Bubbling in answers after time is called..fair game? Forum

[dba415]

Suppose you have 3 questions left in a section when time is called that you didn't even get to or have a chance to bubble in a guess.

Once the next section starts, do you consider it fair game to bubble in random choices for those 3 questions from the previous section?

[odoylerulez]

I wish I knew how many people that take this test actually do go back and fill in the bubbles after sections are completed.

I'm willing to bet enough do that make it "fair game" in some warped sense to do it, even though it is clearly a violation.

[941law]

yes.

[kaiser]

I saw someone get caught doing this. They were reported and removed from the test room. I have no idea if they were able to actually get into schools given that they have it on their record that they cheated, and every school knows it. I wouldn't risk it.

[monkey85]

it's great when a person's moral compass is already off-course before they even begin law school.

[emkay625]

I say unfair.

1. it's against the rules.
2. not all test-takers have a chance to do this - if you are seated right next to the proctor vs. in the back, if your proctors check how many bubbles are left at the end of each section (they are supposed to do this) vs. if yours do not. so no - not fair game.

you have a watch, when there are 10 seconds left, fill them in then.

[kaiser]

A good idea is, at the 5 minute warning, to just fill in any bubble for the remaining questions you have yet to answer. That way, if time is called, you will have something down and never have a blank. So in those last 5 min, you quickly fill in any bubble just to have it filled out, and then actually go through each question, erasing the arbitrary bubbling and changing it to your actual answer. Sure, you will have to spend a few seconds erasing, but better that than possibly leaving questions blank.

And you would be surprised how often you can snag a point or 2 through guessing. With only 5 min left, you can look up at your sequence of answers, and see what the trends are. For example, I had 3 questions left at the 5 min warning, and I hadn't had a B in forever. So I bubbled all 3 of them as B. I did 2 of the Q's, and left the last one as the arbitrary B, and this ended up being the right answer. So I wouldn't pick letters at random. Look at what hasn't been picked in awhile, and just go with that letter, assuming you have to guess.

[ThreeRivers]

I was SO insanely tempted to do this but for some odd reason I didn't... It appears it was experimental anyways (According to TLS the RC with the Bees is)

[ThreeRivers]

I say unfair.

1. it's against the rules.
2. not all test-takers have a chance to do this - if you are seated right next to the proctor vs. in the back, if your proctors check how many bubbles are left at the end of each section (they are supposed to do this) vs. if yours do not. so no - not fair game.

you have a watch, when there are 10 seconds left, fill them in then.

I've never heard of proctors going around and checking every single person's sheet to see amount of bubbles left.. that'd be pretty insane lol

[CodyRuegger]

I imagine it doesn't get caught often, but yes, it's against the rules.

[Bildungsroman]

It's against the rules, so don't do it.

[recursion]

It's explicitly against the rules to return to a section after time has been called. So, because of this, it is not "fair game."

[tyro]

Fair game? Lolwut.

I didn't even finish filling in a bubble that I had started filling in when the proctor said "pencils down". Don't cheat.

[ThreeRivers]

While I actually didn't do this as I just stated this isn't a fair sample size (not many people would be willing to admit otherwise even on the Internet)

I'd imagine that the majority of individuals would, but that still doesn't make it fair or right. All depends on your own personal morals I guess (if you take away the possibility of getting caught)

[06162014123]

[

[Bildungsroman]

It's explicitly against the rules to return to a section after time has been called. So, because of this, it is not "fair game."

I always found that wording a little ambiguous. In my mind, that rule could reasonably be taken one of two ways:

• not allowed to turn the page to previous sections and continue working on them after time is called
  
  OR
  
  not allowed to do anything involving previous sections, including erasing stray marks, darkening circles, etc.

Am I the only one?

The wording of the actual policy is totally clear and explicit.

[06162014123]

.

[arkansawyer]

I saw someone get caught doing this. They were reported and removed from the test room. I have no idea if they were able to actually get into schools given that they have it on their record that they cheated, and every school knows it. I wouldn't risk it.

Why were you watching someone else while you were taking the test?

[Curious1]

You do whatever you need to get the highest score. You accept the risks that come with that.

Personally, I think you'd be much better off improving your timing beforehand on PTs such that this problem doesn't come up at all (like giving yourself 32 minutes to complete everything on the PTs instead of 35).

[dba415]

I think most people realize that it is 'wrong' or illegal, the question is whether or not it is fair game, just because something is illegal does not mean that it is not fair game.

Whether or not other people do it will affect your own score (as you will be graded compared to them) so if 99 people bubble in answers after the end of a section and get 1 out of those 3 questions right while you are the 1 person who does not do it and gets all 3 wrong your score is worse and theirs better.

Thus, in essence, you choosing to take the moral high ground in this will actually be NOT FAIR GAME, you being disadvantaged and it being unfair to you. Basically it's up to the LSAT proctors to check this and make sure it is fair game for everyone, not yourself.

[Bildungsroman]

I think most people realize that it is 'wrong' or illegal, the question is whether or not it is fair game, just because something is illegal does not mean that it is not fair game.

Whether or not other people do it will affect your own score (as you will be graded compared to them) so if 99 people bubble in answers after the end of a section and get 1 out of those 3 questions right while you are the 1 person who does not do it and gets all 3 wrong your score is worse and theirs better.

Thus, in essence, you choosing to take the moral high ground in this will actually be NOT FAIR GAME, you being disadvantaged and it being unfair to you.

Equivocation is a mortal sin.

[emkay625]

I say unfair.

1. it's against the rules.
2. not all test-takers have a chance to do this - if you are seated right next to the proctor vs. in the back, if your proctors check how many bubbles are left at the end of each section (they are supposed to do this) vs. if yours do not. so no - not fair game.

you have a watch, when there are 10 seconds left, fill them in then.

I've never heard of proctors going around and checking every single person's sheet to see amount of bubbles left.. that'd be pretty insane lol

Mine did on the october test. we had a small room - 14 people - and they walked around and wrote down if we had any blank on this little scratch sheet of paper. (no joke. it was intense).

[MrPapagiorgio]

I can see why people would be tempted, especially if one was in the back of the room during a reasonably large administration. I took it twice, and had such a small group the second time that the proctors did mark down if someone left any answers blank before moving onto the next section (had a grand total of 6 in the testing room). That's why if I had a minute left and had more than 1 question left, I just circled answers for the questions I knew I wouldn't have time to get to.

[Blumpbeef]

I left one blank last October. I really regretted it, but then the answer turned out to be D and I would have randomly guessed C, so that made me feel better.

So, I might not have the score that I wanted, but at least I still have my integrity.

[Tom Joad]

Speaking of cheating, there have to be people that get access to the test ahead of time and take it without any time constraints. When the reward could be HYS, the potential gain from cheating is too hard to ignore. How hard could it be to corrupt a proctor? If there are people willing to pay $10,000 to raise their score 5 points, then there are probably people willing to pay off proctors to get super high scores.