As a teacher of standardized tests, I’m a big believer in the maxim: “Work smarter, not harder.” While we could drill and drill and drill and drill LSAT questions, chipping away at a desired score increase by brute force, sometimes there’s an easier way. Enter analytics. You may have heard the term, but what exactly are analytics? And how do we use them to create your LSAT study guide?
In the following article, we’ll discuss how we can use this crucial tool in the endless pursuit of LSAT perfection.
Using Analytics to Design Your LSAT Study Guide
Analytics 101
“Analytics” is just a fancy way of describing the use of historical data to find useful patterns and make better decisions.
Let’s say you’re a runner and trying to get faster. You track your runs, look at your pace, and notice you’re far slower on hot days. Meanwhile, you might find your strongest runs are around 7:30 in the morning, after a nice, mild cup of green tea. That’s analytics—you’re using data (running times, weather, time of day) to figure out what’s happening and adjust (avoiding midday runs, waking up early to exercise, lowering your caffeine dose).
Businesses, sports teams, and even doctors use analytics. And with the LSAT, you can too.
Analytics on the LSAT
There are so many ways you could use analytics with the LSAT. Do you have a lucky pair of holey socks that nets you +3 points on practice tests? Does your reading comprehension improve while petting your dog?
Yes, the possibilities are endless. But today let’s focus on four types of data that can help us create your perfect LSAT study guide to study smarter and streamline our improvement:
- Question Type Accuracy
- Question Difficulty Accuracy
- Question Prevalence and Prioritization
- Answer Choice Switching
1. LSAT Question Type Accuracy
One of the most valuable pieces of data you can review is your accuracy by LSAT question type. If you’re consistently missing a particular question type—say, Necessary questions in Logical Reasoning—you absolutely need to adjust your study plan to make time for additional targeted practice. You need to go back to basics and review, in depth, the optimal strategies for that question type, both in anticipating the right answer and in navigating the answer choices. You then need to apply these strategies, slowly and deliberately, starting with the easiest questions and working your way up to the tough stuff.
While considering question types may come naturally in Logical Reasoning, it’s equally useful in Reading Comprehension. We’re all familiar with the “big picture” questions like Main Point and Primary Purpose, but other questions, such as Inference and Specific Reference, will often force us to look closer and appreciate the finer details. Whether you struggle more with the former or the latter can provide crucial insights about your own reading method and possible blind spots.
For instance, if you’re consistently missing Main Point questions, you need to pay closer attention to the author’s viewpoint and attitude throughout the passage. Whereas if you’re striking out on the details, you probably need to do a better job of highlighting and tagging (i.e., annotating) the passage.
In short, wherever your weaknesses may lie, you need to be able to pinpoint them in order to move forward on the path toward improvement.
2. Question Difficulty Accuracy
Another data trend to keep an eye on is your accuracy by question difficulty. As a general matter, we know that question difficulty in Logical Reasoning trends higher throughout a section. If you take a Blueprint course, you will actually have every LR question rated on a “lowest” to “highest” scale!
You can take advantage of this knowledge to ascertain where any gaps might exist in your understanding of the test. To illustrate, let’s say we have a student whose Logical Reasoning accuracy, by question difficulty, is the following:
Student A
- Lowest: 90%
- Low: 81%
- Medium: 74%
- High: 49%
- Highest: 31%
The data isn’t completely surprising. We would expect accuracy to decrease with question difficulty. But what is noteworthy is the drop off in accuracy from Medium to High—that’s 25 whole percentage points! Basically, this student’s accuracy is going off a cliff when the going gets tough.
Many people would see this data and think, “I’d better work exclusively on high/highest difficulty questions.” You would then adjust your LSAT study guide accordingly. But usually the opposite is the case!
If you haven’t mastered applying the strategies and are just “winging it,” you’ll likely still do rather well on the easier questions. It’s the harder questions where your complete lack of strategy will expose you. The way to work on this is the same thing we discussed earlier: slow, intentional practice with applying the strategies and learning the test patterns on untimed, easy questions.
Let’s take one more example:
Student B
- Lowest: 78%
- Low: 75%
- Medium: 75%
- High: 71%
- Highest: 67%
This student’s data is interesting. They’re getting a decent percentage of higher-difficulty questions right. But they’re missing a lot of “layups” with the lowest and low questions.
There are a lot of things to explore here. Is this student rushing through the easier, early section questions in their practice exams, leading them to make simple mistakes? Are they perhaps mistrustful of easy right answers, because they’re “too obvious”? Do they pick the more clever or more complicated answer choice on the easy ones because they (mistakenly) think that the LSAT is trying to “trick” them?
The data may hint at the story, but if I were this student, I’d want to get to the bottom of why I’m leaving so many points on the table. That’s the beauty of analyzing accuracy by question difficulty.
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3. Question Prevalence and Prioritization
Here’s a trick question: let’s say you’re scoring 70% accuracy on Flaw questions and 50% on Parallel questions. Which one do you prioritize? Flaw questions!
While you might be tempted by the lower accuracy percentage, accuracy percentages only tell half the story. We have to consider not just how well we’re doing, but how prevalent each question type is on the LSAT.
It turns out that we can expect about seven Flaw questions on our exam, whereas Parallel will provide only two. So, even if we’re only batting 50% on Parallel, that works out to just one missed question per exam. By contrast, getting 70% of seven possible Flaw questions works out to about two points per exam.
Then, from an analytics standpoint, the takeaway is to consider both question type accuracy AND prevalence. This allows you to better prioritize the areas of practice that will make the biggest impact on your score.
4. Answer Choice Switching Tendencies
During a practice exam, in the heat of the moment, we’ve all experienced that maddening momentary indecision between two tempting answer choices. Do you stick to your guns, or should you switch to the other one?
There is no textbook blanket advice here. Instead, you need to dig into your own practice exam data and review your switching tendencies. How often do you switch from wrong answer to right? From right to wrong? From wrong to wrong?
Right to Wrong
If you’re frequently switching *away* from the correct answer, chances are you have a pretty good initial read of the argument. However, somewhere along the way, you’re getting led astray by a tempting answer choice. Two things can help with this problem.
First, before reading the answers, anticipate. Predict the right answer, then be steadfast to that prediction as you cycle through the options.
Second, you should be more precise and picky when considering the language of answer choices. Often, a super tempting answer choice will have something really appealing in the first half but will have one word or phrase toward the end that makes it a dealbreaker. Slow down and beware of these red flags that mischaracterize the stimulus. Even if it’s one problematic word at the end, we need to recognize it and eliminate that choice immediately.
Wrong to Right
If you’re switching to the right answer and *away* from the wrong answer—well, way to go!
Still, you almost fell into whatever trap the LSAT laid out for you. The standard advice here, which I agree with, is to read more slowly and be more deliberate about argument structure. Basically, what’s the conclusion? What’s the support? What’s the flaw or assumption? By reading more slowly and by breaking things down more, you’ll be less likely to miss crucial details and more likely to anticipate correctly on the first try.
Wrong Answer to Wrong
This situation suggests that you were never really close to the right answer in the first place. You had two other answer choices you liked, neither of which was correct. Meanwhile, you may have eliminated the right answer prematurely.
If this is you, it sounds like you’re missing a key strategy or two. It’s time to go back to the drawing board, rethink your LSAT study guide, revisit the question types you’ve missed and their corresponding strategies, and get plenty of applied practice and review.
Final Thoughts
Using analytics to refine your LSAT study plan isn’t just about crunching numbers—it’s about making smarter decisions with your time and energy.
By identifying patterns in your performance, you can better identify weaknesses, optimize your study focus, and ultimately maximize your score gains without wasted effort. Whether you’re tracking accuracy by question type, diving deeper into difficulty trends, or analyzing your answer choice tendencies, the LSAT data is there to guide you. The key is to use it.
So instead of just grinding through endless practice questions, take a step back. Assess the numbers. Adjust accordingly. Your future LSAT score will thank you.
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