Overheard at the LSAT Forum

[NZA]

I took the test in Sept 2009 at my undergrad institution. So, I woke a few hours before the test, drank some coffee, had an omelette at my favorite cafe, etc. Get there early, have all my shit in order, etc.

So I'm checking in and the guy in front of me is like, 'Uh, I don't have my ticket. I left it at home.'

Naturally, the proctrix looks at him like, 'Wtf do you want me to do about it?' So I chime in and say that I go to school here, would be happy to take him to a computer so he can go online and reprint the ticket.

Because it's so early in the morning, the library is closed, the computer lab is closed. So I end up taking this guy on this wild run through my school trying to find a fucking computer with a printer before the test starts.

Finally, we end up going up some crazy stairwell and stumbling on some random room with a bunch of computers and a printer. We run back to the testing place, and I swoop in right when they're about to stop letting people into the room.

Anyway, stressful as hell at the time. But I ended up going gambling that night and making $300 playing craps, so I guess the universe approved. Plus, the guy was kind of dumb, so he probably brought down the curve.

[stratocophic]

Dear 0Ls,

PSA: the curve is set in advance. It. Is. Not. A. Forced. Curve. That's how law exams work, not the LSAT. See below (2nd paragraph, 6th paragraph), Google, and the TLS search function.

http://lsatblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/ls ... -lsac.html

You may now return to your regularly scheduled entertaining me. Thank you and have a nice day.

[09042014]

It's like you guys deny the existence of schools ranked below #35. There are actually 165 law schools below that mark. So, plenty of people get 150 somethings and go to law school.

Luckily for me, I'm an asshole like the rest of you/us. I was shocked at the people saying that 160 was an amazing score, etc.


But here's a Protip: A judge will knock the self-loving smile off your faces if you bring it into the courtroom. Don't forget that.

Anyone who can't score above a 160 is objectively retarded.

Lets go with 175. If you studied and scored below a 175 you should not be going to law school and you should not be posting on this thread. Just changing the degree of elitism Now a 179 needs to come and tell me to leave.

176 suck it.

[s0ph1e2007]

I took the test in Sept 2009 at my undergrad institution. So, I woke a few hours before the test, drank some coffee, had an omelette at my favorite cafe, etc. Get there early, have all my shit in order, etc.

So I'm checking in and the guy in front of me is like, 'Uh, I don't have my ticket. I left it at home.'

Naturally, the proctrix looks at him like, 'Wtf do you want me to do about it?' So I chime in and say that I go to school here, would be happy to take him to a computer so he can go online and reprint the ticket.

Because it's so early in the morning, the library is closed, the computer lab is closed. So I end up taking this guy on this wild run through my school trying to find a fucking computer with a printer before the test starts.

Finally, we end up going up some crazy stairwell and stumbling on some random room with a bunch of computers and a printer. We run back to the testing place, and I swoop in right when they're about to stop letting people into the room.

Anyway, stressful as hell at the time. But I ended up going gambling that night and making $300 playing craps, so I guess the universe approved. Plus, the guy was kind of dumb, so he probably brought down the curve.

aww that was nice

[beachbum]

Dear 0Ls,

PSA: the curve is set in advance. It. Is. Not. A. Forced. Curve. That's how law exams work, not the LSAT. See below (2nd paragraph, 6th paragraph), Google, and the TLS search function.

http://lsatblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/ls ... -lsac.html

You may now return to your regularly scheduled entertaining me. Thank you and have a nice day.

haha, I was wondering when someone was gonna point that out. People who do poorly on your LSAT administration may affect the curve in some future administration (due to their performance on the experimental section), but won't have anything to do with the curve on your test.

[stratocophic]

Dear 0Ls,

PSA: the curve is set in advance. It. Is. Not. A. Forced. Curve. That's how law exams work, not the LSAT. See below (2nd paragraph, 6th paragraph), Google, and the TLS search function.

http://lsatblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/ls ... -lsac.html

You may now return to your regularly scheduled entertaining me. Thank you and have a nice day.

haha, I was wondering when someone was gonna point that out. People who do poorly on your LSAT administration may affect the curve in some future administration (due to their performance on the experimental section), but won't have anything to do with the curve on your test.

There was like a 10 page debate about it after each test last year. The people who don't know how the curve works frequently rip on people who happen not to be familiar with other mechanics of the test which are no more or less obscure (although TBF stuff like not knowing about the experimental section is pretty ridiculous). Killin' me.

[SchopenhauerFTW]

Someone asked if a curve of -12 would mean that if you initially got a 160 then LSAC would add 12 points and give you a 172.

[fosterp]

From what I understand the curve is based off the difficulty of the test, not the performance of the test takers. The difficulty is determined by administering questions during experimental sections. And its not based solely on just how many people miss it, but the types of test takers that miss it. By type I mean scorers in the 170s, scorers in 160s, etc. So for example (just making up some numbers here) on the superprep tests, those questions that were ranked 5 difficulty - that would mean that maybe only 50% of 170 scorers got it correct, 10% of 160, etc. Easy questions would mean nearly all the 170s and 160s got it, etc. I would imagine LSAC uses a system far more complicated than that but I think that is the basic idea. That's why the curve is set before the administration. If a test has more high difficult questions then its curve will be more generous. Of course difficulty is subjective, but when we come on here and see that many people thought this test was harder than previous, we can reasonably believe the curve will be more generous.

Of course we also must consider the population of people giving feedback on the forum. Someone else mentioned maybe a lot of the TLS high achievers went for the oct test, whereas dec we have a lot of the lower scorers giving feedback, so the difficulty may be exaggerated.

[Sandro]

Dear 0Ls,

PSA: the curve is set in advance. It. Is. Not. A. Forced. Curve. That's how law exams work, not the LSAT. See below (2nd paragraph, 6th paragraph), Google, and the TLS search function.

http://lsatblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/ls ... -lsac.html

You may now return to your regularly scheduled entertaining me. Thank you and have a nice day.

haha, I was wondering when someone was gonna point that out. People who do poorly on your LSAT administration may affect the curve in some future administration (due to their performance on the experimental section), but won't have anything to do with the curve on your test.

But since the experimental as well as this administration were both given to roughly the same sample size wouldn't by knowing the Dec10 crew had a rough time meaning there is a very, very strong chance the experimental people did poorly on it? I wasn't really awake in my stats class but it seems like it would apply here.

[joebloe]

Dear 0Ls,

PSA: the curve is set in advance. It. Is. Not. A. Forced. Curve. That's how law exams work, not the LSAT. See below (2nd paragraph, 6th paragraph), Google, and the TLS search function.

http://lsatblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/ls ... -lsac.html

You may now return to your regularly scheduled entertaining me. Thank you and have a nice day.

haha, I was wondering when someone was gonna point that out. People who do poorly on your LSAT administration may affect the curve in some future administration (due to their performance on the experimental section), but won't have anything to do with the curve on your test.

But since the experimental as well as this administration were both given to roughly the same sample size wouldn't by knowing the Dec10 crew had a rough time meaning there is a very, very strong chance the experimental people did poorly on it? I wasn't really awake in my stats class but it seems like it would apply here.

This is exactly what I was thinking, and maybe it even explains the relative ease of exp LG for those who got it this time around; maybe LSAC is going to dial it back in 2 years?

[Sandro]

Dear 0Ls,

PSA: the curve is set in advance. It. Is. Not. A. Forced. Curve. That's how law exams work, not the LSAT. See below (2nd paragraph, 6th paragraph), Google, and the TLS search function.

http://lsatblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/ls ... -lsac.html

You may now return to your regularly scheduled entertaining me. Thank you and have a nice day.

haha, I was wondering when someone was gonna point that out. People who do poorly on your LSAT administration may affect the curve in some future administration (due to their performance on the experimental section), but won't have anything to do with the curve on your test.

But since the experimental as well as this administration were both given to roughly the same sample size wouldn't by knowing the Dec10 crew had a rough time meaning there is a very, very strong chance the experimental people did poorly on it? I wasn't really awake in my stats class but it seems like it would apply here.

This is exactly what I was thinking, and maybe it even explains the relative ease of exp LG for those who got it this time around; maybe LSAC is going to dial it back in 2 years?

I seriously doubt it. Experimental sections are notorious for being either really hard or really easy - this EXP lg was cake easy. If that LG as a whle ends up in a real test anytime in the future I think we all can file a class action lawsuit against LSAC unless the curve ended up being -6 because it was one of the easiest 4 game sections ever.

[fosterp]

Dear 0Ls,

PSA: the curve is set in advance. It. Is. Not. A. Forced. Curve. That's how law exams work, not the LSAT. See below (2nd paragraph, 6th paragraph), Google, and the TLS search function.

http://lsatblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/ls ... -lsac.html

You may now return to your regularly scheduled entertaining me. Thank you and have a nice day.

haha, I was wondering when someone was gonna point that out. People who do poorly on your LSAT administration may affect the curve in some future administration (due to their performance on the experimental section), but won't have anything to do with the curve on your test.

But since the experimental as well as this administration were both given to roughly the same sample size wouldn't by knowing the Dec10 crew had a rough time meaning there is a very, very strong chance the experimental people did poorly on it? I wasn't really awake in my stats class but it seems like it would apply here.

This is exactly what I was thinking, and maybe it even explains the relative ease of exp LG for those who got it this time around; maybe LSAC is going to dial it back in 2 years?

It isn't about how many people do poorly but about "who" does poorly. I am sure LSAC factors in your overall score when evaluating your performance on an experimental. Its hard to tell how hard this section "really" is unless we can tie everyones opinion with their lsat score. If we get a bunch of 180 scorers talking about how they blew the section then we can say yeah it really was hard. But if everyone is in the mid 160s - well a mid 160 usually means you blew a section by 180 standards anyway, so it would be no surprise that they blew the LG too.

[Sandro]

While that sounds plausible are you sure thats how LSAC works?

[pereira6]

Please get back to the funny stories, I need distraction from studying for my final tomorrow.

[fosterp]

http://lsatblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/ls ... -lsac.html gives a pretty detailed explanation of how their "test-equating" works but he is correct that tests are not based on the curve we all think of in a traditional sense. They are curved based on an objective evaluation of the questions that are used for that administration, and that objective evaluation is from data gathered from experimentals.

However one thing that was written is noteworthy:

"When the test is given at a regular LSAT administration, but before final scoring is completed, statistical analysis is conducted one last time. Each question is evaluated using the same criteria that were applied following the pretesting and pre-equating administrations. If a problem is found, the question is eliminated from the test before final scoring and reporting are accomplished."

What this means exactly I'm not sure, but it sounds like they do evaluate it based on its actual administration before scores are released.

[Frau_Blucher]

proctor (about 5 minutes into the first section): "we have administrative stuff we have to do now, so..."
random test taker: "shut the fuck up you dumb bitch!"

It was pretty distracting, but f-ing hilarious!

[Sherrybaby]

Right after our break, the proctor told us that we would finish before the other room, according to his calculations.

Proctor: "So, yeah, we should finish before two."
Random woman in the middle of the room: "Wait, I thought this was a three hour test."
Proctor: "No, it's a little longer than that, and we had to wait for every one to get check in and everything..."
RWitMofR: "I have to be at work at 1! What am I going to do? Can I call someone or something?"
Proctor: ...

i felt really bad for her. But, c'mon. You didn't ask off for the LSAT? :/

Let's be fair: she probably couldn't get off for the LSAT, or that was the best her boss would give. That's why the ticket instructions say "up to 7 hours".

that's possibly true, I did feel bad for the situation. It was mostly funny just because she wanted to deal with it in the middle of the test, and the poor proctor had no idea what to do. And because of the unpredictable-ness of it.

[Chimica]

Not a story of ignorance, but a kinda amusing take on relaxing addictions. When the exam was over there were general sighs of relief. The proctors were counting exams and we were just waiting to be released.

Guy #1 : Am I ever glad that's over. I can so use a beer.
Guy #2: That sounds so good!
Girl: I'm so glad it's over too. I need some facebook.

[FakeBlood]

i saw some of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP1-oquwoL8

at the break. lol.

[gbpackerbacker]

i saw some of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP1-oquwoL8

at the break. lol.

Best. Actor. Ever.

[well-hello-there]

proctor (about 5 minutes into the first section): "we have administrative stuff we have to do now, so..."
random test taker: "shut the fuck up you dumb bitch!"

It was pretty distracting, but f-ing hilarious!

HAAAAAA!!!! that is funny!

[Ragged]

i saw some of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP1-oquwoL8

at the break. lol.

Haha. I could see Nicholas Cage star in a movie about taking the LSAT.

[Canadiana]

i saw some of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP1-oquwoL8

at the break. lol.

Vampire's Kiss is a masterpiece. It's like someone decided to see what would happen if Nicolas Cage spent an entire movie hopped up on speed.

[2014]

While that sounds plausible are you sure thats how LSAC works?

It has to be. That would be the only explanation why not only the "Curve" for 170 works, but also why the curves for other scores differ too and not necessarily by the same amount. For example a -16 test that all of us think is favorable could be say a -26 for a 160 while a -10 could be a -28 for 160. LSAT blog has a good explanation of that though.

[2014]

i saw some of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP1-oquwoL8

at the break. lol.

LOL