5 Reasons Why the LSAT® Can Help Your GMAT Score

In another article, we profiled the amazing Ms. HP, who completed an astounding 4,000 Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension questions on her journey to a 98th-percentile GMAT score and a Harvard MBA.

Astute readers might notice that most of her CR and RC practice questions, roughly 3,200 out of the 4,000 that she completed, came from the LSAT®, not the GMAT. And you might be wondering: is it really worthwhile to use LSAT® materials, when you have absolutely no intention of suffering through law school? Does the LSAT® really help you to succeed on the GMAT?

For most of our GMAT students, especially the high-achieving, hard-studying types who are aiming for a 655+ on the GMAT, the answer is an enthusiastic yes.

Here are five reasons why the LSAT® might be a worthwhile supplement to your GMAT study materials.

Reason #1: The LSAT® Trains You to Read More Carefully on the GMAT

At their core, the Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning questions on the GMAT and the LSAT® require exactly the same skills. Success on these exams requires the ability to read complicated (and often boring) texts, carefully understand the nuances of those texts, and flawlessly evaluate the arguments in the texts, without bringing in outside information.

If you pick up a mass-market test prep guide for the GMAT, you’ll see plenty of lessons on the different “types” of Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension questions. You could learn the strategies and mapping techniques for different question types, and your score might improve as a result. But if you can’t comprehend the nuances of the (often miserably convoluted) writing on the exam, you’re in trouble.

In other words, the single biggest key to verbal success is understanding the text EXACTLY as it’s written.

So sure, it can be worthwhile to think about certain ways to analyze or “map” particular question types on CR and RC; those techniques can be useful for certain test-takers, at least for some questions. But success on the GMAT verbal section is primarily about the precision of your reading, and your ability to battle your way through the often-unpleasant CR and RC passages that appear on the exam. The LSAT®, with its spectacularly dense language, helps you build this skill at least as well as, and arguably better than, official GMAT questions.

Reason #2: There’s a Finite Supply of Official GMAT RC and CR Questions

Unfortunately, the total supply of official GMAT questions really isn’t all that large, even if you purchase everything you can get your hands on. If you do every single publicly available GMAT question (by, say, purchasing each of the GMAT Official Guides and the additional question packs on MBA.com), you might amass a grand total of approximately 400 distinct Critical Reasoning questions and 400 Reading Comprehension questions, give or take a few dozen.

For many of you, that’s more than enough. For others, it’s nowhere near sufficient to reach your peak performance on the GMAT. If you need more reps than the official GMAT questions can provide, then you’ll definitely want some help from the LSAT®.

But there’s another problem with the official GMAT questions: some of them are far too easy if your goal is a 655+ on the GMAT.

GMAC publishes a reasonably representative cross-section of questions in their GMAT resources, ranging from the very easiest (“205-level questions,” in theory) to the very toughest (“805-level questions,” if such things exist). If you’re shooting for a top-tier GMAT score, the easiest RC and CR questions might be a waste of your time. Perhaps only the toughest 50% of GMAT Official Guide questions will give you an adequate verbal workout if your score goals are ambitious.

Fortunately, the supply of official LSAT® questions is nearly limitless. Last time we checked, the folks who produce the LSAT® have, at one time or another, published more than 90 official LSAT® exams, each of which contains roughly 50 Critical Reasoning questions (known as Logical Reasoning on the LSAT®) and 25 Reading Comprehension questions, for a grand total of more than 6,500 usable questions.

The bottom line: if you need extra Critical Reasoning or Reading Comprehension practice for the GMAT, you’ll never run out of LSAT® questions, even if you’re as wildly ambitious as the relentless Ms. HP.

Reason #3: Official LSAT® Questions Are Superior to “Knockoff” GMAT Questions

In theory, you could use test-prep companies’ “non-official” GMAT resources instead of LSAT® questions. But regardless of the messaging you might see in those companies’ marketing materials, official LSAT® questions are far more useful than any “knockoff” questions written by test-prep firms.

Verbal questions are incredibly nuanced, and it’s unbelievably difficult for test-prep companies to even begin to replicate those nuances. Every official test question is edited, tested, re-edited, and re-tested by a small army of psychometricians and other experts. By the time an official question appears in an actual exam (or in GMAT practice tests), it will be incredibly nuanced – and 100% error-free.

Simply put, it’s impossible for test-prep companies to perfectly replicate the precision of “real” GMAT verbal questions, and knockoffs from test-prep companies can even be a dangerous substitute for the real thing. At best, non-official verbal questions will be a less-than-ideal use of your time, since they won’t really sharpen your ability to identify the nuances of official questions; at worst, non-official RC and CR questions will teach you to identify the wrong nuances, and your skills might actually decline.

Put another way: “knockoff” questions are often difficult in ways that do not accurately reflect the real GMAT exam, and you’re much better off using official LSAT® questions instead.

For more, check out this article on why official GMAT questions might cost $3,000 each.

Reason #4: Official LSAT® Questions Are Harder Than GMAT Questions

This is arguably the best reason to use LSAT® Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning questions for your GMAT studies: LSAT® questions are, on average, more difficult than their counterparts on other exams.

If you open an official LSAT® book, you’ll immediately notice that the passages are longer and the language is more challenging than anything you’ve ever seen on the GMAT. And that’s wonderful, especially if you’re striving for a 90th-percentile score on the GMAT. Even if your natural reading ability is absolutely spectacular, I promise that the hardest LSAT® Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension questions will make you sweat; if you don’t believe me, the nasty LSAT® RC passages in this video should change your mind quickly.

Please forgive our use of a sports cliché here, but using LSAT® questions for GMAT studies is comparable to a baseball player taking practice swings with a weighted bat before stepping to the plate: by the time the batter (or the test-taker) actually swings a real bat (or takes the GMAT), the task of swinging (or answering verbal questions) will feel quite a bit easier.

Again, the single most important skill tested on GMAT verbal questions is your ability to battle your way through dense language and to understand the passage exactly as it’s written. So if you want to work out your reading “muscles” for CR and RC, nothing in the test-prep world is better than retired LSAT® exams.

Reason #5: The Differences Between LSAT® and GMAT Questions Are Mostly Cosmetic

As we mentioned above, the single biggest difference between LSAT® and GMAT questions is that the LSAT® questions are, on average, wordier and more difficult. But if you skim through the questions in an LSAT® Critical Reasoning section, you’ll find some question styles that rarely appear on the GMAT. The most obvious example is the “parallel reasoning” questions on the LSAT®, which ask you to identify the answer choice with the logical pattern that most closely resembles the original passage. Parallel reasoning questions do appear occasionally on the GMAT, but they’re exceedingly rare.

We could split hairs over a few other differences between LSAT® and GMAT verbal questions, but nearly all of those differences are minor. The GMAT seems to prefer realistic-sounding Critical Reasoning passages about business and politics, while the LSAT® often strays into philosophical discourses, abstract logic, and legal topics. Many LSAT® answer choices arguably sound like “legalese,” with plenty of mumbo-jumbo about premises and conclusions and patterns of reasoning. And the GMAT’s “boldface” Critical Reasoning questions never appear on the LSAT®, at least not exactly in the same format.

Though these differences might be off-putting if you’re not used to the LSAT®, the skills needed to beat the LSAT® are exactly the same as those needed to beat the GMAT. You need to read the Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension passages with pinpoint precision. You need to have a flawless understanding of the scope of each CR passage, and you need to ensure that outside information doesn’t stray into your thought process. The relatively minor stylistic differences do nothing to change the core skills required for success on both exams.
I’m the first to admit that a pile of LSAT® books won’t magically cure all of your GMAT verbal ailments, and nobody will argue that LSAT® questions are a perfect replica of their GMAT and EA counterparts. But if you need a challenge on Critical Reasoning or if you’ve exhausted the supply of official GMAT Reading Comprehension questions, then a stack of LSAT® books is the next-best thing. Answering fresh LSAT® questions will help you more than redoing GMAT questions for a second time, and official LSAT® questions are infinitely better than an endless diet of “knockoff” materials from test-prep companies.

So no, the LSAT® isn’t perfect (unless, of course, you’re actually studying for the LSAT®). But if you’re dedicated to maximizing your GMAT verbal score, then the LSAT® can be an outstanding complement to GMAC’s official materials.