Re: Only 2% get a 170+ on the LSAT
Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2010 1:42 am
I come from a piss poor background but I'm also in this special club, so I feel good inside.
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Something we can finally agree onIAFG wrote:they aren't even good enough to clean my toilets.Tautology wrote:I'm a dumbness bigot!IAFG wrote: know who really gets fucked? dumbs.
what can we do to protect dumbs from dumbness discrimination? it is fucking RAMPANT.
A national bar exam that requires thorough knowledge of every state's laws.acrossthelake wrote:Again, I'd like to see some actual suggestions on how to make a test unlearnable. Some evidence that it's possible.
as usual, intellectual elitism prevailsTautology wrote:Something we can finally agree onIAFG wrote:they aren't even good enough to clean my toilets.Tautology wrote:I'm a dumbness bigot!IAFG wrote: know who really gets fucked? dumbs.
what can we do to protect dumbs from dumbness discrimination? it is fucking RAMPANT.
I don't think we have to prove that this is possible in order to agree that learnability is an undesirable quality in this kind of test and thus unlearnability a goal to strive for, nor does a test have to be completely unlearnable to be less learnable than the current version of the LSAT.acrossthelake wrote:Again, I'd like to see some actual suggestions on how to make a test unlearnable. Some evidence that it's possible.
--ImageRemoved--I don't think we have to prove that this is possible in order to agree that learnability is an undesirable quality in this kind of test and thus unlearnability a goal to strive for, nor does a test have to be completely unlearnable to be less learnable than the current version of the LSAT.
Pretty much agree with this.acrossthelake wrote: Also depends if the current state of the LSAT would be more or less predictive if you made these changes. Hasn't been done, so there's no research to back it up. If you could make it less biased towards those with time and resources while maintaining predictability, that's fine.
I don't necessarily agree with this. I'm sure to get disagreement, but being the unabashed liberal that I am I think that part of the goal of education should be to help close the gap between the advantaged and disadvantaged segments of society. The LSAT does not necessarily have to address that, but to the extent that the wealthy/educated/white/whatever among us are more likely to do well in law school (especially if it's because of differences at the beginning rather than by the end of their legal training) then I don't think the LSAT should help pick those people out.acrossthelake wrote:The real goal should just be to max out its capabilities of predicting performance.
I probably wasn't defining learnable very precisely. Time needed for improvement would probably be a component, but I don't agree that making it take more time to improve would greater advantage those we're talking about, and certainly not if the time investment/improvement ratio were extreme enough. The things I would target first though are things like logic games that most people have never seen before the LSAT and so people could greatly benefit from studying specifically for the LSAT.acrossthelake wrote:It depends how you define "learnable"----Is it amount of time needed to improve? That's how I'm viewing the definition, so let me know if you're using a different definition. Working with that definition, until you reach perfect unlearnability(no time will help you), the more unlearnable you make it(the more time you need to put in for a marginal improvement), the more it favours those with the time and resources and therefore the wealthy, assuming that people will go to whatever lengths to succeed.
Currently as it is though, most people(including the wealthy!) don't go to nearly the lengths they could go to succeed.
So it depends what assumptions and definitions we're working with here.
I agree that evidence trumps speculation, but I have been unable to find such evidenceDesert Fox wrote:I want to see evidence that the test is biased against lower income levels. Do poor students do better in law school than the LSAT says they should? That would be a huge blow against the LSAT.
And its so much more fun to debate the facts anyway-amirite?Tautology wrote:I agree that evidence trumps speculation, but I have been unable to find such evidence
And since URMs are disproportionately economically disadvantaged I think its a fair assumption that an economic bias doesn't exist.acrossthelake wrote:This is difficult to track because they don't ask you your economic status on the LSAT. However, research done by ethnicity shows no ethnic bias. In fact, the LSAT overpredicts for URMs.Tautology wrote:I agree that evidence trumps speculation, but I have been unable to find such evidenceDesert Fox wrote:I want to see evidence that the test is biased against lower income levels. Do poor students do better in law school than the LSAT says they should? That would be a huge blow against the LSAT.
1L class rankkk19131 wrote:What exactly is the LSAT supposed to predict?
And, I mean... exactly.
Is it school-specific?Desert Fox wrote:1L class rankkk19131 wrote:What exactly is the LSAT supposed to predict?
And, I mean... exactly.
No.kk19131 wrote:Is it school-specific?Desert Fox wrote:1L class rankkk19131 wrote:What exactly is the LSAT supposed to predict?
And, I mean... exactly.
So everyone at Harvard is at the top of her class?Desert Fox wrote:No.kk19131 wrote:Is it school-specific?Desert Fox wrote:1L class rankkk19131 wrote:What exactly is the LSAT supposed to predict?
And, I mean... exactly.
TLS is full of liars. lolbooyakasha wrote:TLS is full of gunners. HTH.
That's not necessarily true though of URMs taking the LSAT. It may be, but that's not clear.Desert Fox wrote:And since URMs are disproportionately economically disadvantaged I think its a fair assumption that an economic bias doesn't exist.acrossthelake wrote:This is difficult to track because they don't ask you your economic status on the LSAT. However, research done by ethnicity shows no ethnic bias. In fact, the LSAT overpredicts for URMs.Tautology wrote:I agree that evidence trumps speculation, but I have been unable to find such evidenceDesert Fox wrote:I want to see evidence that the test is biased against lower income levels. Do poor students do better in law school than the LSAT says they should? That would be a huge blow against the LSAT.
I mean, who wants to just agree?sundance95 wrote:And its so much more fun to debate the facts anyway-amirite?
Oh I misunderstood your question. It's a measurement relative to other test takers. So a 165 would be more likely to be at the bottom of HLS because its the bottom 10% of HLS students LSAT scores.kk19131 wrote:So everyone at Harvard is at the top of her class?Desert Fox wrote:No.kk19131 wrote:Is it school-specific?Desert Fox wrote:
1L class rank