elsaid Demon Daily podcast.

0:30.9

We have an email here from John Paolo.

0:33.3

The subject is, I know timing is not the issue, but it definitely feels like it.

0:39.0

We have some background here that says John Paulo has been studying for about a week and took a different approach to a cold diagnostic,

0:45.9

which is he took a completely untimed practice test.

0:50.9

So John Paulo says, I know you guys say that timing is not the problem and that the problem is

0:55.1

people go too fast to try and finish while sacrificing accuracy, but I wonder if I have the

1:00.0

opposite problem. I scored a 174, missing two of the last LR questions in both LR sections and one

1:07.6

reading comprehension question. So five total mistakes out of roughly 75 questions gets

1:14.2

John Paulo an untimed 174. John Paulo continues, I understand why I missed the questions. The flip side

1:21.9

is this took me four hours. I would love to get some insight from you guys on whether my untimed score actually means

1:29.3

anything, considering how long it took me to get it, and what your advice would be given my

1:33.9

current abilities and pacing. Thank you guys for everything you're doing. You've convinced me that I

1:39.6

should definitely not pay for law school. By the way, I love the ask feature on Elsa Demon. The people

1:45.5

have great explanations. So what do you think, Ben? Does John Paulo need to do something different

1:51.2

from our normal advice about timing? No, this is exactly, well, we don't want people to take

1:58.3

sections or tests untimed, but we do want people to approach

2:03.0

all the questions as if they are untimed.

...

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