Law School Admissions Test
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The Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) is a standardized test used for admission to law schools in the United States of America and Canada that are members of the Law School Admissions Council. It is scored on a normalized scale of 120 to 180: a 180 is the highest possible score, while a 120 is the lowest. A 150 represents the national median; the precise score distribution varies by test administration date.
It is administered four times per year, traditionally in February, June, October, and December. The LSAT is usually taken in the June or October preceding the year of admission, although most law schools will let applicants take the examination in December as well.
Unlike other American standardized tests, 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. The "best" law schools (such as Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, and Chicago) usually look for an LSAT score of 170 or above, while top-50 law schools look for scores of 160 or above.
Also unlike other standardized tests, the LSAT is rarely re-taken. This is because all of a student's LSAT scores are reported to their law school, not just his or her 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 been toward the latter method.
The test consists of six sections; with the exception of the writing section, all are multiple choice.
- 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 student to find unspoken assumptions, alternative arguments, logical omissions or errors, pick a line of parallel reasoning, or identify weakening or strengthening statements. There is usually one question per argument, although sometimes the test will ask two questions about the same passage.
- 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 student to distinguish the author's main idea, intent, tone, attitude, and strategy for writing. The passages are typically several paragraphs long, covering a legal, political, scientific, or artistic subject matter. They contain more information than can be immediately retained by a typical reader, requiring frequent referral by students.
- One analytical reasoning section of 35 minutes. This section, informally known as the "games" section, presents the student 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 then asks the student 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 student to quickly reorganize information. The games section is the most coachable section of the LSAT, and as a consequence, the complexity and difficulty of this section has been steadily increased since the late 1990s. The analytical reasoning section is a subset of set theory, and generally involves grouping and/or ordering of elements whose number may or may not be known.
- One experimental section, which can be any of the above; it is not scored, but merely used by the LSAT authorities to test new questions for future tests. The student is not told which section of the exam is experimental, to avoid the distorting effects of student inattention or apathy.
- One writing sample, which is not scored but is provided to the law school. There are two possible writing samples: A Decision prompt and an Argument prompt. In the Decision prompt, the student is given an argument as well as two positions, and then asked to present an essay in favor of one position. In the Argument prompt, the student is given an argument and then asked to critique that argument. The time limit for either prompt is 35 minutes. The writing sample is kept by LSAC and a copy is sent along to each law school along with the student's LSAT score. Since most programs require a "personal statement" of some kind, the writing sample from the LSAT is sometimes ignored completely.
A complete LSAT administration takes up to seven hours, although only three and a half hours are needed for the test itself: the remainder of the time is used for materials preparation, breaks, and other tasks. Further, of the three and a half hours of testing, only about two and a half are actually scored.
Criticism
The LSAT, as a standardized test, has fallen under a blanket of general criticism of standardized testing as not being a neutral or effective measure of aptitude or ability.
Law schools and LSAC counter that the type of analytical thinking skills that are necessary for excellent performance on the LSAT are similar to those required for success in law. Further, the ever-increasing volume and diversity of law school applicants creates a clear need for an organized method of evaluating the aptitude of each.
Empirical evidence on the matter is mixed.
LSAC itself has recently become a vocal critic of the overreliance of American law schools on GPA and LSAT scores as performance predictors. In addition to issuing a warning (Cautionary Policies Concerning LSAT Scores and Related Services), LSAC published New Models to Assure Diversity, Fairness, and Appropriate Test Use in Law School Admissions in 1999. This publication was meant to encourage and research alternative methods for managing law school admissions.
LSAC also maintains that the LSAT is not meant to be a predicter of overall law school performance, but that it tests "a limited set of acquired skills deemed relevant to a person’s ability to perform well in the first year of law school" only. Expert testimony in the recent court ruling of Grutter v. Bollinger, a case regarding admissions practices at the University of Michigan, suggested a correlation between LSAT scores and first-year law school grades of "only 16-20%, which is to say that 80-84% of first year law school grades are not predicted by the LSAT." Further, taking an LSAT preparation course improves an applicant’s score by an average of about seven points, which disproportionately favors those candidates who have the financial capacity to pay for the extra training.
What is unquestioned, however, is that the LSAT is the best known predictor of first-year performance. That is, even if "only 16-20%" of freshman grades can be predicted by the LSAT, no better measure is known to exist. Undergraduate GPA alone, for example, has a relatively weak 7% correlation with freshman law school grades. LSAC insists that despite the fact that other measurements are weaker predictors than the LSAT, the LSAT should not be overemphasized, as it has "never come close to accounting for all the factors that contribute to an individual student's performance." LSAC's correlation studies, for example, suggest that about 10% of students with a 140 LSAT score and about 25% of students with a 150 LSAT score will earn higher first-year grades than half of the students with a 160 LSAT score.
Part of the motivation to use the LSAT may be the ABA (American Bar Association), which requires that a "valid and reliable" test be administered by accredited law schools to evaluate candidates. Regardless of how poor (or excellent) of a predictor the LSAT may be, there is no doubt that it is currently the best predictor, and so most schools feel compelled to rely on it, and rely on it heavily. There is anecdotal evidence to suggest that accepting students with high LSAT scores is also desirable in school rankings, as the average LSAT score of incoming freshmen weighs heavily in the annual rankings published by the US News and World Report.
[1]Cautionary Policies Concerning LSAT Scores and Related Services
[2]New Models to Assure Diversity, Fairness, and Appropriate Test Use in Law School Admissions
[3]The University of Toledo Law Review #34
[4] Discussion of UCLA Law Professor Richard Sanders' study on effect of changing standards in law school admissions
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 LSAT is an exam that responds significantly to preparation, and even the Law School Admission Council recommends that students prepare beforehand. Given the coachability of the LSAT, and the growing competitiveness of law programs in America, 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.
There are a variety of commercial options available to assist in preparation, ranging from full-length courses to personal tutors to written publications. However, most experts agree that the final step in any such prep should be to work through as many actual past exams as possible.
