The Law School Admission Test ("LSAT") is the test students must take in order to apply to an American-Bar-Association (ABA)-approved and Law School Admission Council (LSAC)-registered law school.
Quick facts:
- Six sections, four of which are graded: two logical reasoning sections, one logic games section, one critical reading section, one experimental, and one essay.
- Each section is 35 minutes long. The test is, technically, designed so that those who are receiving median scores will not finish. (Note: Students with a disability can apply for extra time.)
- Scored on a 120-180 scale. There are no subscores. A 173 is approximately the 99th percentile. A 151 is approximately the 50th percentile.
- A perfect score is at the 99.99th percentile. About thirty students each test earn a perfect 180.
- The essay is not scored, but it is sent to law schools.
Unlike the GRE, SAT, and ACT, the LSAT (and, by extension, MCAT* ) is mandatory. (Certain law schools will take the GRE, but all of them will take the LSAT.) In order for a law school to maintain its ABA approval, schools must report the average LSAT score of its matriculants. The LSAT is produced by the Law School Admission Council (“LSAC”), which also handles the applications for all LSAC member schools (hint: it’s nearly all of them). If this sounds like a military-industrial complex, it is. The LSAC both produces the entrance exam, mandates the entrance exam, and handles applications for all law students. However, it no longer writes the actual exam; that has been outsourced to ACT for over a decade.
A common misconception is that the LSAT is an IQ test and therefore is not designed to be studied for. This is wrong. The fact that the LSAC has released seventy-six previous LSATs (sixty-nine “numbered” prep tests (PT 1-69), three prep tests with written solutions (Superpreps A, B, C), one free exam (June 2007), and three previous Indian exams) shows that the LSAC underscores the depth of study entailed for the LSAT. The LSAT was designed as a way to equate GPAs from different schools and different majors. It correlates strongly with first-year law school grades, and one of the reasons it does is because of the amount of study required to earn a high score.
A second misconception about the LSAT is that it is curved. The LSAT is not curved. The LSAT is equated. It does not matter when students take the test and it does not matter if students take it with all Yale Law School students or monkeys; the score remains the same.
A final common misconception, especially for fiction, are the test prep companies. The LSAT is firmly in a test-test prep industrial complex (note that the makers of the test produce study guides as well). Common prep companies, such as Princeton Review, McGraw-Hill, and Kaplan, are considered, at best, useless. In addition to official LSAC publications, students use well-known brands such as Blueprint, Powerscore, and Manhattan, but also lesser-known and LSAT-specific such as 7Sage, The LSAT Trainer, and the LSAT Blog.
Sections
The LSAT is divided up into four sections, plus one experimental section and the essay.
Logical Reasoning: Logical Reasoning (“LR”) takes up two different sections of the graded portion of the test. It is 25-26 questions, each with a question (“question stem”) and a short paragraph (“question stimulus”). It is not a reading section; LR tests logic, specifically, sufficient and necessary assumptions and inferences. The language is very tight; answers come down to the difference between “many” and “most”, what is required for the argument to be true vs. what is sufficient to make the argument true, and conditional reasoning.
Analytical Reasoning: Almost always called Logic Games (“LG”) in non-official contexts, these are games—seven students are presenting their portfolio, three students are about English, two on math, and one on history. They present in order and each student presents only once. Student A cannot present first. If student B presents before student A, then C presents after D…etc. LG are typically assumed by outsiders to be the hardest section, however, it is the easiest and fastest to improve on. Notable games are: the mauve dinosaur (PT 57) and zones (PT 67). The Mauve Dinosaur game led multiple people expecting 175+ to cancel their score on the spot.
Reading Comprehension: In recent years, Reading Comprehension (RC) has been amped to 11. Passages are dense, and questions pedantic and very, very tight. Students who typically go -0 on LR and LG are frequently not surprised by a -7 in RC. If this sounds like a cruel twist of fate, it is. However, a student who is a good reader but struggles with the mental twists of Logic Games can pick up points here. All RC passages are about law, science, humanities, or art. Brutal passages include Dworkin (PT 35), !Kung (PT 64), Riddled Basins (PT 50), Pin Factory (PT 68), Dental Caries (PT 62), Chinese Talk-Story (PT 55), Maize (PT 49), and Noguchi (PT 59), with Riddled Basins, Noguchi, and Dworkin probably taking the top three spots.
The Experimental Section: One of the sections is designed to test questions for future tests. It has no effect on the test taker's score. It is basically impossible for the test taker to tell which one of the sections is the experimental one, and it can appear anywhere. Hint: Treat them all like they are the real deal.
There is an essay section of the test. Originally, it was given immediately after the rest of the test, nowadays, it is given separately. Test takers are free to take this portion of the test within the comfort of their own homes. The essay will always consist of the same basic format: A group of people are trying to accomplish some goal and have two seemingly equal methods of doing so, the test taker must choose one of those methods and endorse it. They should explain why they chose that option and what is wrong with the other option. Although the writing sample is required in order to complete the LSAT, it does not have universal value at all law schools; some will almost totally ignore, others will read every last word. (Assume the latter, for your own sake!)
