Any major changes since the big change of 07 Forum

[BillsFan9907]

I was slated to take the LSAT last year but decided to put it off till this year. Now I'm back in the studying game. Has there been any major changes since they made the big changes of 07. I don't mean new format, I just mean like a switch up of the kinds of questions they are asking, the ease of sections etc..

I remember that the logic games were pretty straight forward and not very bad compared to what was in first 3 prep books. The 25 logic argument questions were a bit more difficult than these books.

Let me know.

[bp shinners]

The biggest change since '07 is the recent move away from having the experimental necessarily in the first three sections.

Other than that, there's been some move away from Must Be True questions to Soft Must Be True questions.

The test has been getting a bit harder and less tricky - as in the questions are difficult but fair, and there are fewer of those questions that make you groan when you hear the explanation.

RC seems to be getting a little harder, but mostly because of the questions instead of the passages. The Feb. LSAT bucked that trend.

Games also seem to be standardizing in difficulty - instead of 2 easy/2 hard, it seems to be all 4 around the same difficulty (and a little more difficult than average).

[KevinP]

The other major change that comes to mind is LSAC's LG rule substitution question (Something like: "Which of the following rules, if substituted, would have the same effect?").

[justbubbles]

Agreed with the above two posters.

In LR, PT57 and beyond some of the question stem language has changed. eg. PT 57 and earlier we'd see something like what "resolves the paradox", now it's more like "the discrepancy" (we had a few of these nuggets in the February test).

Also, for RC, comparative reading which appeared circa 07.

[BillsFan9907]

Cool - so pretty much what we have seen in prep test 9 game 4 hasn't shown up since the 2007 change?

[Perdevise]

Comparative reading in Reading Comprehension.

Rules substitution (as mentioned above).

[062914123]

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[bruss]

Way more principle questions. Like 5 per lr section

[unitball]

I also feel like the logic game setups have been getting less difficult but the questions that come afterward are a bit more time consuming on average.

[Perdevise]

Irrelevant, but every time I see "rule substitution," I want to cry inside

I know precisely how you feel. I only began seeing them at the tail-end of my preparation, and I don't think I ever fully caught on (none of the materials I read had explanations for how to tackle them).

[Jeffort]

Michael Jackson died young under mysterious circumstances, so did Whitney Houston.

Keith Richards is still alive somehow, so that is an ongoing miracle.

Lindsay Lohan keeps getting in trouble with the law, committing more crimes, pissing off judges, violating her probation and going in and out of jail.

Paris Hilton has been keeping a lower profile and so has Brittney Spears.

The Kardashian girls are famous for reasons that are beyond rational comprehension and seem to think that a short sham marriage is a good publicity stunt to make $$.

China is trying to buy as much of America as possible and take over the world.

Osama Bin Laden suddenly lost his brain and quickly became fish food.

Thousands of dedicated soldiers that were doing time in Iraq got to come home to their families.

As for the LSAT, not much. The test still tests the same logic and skills in the same ways it has for over two decades. Just a few minor adjustments over the recent years.

A comparative reading passage was added to the RC section, but it really is not much different than the other passages. For all passages, a larger proportion of RC question stems are specific about certain things in the passage rather than being generic/global, which I think makes the section a bit easier if you read well.

The games section is very consistent with standard game types that have been administered many times before, so if you prepare well you should not encounter any 'WTF?? is this' surprises. They did add the new rule substitution question type recently. That's the only change I would consider significant for the LG section. The few recent tests that contained the question type only had one in the section and not all of the most recent tests had one, so it is not a major change.

Logical Reasoning has not changed in terms of the logic it tests and how it does so but has had some minor fluctuations/shifts in the frequency/volume/distribution of question types per test. However, that has always been the case over the last twenty years, it ebbs and flows over time. You need to be familiar with and know how to approach all LR question types, simple as that. The difficulty of the questions arrangement per section has slight differences from older tests from the previous decade or two, but again nothing major. You still have 35 minutes to work the same amount of questions that test the same concepts and skills.

Recently the score conversion scales have loosened up somewhat from how strict/unforgiving they were on many tests administered from 2005 to roughly 2008/2009. The scales have always fluctuated up and down over the last two decades, so there is no guarantee that scales will continue to stay more generous as they have been recently. They depend in large part on the recent populations of test-takers and how they performed on the experimental sections in comparison to how they performed on the scored sections. Doing that type of statistical comparison is one of the methods they use to determine difficulty levels of questions and full sections before assembling them into operational scored sections of an administered test-form.

The changes I would consider major are the LSAC policies and procedures and test-day regulations. Things such as no phones or other electronic devices allowed, analog wrist watch only for keeping track of time per section, the ziplock bag rule and the passport photo on the admission ticket requirement. Test-day regulations have become much more strict in order to keep the test fair for everybody by preventing methods people could use to cheat/get an unfair advantage.

Otherwise, it's just the same test, testing the same skills in pretty much the same ways it was designed to and began doing just over 20 years ago.

[ebb44]

Other than that, there's been some move away from Must Be True questions to Soft Must Be True questions...

What do you mean by Soft Must Be True?

[20130312]

No mechanical pencils allowed.

[PARTY]

No mechanical pencils allowed.

yeah, i also read that digital stopwatches are a no-go.

[062914123]

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[bp shinners]

Other than that, there's been some move away from Must Be True questions to Soft Must Be True questions...

What do you mean by Soft Must Be True?

MBT questions have prompts like "If the above is true, then what else is logically entailed?"

Soft MBT questions are more like "If the above is true, then what is most strongly supported?"

Exactly.

A MBT question, you can bet your life on the correct answer. It will, no matter what, be certain if you accept everything in the stimulus.

A ~MBT question is very likely to be true (95%+), but there is a very small probability that it's not true.

The example we sometimes give in class is this:

You're out with your friend. You know, the one who insists on ordering top shelf liquor because he can't stomach anything that ends in -off. He can tell the difference. This goes on for a year; every martini, vodka and diet (because that type is always watching their sugar intake), or jungle juice is made with Belvedere/Grey Goose. Then, you buy him a drink. You ask the bartender for a vodka tonic with Kimnoff vodka (the one that comes in the plastic bottle and is distilled in Somerville, MA). You tell him it's Belvedere. He drinks it and smiles, thanking you for buying him such a great drink.

Sure, he might be a nice guy who can tell the difference between the two vodkas and just doesn't want to call you out on it. But it's strongly supported that he is just a jerk who can't tell the difference.