Perfect 180 scorer. Want to learn how I increased my score from 150 -> 180? I'll teach you everything about fundamentals, technique, and speed that you need

Find out more about Zach

• 1) When did you develop an interest in your chosen field and in private tutoring?

  The LSAT is a gateway from logic to law school. I became interested in logic and arguments during my philosophy undergrad degree, which was completely made of arguments and even a few courses of intensive formal logic study. This was only bolstered by my experience in mock trials. Preparing arguments and cases was the first thing that I ever found myself truly losing myself in besides music. I frequently lost track of time going over statements and evidence to see how I could craft a narrative that would complete my case, and had the privilege of performing and teaching how to prepare and execute a case in mock trials for years across Canada as a result of my success. This made my decision to attend law school clear and obvious, and I started studying for the LSAT shortly after.
  
  As for private tutoring, I have always had a dream to learn Spanish and travel, and having some king of remote work that allowed me to do this would make achieving that dream so much easier. I took my methodology and broke it down to a step by step science and created lessons to explain my understanding of the fundamentals, as well as some more advanced approaches to LR questions and RC passages, and started looking for clients. I received positive feedback on my explanations and personalized approach to sessions immediately, and as a result I was able to travel to Argentina and Colombia to learn Spanish. Fue el mejor decision que tome en todo mi vida!

• 2) Tell us more about the subject you teach, the topics you like to discuss with students (and possibly those you like a little less).

  I teach LR fundamentals like argument anatomy, formal and informal diagramming, and blind review/wrong answer journalling. Then, I have some specific methodologies for more difficult assumption questions, parallel reasoning questions, and tracking elements of arguments rather than trying to brute force complicated logic itself.
  
  For RC, I typically take students through my purpose/structure framework oriented method and then do a course on blind review and wrong answer journaling in combination with teaching timing-optimized approaches for comparative reasoning. For my more advanced students, I teach a method of visualizing passages almost like a flowchart called the skeleton, which I created myself and have never seen anyone else teach, yet it gets a ton of use and positive feedback! This is probably my favorite thing to teach, because it makes so many details so much easier to track.

• 3) Did you have any role models; a teacher that inspired you?

  Two academics that I try to live up to are the physicist Einstein and the mathematician Feynman. Einstein said if you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it. Feynman embodies this mentality, as in his first lectures he walks his classes through math from counting on fingers to calculus in just a four-page document. The reasoning behind this is because if you can't derive a formula or come up with a system on the day of your tests, then you never really understood the material, you just memorized it. Only when you can derive the formula do you understand it. You have to understand where something comes from.
  
  I try to apply this in my tutoring as well. I try to avoid tricks and shortcuts because even though they are useful for some questions, there is nothing more reliable than understanding how to solve the question the complete way. Understanding how to answer a question requires understanding the argument, its implications, its strengths and its limits, so I teach how to see these quickly and correctly. When you know the right answer because you understand the question before even checking the answer choices, you truly understand the question.

• 4) What do you think are the qualities required to be a good tutor?

  Adaptability, creativity, clarity, sympathy, and patience. Everybody learns differently, and I have needed to learn to adapt to the different learning styles of different students according to what I see they benefit from more. Because of this, I often need to rephrase or adapt previously designed sessions or explanations according to type and level of understanding of new students. This requires some creativity sometimes, and I have found the more unique and tailored the experience to be, the more memorable and thus the more useful the teaching I have been able to give has been for my students. Furthermore, if you can't explain something simply, you don't understand it well enough. Being able to clearly explain not just why something is right or wrong, but also model the real-time thoughts a test taker might have while reading a question, to clearly identify what trap answers or hasty assumptions are easy to make in addition to the mental process required to answer a tricky question correctly is a skill that took time to learn, but I pride myself in my ability to perform it now.
  
  Any tutor needs sympathy to understand the position of their student. They need to be able to not just understand THAT a student is struggling with a specific concept, but WHY. By stepping into the shoes of a student and trying to process the questions from a different angle, it makes it clearer where exactly the mistakes are made as well as what rules could be adopted to avoid said issues in the future. Last, this requires patience. Sometimes, despite all of these efforts, the explanation might not click immediately. Being able to pivot to different analogies, explanations, or applications of logical concepts without losing enthusiasm for the mountain that is the L.S.A.T has been the skill that has helped me the most in developing meaningful and helpful relationships with past students.

• 5) Provide a valuable anecdote related to your subject or your days at school.

  Something I used to tell my competitors when I was teaching people how to run the mock trials was, "It's not about what anybody thinks happened. It's about what you can actually prove." Very future lawyer of me, but this applies VERY well to the LSAT. Every element of every answer choice needs to be completely supported by elements from the text. This seems like a lot of thinking and a lot to process, especially because answer choices might be long and convoluted... and that's right. But there is no other way to success on the L.S.A.T. The good news is, everything that you struggle with is also something that another person struggles with. Every time you want to quit and don't, you get one step ahead of somebody who did quit. A marathon is a long distance, but you get there one step at a time. Every step you take gets harder, but it puts you one step past someone without your willpower. All you need for success at the L.S.A.T is to be dedicated to keep going until you're happy with your result. With this mentality, success is inevitable.

• 6) What were the difficulties or challenges you faced or still facing in your subject?

  I struggled with RC for a LONG time. I spent probably 4-5 months doing nothing but RC passages because it just wouldn't click for me. I plateaud, got better, got worse, and plateaud all over again for weeks at a time before anything clicked. This itself wasn't the challenge, but waking up early before work, not going out on friday night because I wanted to take a practice test on saturday morning, and reviewing my wrong answer journal every night before became a heavy set of rules within the first month or two (realistically, week or two). I didn't see myself getting better and I wasn't sure how I was supposed to continue to improve, but I knew that I wanted to score better. The only way to improve is to continue to try to do so, and eventually I figured out my system
  
  It is ok to fail, but it is not ok to quit.

• 7) Do you have a particular passion? Is it teaching in general or an element of the subject or something completely different?

  Teaching is tons of fun, and very validating. I love watching a student break through a plateau, or finally grasp and apply a tricky concept, or seeing the surprise as they take an approach to a question they haven't tried before and the right answer just lights up for them. The L.S.A.T is the first step towards many people's dream jobs, and I'm glad I can help make it happen for so many people. I am passionate about teaching, but it is not my strongest passion.
  
  There are so many things I could dedicate my life to if the situation allowed. I like arguments! Establishing something I believe to be true beyond any reasonable doubt is a lot of fun and very gratifying. I love music and have been playing guitar for 15 years now, composing and producing for 2. I love comedy and actually performed standup in downtown Toronto for years while I was studying for my undergrad. I love travelling and will be using as many gap years as I have to travel, meet people, learn languages, and try to understand the lives of others as I can.

• 8) What makes you a Superprof (besides answering this interview questions :-P)?

  I love watching a student break through a plateau. Every now and then something just clicks, through a walkthrough of a question or an explanation of a concept, and a student just runs with it. They see the connections they need to because they finally truly understand the process. It's exciting for them and its exciting for me, because I remember how difficult it was to break through that same plateau in my own study, and how proud I was when I finally did. This level of connection between my students and me is what makes me a Superprof. I completely understand the exact situation my students are in, and I know exactly how it feels, both to break through a plateau but also to be stuck at one. I tailor all my lessons specifically to the needs of my students according to what they need in this exact moment.