Our Favorite Episodes (Ep. 400)
Thinking LSAT
Nathan Fox and Ben Olson
4.8 • 868 Ratings
🗓️ 1 May 2023
⏱️ 92 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From the “holy grail” of Logical Reasoning to roasting their own personal statements, Ben and Nathan celebrate 400 episodes by revisiting some of the podcast’s greatest hits. Later, the guys unpack the meaning of the word unless, address a discrepancy between drilling accuracy and timed-section scores, and advise a listener on whether to write a GPA addendum.
0:00 - The Best of Thinking LSAT -
Ben and Nathan revisit a few of Thinking LSAT’s best moments, handpicked by LSAT Demon team members:
15:08 - LSAT Price Increase - In August 2023, the LSAT test fee will increase to $222, and the CAS subscription fee will increase to $200.
16:35 - Unless - Listener Karl finds himself correcting people’s language more often as he studies for the LSAT. His wife isn’t amused. Nathan and Ben adjudicate a verbal dispute and explain that the word “unless” works like an escape hatch.
25:23 - Accuracy vs. Speed - The guys theorize why an anonymous listener performs worse on timed sections than in untimed drilling. They encourage Anonymous to find some swagger and to commit to leaving timed sections unfinished. Ben also shares some details about overcoming his struggles with reading.
39:13 - Application Deadlines - Listener K shares a chart comparing law school rankings and application deadlines. Ben and Nathan discuss some takeaways from the data.
46:22 - T14 with a Low GPA - Listener Jack worries that his low GPA will keep him out of the T14. Nathan and Ben think that Jack’s Reddit-fueled fears are overblown. They recommend that he apply broadly and make efforts to express his genuine interest in the schools he applies to.
57:25 - Lawyer Parents - An anonymous listener worries that law schools might discriminate against them for being the child of a lawyer. Ben and Nathan assure Anonymous that no such stigma exists in law school admissions.
1:04:00 - Own Your GPA - Listener Dan has a near-spotless undergraduate transcript. Should he write a GPA addendum to explain two outlier grades? Nathan and Ben suspect that addendums may exist so that law schools can gather unflattering info about their applicants. Dan would be better served by focusing on the positive parts of his application and not making excuses for low grades.
1:15:32 - High School Activities - An anonymous listener asks if it’s okay for a 19-year-old applicant to reference high school activities in their applications. Ben and Nathan encourage Anonymous not to rush and to get some work experience before going to law school.
1:19:27 - Marijuana Law - An anonymous listener worries that working for an attorney who practices marijuana law might be a red flag to some law schools. Nathan and Ben think that any school that discriminates on that basis probably isn’t a school that Anonymous would want to attend.
1:26:07 - Nothing’s Off the Table - The guys assure listener Jayson that no school is off the table as long as he applies broadly with his best LSAT score.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to episode 400 of the Thinking Elsap podcast. I'm Beth Ben Olsen. |
| 0:13.2 | With me is Nathan Fox. |
| 0:15.2 | We're the co-founder of Elsad Demon.com and the Elsad Demon Daily podcast. |
| 0:19.4 | If you have news or want to ask questions you can do so on our website that's thinking |
| 0:25.2 | Elsat.com. This is episode 400 Nathan. How does that make you feel? |
| 0:31.3 | You know I felt something on like 100. |
| 0:35.0 | Yep. And I felt something on 365 because I realized that we had one episode for every day of the year. |
| 0:43.7 | 400, not feeling that much. |
| 0:45.4 | Although the team now is making me kind of feel something |
| 0:48.5 | because Eric, well I guess Ashley, |
| 0:52.4 | asked the team for some of their favorite episodes from the show's history. |
| 0:57.4 | And so Eric put that on our agenda today. |
| 0:59.5 | So that makes me feel something that, you know, it means something to our community that we've created in |
| 1:05.4 | El-Sot Demon Land. Yeah this first one is from Delia right she says she liked episode 322, El-Sat elevator pitches. She called it the |
| 1:17.6 | Holy Grail. Yeah, let's listen to a little clip. All right, flaw questions. flaw questions are a passage driven question type. They are like a must be true. An example question is which one of the following most accurately describes a flaw in the argument |
| 1:36.9 | as opposed to weaken, right? Weekend is which one if true will change the argument for the worse. |
| 1:44.0 | Flaw questions are which one is a flaw inherent in the argument. |
| 1:50.0 | So the strategy here, I like to think about these in two steps. The correct answer will describe exactly what the argument is doing wrong. Do it in two steps. If you can answer, if you can't answer yes to both of these questions, the answer is wrong. |
| 2:04.6 | One, does the answer describe exactly what's happening in the argument? |
| 2:09.0 | If you can't prove they did it, there's no need to go to step two. This is key because frequently students will try to do both steps at once. |
| 2:18.0 | The second step is, is the flaw a problem for the particular argument? So it does pointing this this out put the argument in a bad spot? |
| 2:25.8 | I would encourage you to do it one step at a time |
... |
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