Tolerating Imperfection: The Road to Underperformance

When students come to me after working with other tutors, many of them have had a common experience: consistently getting homework problems wrong for months. When I tell them that they should’ve been getting perfects on their homework, they’re shocked and puzzled. Aren’t you supposed to be doing homework to eventually get to perfect?

These students have all been led to believe that progress is supposed to be gradual. What’s insidious about this belief is that it postpones evaluation of the tutor’s teaching. Students wait week after week, thinking that they’ll get their homework problems right someday. They keep practicing, never realizing that the real reason that they’re not improving significantly is because the tutor’s methods just don’t work.

If an LSAT tutor’s test taking methods work, then they should work every time. Otherwise, why call it a method at all? All of my students get perfects on their homework, regardless of whether they started from a 135 or a 165. For example, when my students learn my three-step method for weaken questions, within a week or so, they’re getting perfects on weaken questions. Afterwards, they’ll get a weaken question wrong on their homework once in a while, but that’s it. They’ve tasted perfection and know that’s to be expected.

You should be doing your homework untimed. If you can’t get perfects on your homework despite having unlimited time, the problem isn’t you. It’s your tutor’s method.