Law School Admission Test

The Law School Admission Test (LSAT) is a norm-referenced, or standardized test that is administered by the Law School Admission Council (LSAC). It is intended to provide law schools with "a standard measure of acquired reading and verbal reasoning skills that law schools can use as one of several factors in assessing applicants"^*. Formally, LSAC correlates LSAT performance with first year law school grades. The LSAT is administered four times per year, traditionally in February, June, October, and December, and scores are distributed on a scale of 120 to 180—with 180 the highest possible score, and 120 the lowest. The number of students taking the LSAT increased by over 30% between 2000 and 2002, but slowed in 2004. Although the number of test-takers dropped by about 5% in 2005, the total of more than 137,000 examinees that year is significantly higher than the 104,000 people who took it in 1997.

Test Composition

Logical reasoning

There are two logical reasoning sections of 35 minutes each. Commonly known as the "arguments" sections, each question begins with a logical statement or argument, usually composing no more than a few short sentences (e.g. "A is B; therefore C must be D"), and then asks the examinee to find unspoken assumptions, alternative arguments, logical omissions or errors, to pick a line of parallel reasoning, or to identify weakening or strengthening statements. There is usually one question per argument, although sometimes the test will ask two questions about the same passage.

Logical reasoning sections usually consist of 24-26 questions each. In its official LSAT Superprep, LSAC scores questions on a difficulty scale from 1-5. Most logical reasoning sections contain 2-3 level 5 questions. The arguments section is somewhat difficulty-graded. While not directly graded like the SAT, the hardest questions tend to come toward the end of the section, while the first 10 often contain no questions above difficulty level 3.

Reading comprehension

There is one reading comprehension section of 35 minutes. This section usually has four brief written passages on a variety of topics and five to eight follow-up questions about each passage. The questions primarily ask the examinee to distinguish the author's main idea, intent, tone, attitude, and strategy for writing. The passages are typically several paragraphs long, covering some legal, political, scientific, or artistic subject matter. A given LSAT will typically have one passage related to the physical sciences, one to the social sciences, one to the arts and humanities, and one to a legal topic. The passages usually employ an academic tone and contain more information than can be immediately retained by a typical reader, requiring frequent referral by the examinee. Through the 1990s, the reading sections have grown longer, and currently contain 26-28 questions, with the most recent LSATs having 28.

Analytical reasoning

There is one analytical reasoning section of 35 minutes, informally known as the "logic games" section. The material generally involves grouping and/or ordering of elements whose number may or may not be known. The examinee is presented with a setup ("there are five people who might attend this afternoon's meeting") and set of condition statements (e.g. "if Amy is present, then Bob is not present; if Cathy is present, then Dan is present..."), and is then asked to derive various conclusions from the statements (e.g. "What is the largest number of people who could be present?"). The games often add or change rules in each question, requiring the examinee to reorganize information quickly.

Throughout the 1990s, these sections have become shorter, now often ranging from 21-22 questions instead of 22-24 as in the middle 1990s. This section is billed as the most coachable by most LSAT test prep materials and companies. In response, LSAC has increased the difficulty of the questions to such a degree that examinees are discouraged by most test prep materials from using exams from the early 1990s to practice this section.

Experimental

There is one experimental section, which will be any one of the above types. Although the section is graded, the performance of the examinee on this section is not calculated or reported as part of the final score. The experimental section is used to field test new questions for future exams. The examinee is not told which section of the exam is experimental, in order to avoid the distorting effects of inattention or apathy. To reduce the impact of examinee fatigue on the score distribution of this section, it usually, but not always, appears as one of the first three sections of any given testing. Because multiple versions of the exam are issued, alert examinees who have two different versions of the test can trivially identify the experimental section by noting which sections they have had in common thus far.

The fairness of this section is often debated. The student does not know exactly which section is ungraded. Examinees can determine which type of section it was before the exam is over, but only after the examinee has already completed at least one such section. For example, if the student has already done two arguments sections and runs into a third one, then one of those three was the experimental section. Some examinations will include three arguments sections, others will have two games or reading sections. The order is also unpredictable, which allows for the possibility of, for example, three arguments sections in a row. Depending on ordering and where a given examinee's weaknesses lie, an examinee can severely underperform (or overperform) on one specific testing. No formal examination of the impact of the experimental section has ever been done, and examinee scores tend to steadily rise with practice regardless. The experimental section also amounts to unpaid research being done on LSAC's behalf by examinees who are already paying for the testing.

Writing sample

Finally, there is one writing sample, which is a brief essay that the examinee hand-writes at the end of the examination on lined paper that is provided with the test booklet. The writing sample is unique in that it is not scored and its order is known beforehand. The topic of the essay is given by either a Decision prompt or an Argument prompt. The Decision prompt provides the examinee with a problem and two positions on what decision should be made to solve it. The examinee is challenged to write a brief essay in support of one position. The decision generally does not involve a controversial subject, but rather something mundane about which the examinee likely has no strong bias, such as where to locate a new restaurant. For the Argument prompt, the examinee is given an argument and then asked to critique that argument. The time limit for either prompt is 35 minutes. The writing sample is essentially an extemporaneous essay, hand-written in pencil at the conclusion of a four- to five-hour examination. This essay is then photocopied and sent to admission offices along with the LSAT score. Between the quality of the handwriting and that of the photocopy, the readability and usefulness of the writing sample can be marginal. Additionally, most programs require that applicants submit a "personal statement" of some kind. These factors sometimes result in the writing sample portion being ignored completely by admission boards. Regardless, most prep materials and courses encourage practice on the writing sample; a handful recommend that examinees ignore it and focus on improving their performance on the graded portions of the exam.

Preparation

Because of the importance of the LSAT in law school admissions, it is strongly recommended that all applicants prepare thoroughly before taking the exam. The structure of the LSAT and the types of questions (and quantity of each) that will be asked are generally known ahead of time, which allows students to practice on question types that show up frequently in examinations and avoid wasting time on question types that may appear only once or twice. Because of this, the exam responds, in most cases, to preparation, and the Law School Admission Council recommends that students prepare beforehand.

Considering that the LSAT is usually taken only once, most students experience at least some improvement, and that admission to law programs in America has become increasingly competitive, any student wishing to qualify for a desired program should therefore probably take the time to prepare well for the exam. Doing so will likely significantly improve their odds of success. When preparing, students should keep in mind that only tests after 1995 are considered "modern tests." The LSAT has undergone many significant changes since the early 1990s.

Scoring the LSAT

LSAT score distributions taper off significantly at the extremes (high and low scores) and tend to congregate near the median score. That is, an examinee who scores a 175 may have missed only 4 questions more than an examinee with a 180. However, the number of uncredited responses that separates a 155 from a 160 could be 9 or more. Although the exact percentile of a given score will vary slightly between examinations, there tends to be little variance. The 50th percentile is typically a score of about 150; the 90th percentile is around 163 and the 99th is about 172. A 179 or better usually places the examinee in the 99.9th percentile.^*

All examinees may cancel their LSAT score within nine calendar days of the exam. LSAC still reports to law schools that the student registered for and took the exam, but releases no score. Although there is no appeals process for examinee complaints (e.g., proctor called time early, a cell phone went off, a question has ambiguous wording, etc), a specific question may, on rare occasion, be omitted from final scoring.

Use of the LSAT in Law School Admissions

Unlike other standardized examinations in America, the LSAT is the most important criterion in its corresponding school admissions process. The second most important criterion is undergraduate GPA. Most prestigious law schools receive far more applicants than they can accommodate; the examination offers admissions officers a simple and generally effective way to eliminate a large number of applicants from the pool. Also unlike other standardized tests, all of an examinees scores are reported to each law school to which the examinee applies, not just the highest or most recent score. Although most law schools consider all of an applicant's LSAT scores in their admission decisions, a few only consider the highest or most recent score, and the trend in recent years has begun to shift toward the latter method.

The statistical correlation between LSAT score and first year law school grades is not particularly strong; however, no better individual measure is currently known to exist. Although the correlation varies from school to school, LSAT scores are far more strongly correlated to first year law school performance than undergraduate GPA.^* Admission boards almost universally employ an admission index that weighs both the LSAT and undergraduate GPA on an combined scale. The admission index is essentially a mathematical formula that applies a weight to each factor and adds them together to form a composite statistic. This composite statistic has a stronger correlation to first year performance than either GPA or LSAT score alone. The amount of weight assigned to LSAT score versus undergraduate GPA varies from school to school, as almost all law programs employ a different admission index formula.

Privacy concerns

In 2006, the Common Law Section of the Faculty of Law of the University of Ottawa expressed concern over the use of personal information that is required for the Law School Admission Test. Specifically, the USA PATRIOT Act requires that examinees submit thumbprints, which may allow federal services, such as the FBI to collect personal information without the knowledge or consent of the examinee. This practice may be a violation of Canadian privacy law. The law school may discontinue use of the LSAT as an admission tool Canadian law deans have expressed similar concerns[http://www.ccld-cdfdc.ca/PressReleaseThumbprintingLSAC.pdf.

References

External links

Standardized tests | Legal education

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