Rocky Motherfriending Balboa

Be honest, now. Is this belt show-offy?

It’s LSAT week!

What a time to be alive! The air is buzzing with possibility - the time for greatness is upon us now.

If you’re one of my students, then I know you’re ready for the test. Now, let’s make sure you’re also ready for test day. Let’s take a minute and walk through expectations, what to bring and what to leave, and then we’ll close this special edition with some words of encouragement.

First: What to bring.

It helps to have a list that you can check off - we’ve split ours into three parts.

Part One. The things you must have.

1. your driver’s license
2. your test-day ticket from lsac.org (print it the night before the test)
3. your passport photo
4. 12 sharpened #2 pencils (no mechanical pencils are allowed!)

Part Two. The things you should also have.

1. a small bottle of water
2. a snack for the break (a banana and a granola bar)
3. an analog wristwatch (no digital timers are allowed!)

Part Three. The things you may have.

1. tissues (if you’re prone to sniffles)
2. tylenol (take a preemptive dose if you’re prone to tension headaches)
3. highlighter (though why anyone would want to switch between pencil and highlighter and back again during a test is beyond us)

And then, there’s the things you’re not allowed to bring:

1. mechanical pencils
2. digital timers
3. earplugs
4. cell phones
5. weaponry

This week, make sure you get to bed early and wake early, even if that’s not your normal habit. Make sure you eat healthful, balanced meals at regular intervals. Make sure that you get some exercise and some fresh air.

Carve out some time to drive to your test center, so you know for sure how to get there, where to park, how long it takes to get from your car to the test room, where the room is, what it looks like inside. Take a seat in the room. Look around. This is your house. Nobody fucks with you in your house.

On the day before the test, try to relax. Some of you won’t be able to relax without doing some LSAT work. No matter how you do it, just give yourself a moment off. Gather your resources - the fight is coming.

On the morning of the test, eat a good breakfast (I suggest oatmeal! It sticks to your ribs. Also, fold in some currants and freshly diced peaches, drizzle the whole thing with just a taste of blackstrap molasses. Whole wheat toast beside it, with a thin smear of rich sweet butter and a glass of orange juice squeezed just before being poured into your glass, just for you by someone who loves you. That’s not breakfast - that’s a full life).

Expect that there will be nerves, and maybe moments of full-on panic. This don’t mean shit. More precisely, this means that you are human. The test is a big deal, and you know it, and your body knows it.

You cannot stop the nerves by asking them to leave, but you can trust your training, know the nerves are coming, watch them come toward you, move over you, and pass. The nerves do not define you - what you do in their face is what says who you are. This is a chance for you to rise to the occasion, to meet the moment. Make yourself proud.

And that’s your next week. Now, a few words just for my students, in whom I am tremendously pleased, of whom I am incredibly proud.

You guys can do this.

Remember that knowledge is light, and between light and darkness, there is no contest. Take the sum total of all the universe’s dark - every corner, the underside of every rock, all the black vastness of a space without stars, every mile of night-time from here to the edge of the world - and bring it all crashing down at one time together, and it breaks itself utterly upon the flame of a single match, once lit.

Knowledge is light, and light is power. What you know, you can see. What you see, you can do.

Let’s think about all that you know how to do: You know the difference between sufficiency and necessity, you know how to correctly and efficiently diagram the material conditional, you know the three major components of the causal assumption - and how to attack and defend each of them - you know how to design and manage a multi-row ordering template, you know how to read actively, how to engage with a text and predict questions and uncover answers.

You have learned every concept, you’ve unlocked every secret and turned over every stone. There’s no such thing as a game you cannot solve. There’s no idea you haven’t explored, there’s no pattern you haven’t learned, there’s no principle you don’t understand, there’s no question you cannot answer.

There’s no question you cannot answer. You are an LSAT tiger, waiting to be unleashed on this test. You’re Ndamukong Suh, introducing Andy Dalton to the NFL. Poor Andy Dalton. You know Kung Fu - you’re Bruce Lee, treating the LSAT like Chuck Norris’ chest hair.

You know how to do this - you’ve worked hard for months, you’ve studied your ass off, and at the end of this week, you get the chance to show what you know.

Knowledge is light, and light is power. What you know, you can see. What you see, you can do.

You are Rocky motherfucking Balboa. Now, get in the ring, and start punching like it.