December 2010 Initial Reactions Forum

[lilliea]

Games was my last section, and I was dying for some relief from all the LR I had to do. Yet it was hellish. Having to walk three miles through a blizzard to get home was today's extra 'fuck you'.

Ouch. I was so excited to get to the games too, because of all the LR, and then I turned the page.

[leemalk]

I had LR-RC-LR-LR-LG

I actually thought it was about the same difficulty as October, but then again I took the test today with absolutely no expectations and no care whatsoever as to how I scored. I had studied for 3 months before the October test, but choked on it big time. Over the past 2 months I've lost almost all desire to go to law school/take the LSAT, but I took it anyway. LG absolutely kicked my ass, but I thought it was just because I was rusty and hadn't practiced in a month. I'm somewhat relieved to see I wasn't the only one who struggled. I thought RC was incredibly easy, but I did have some familiarity with caries and geologic dating. All of the LR sections seemed about the same difficulty, not too bad. I feel like I could have scored anywhere between 155-170. 170 would be extraordinarily lucky with an historic curve.

[SchopenhauerFTW]

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[Sandro]

weren't PTs in the 10's and 20's home to some of the most generous curves ? Seems to me like LSAC is switching back to very very hard games like those, expect to see an amazing curve in ~20 days. Those thinking a -12 curve are delusional.

[NYCcops]

Was the RAPPER question on the real LR section or the experimental? Anyone know?

[Ford Prefect]

weren't PTs in the 10's and 20's home to some of the most generous curves ? Seems to me like LSAC is switching back to very very hard games like those, expect to see an amazing curve in ~20 days. Those thinking a -12 curve are delusional.

the curves:

http://lsatblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/ls ... rsion.html

[Sandro]

Was the RAPPER question on the real LR section or the experimental? Anyone know?

[novab]

Can I flat out say that the stained glass was missing one piece of information? (I don't know exactly what.) I don't think that game could be resolved as written. Anyone get it?

Stained glass was difficult but it could be resolved as written - there was one major deduction.

needless to say, it took a while for me to get the deduction and therefore i had to guess on one question (in the second game). Thank god I skipped to stained glass after spending about 10 minutes on the second game. Thats the only way I was able to get through at least most of it with decent certainty. I usually finish with at least 5 minutes (usually 7-8) and I can go back and check a few of the iffy ones that obviously didnt happen this time...blah

[ren2011]

Was the RAPPER question on the real LR section or the experimental? Anyone know?

I had three LR sections and don't recall any rapper questions--there must have been more than one exp LR section? (Or my mind is mush after LG?)

[asdfqwer1234]

Was the RAPPER question on the real LR section or the experimental? Anyone know?

there was a question about rappers, but don't know if it was from my exp. LR section.

[skip james]

EDIT BY MODS.


If you talk about questions in anything but the vaguest terms, you will be banned. That includes discussing the type of game or question (i.e., assumption, ordering, etc.)

[aesis]

edited
This is confusing since real LG had stained glass as second game, no?

I too was unable to check my conferences game :\ which I barely finished after briefly panicking and seeing my T14 hopes go poof. Then I skipped to Game 4 and finished the section.

I haven't chimed in thus far but LG was as brutal as everyone says it was. MUCH MUCH MUCH harder than October, and maybe even June 2010. I -0 LG all the time. I didn't have time to check all my answers, so I'm rather unsure of how I performed.

RC was fine. I don't know why everyone is uppity about Jewett. LR had some serious doozies IMO.

[geverett]

I agree. The Jewett passage didn't seem so tough. I got there with 5 minutes left. Read quickly through the passage and answered the questions pretty confidently. However, the comparative passage was a bit more dense. Logic games were hardcore. I just chugged through the stained glass game and felt pretty good about it, however the last game which I believe is the conferences game was killer.

[SchopenhauerFTW]

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[Sandro]

I dont think I had a problem with Jewett but who knows. I actually finished RC with time to spare so either I just went with my gut and missed a couple or I did very well. I'm going to say -2, I successfully predicted my Oct10 RC score. Dont PM me though I dont remember anything.

[SupraVln180]

Was the RAPPER question on the real LR section or the experimental? Anyone know?

there was a question about rappers, but don't know if it was from my exp. LR section.

Rappers was real. I actually laughed during my test b/c I thought of the Lil Wayne LSAT hoax questions.

[SchopenhauerFTW]

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[Kiamh2014]

I do not think the LG section was that bad. It was a lot of rewritting with limited space but besides that almost every game was very limited as to where certain things could go... on the stain glass window game, one of the rules gave a huge deduction with made that game easier... This LG was no where near as easy as oct but it was not impossible... On the other hand, I felt like LR was a lot harder which is strange because I normally average -3, -5... IDK if I found it difficult or freaked out because my second LR lacked a common answer choice.

[Nonok]

Eh. The order of my sections with estimates of how I scored on them
LR1 -2
RC -1
LR(exp) -5
LR2 -2
LG -0 thru -6

I thought my first section was experimental once I finished, but once I got back here I was happy. The exp LR section was abnormally hard for me. There was a question on LR2 that drove me bonkers (arthritis) and I don't know If I got it right or not. RC was easy IMO. Wouldn't be surprised if I got my first RC -0 today. Games, I don't know either way. I didn't have to guess on any, but I ended up spending 20 minutes on the first two games!!! I had to rush through game 3 and 4 in 5 minutes each. That's not ideal, I like to be sure of my answers and I can't say that's the case. I finished the final game with 5 minutes to spare and went back to game 2. Ended up changing a couple answers to what I believe was right.

If I did good on LG, I could score extremely well. 175+ hopefully. If I messed up games, I could be in bad shape. I scored 167 in October and am fairly certain I bested that today at least.

[2011L1]

RC -usually my weakest section-8 those damn lichens and the last section was a rush the middle 2 were fair
LR -3 It felt pretty good nothing too crazy this one counted also
LR- exp and I knew it so I handled it like my exp -5
LG -1 It was cool I did a perfect job of forecasting the game from previous tests I expected the conditionals were going to reign and looked over it last night
LR -6 I was wore down and I didn't finish last 3 questions and I was unsure about 3 questions.

so total 84 raw which gives me a 166 under Oct scale and I'm hoping this one will be similar or better. I am URM and looking to apply to Fordham, NYU, Columbia, and Yale (long shot). I am in my 30's and I have been successful in my professional career. I have a 3.2 from undergrad 12 years ago. any opinions?

[LauraZofia]

Just to add, re: how the curve is established

From what I was told by my review course teacher, the curve is predetermined for every exam when that exam is being created.

It is based on test takers performance, just not the test takers for that exam.

All exams are comprised of questions that were given in past experimental sections. Experimental questions get tested and evaluated by LSAC to determine their respective difficulty and how well test takers are expected to perform based on their run in the experimental sections. These tested questions create a pool of available questions of varying difficulty that LSAC then uses in different combinations to create an exam that overall is suppose to be consistent in its difficulty.

[ATR]

LR-RC-LR-LR-LG

LR: thought it was about average. Actually, I was confused by the very first problem on one of the sections. Felt pretty good about my performance on these.

RC: not too bad. I always like when I know about the topic discussed in the science passage (as I did today). I found the comparative passage a little confusing.

LG: on the tougher side. Games 1 and 4 were extremely easy. I eventually got the inference in Game 2, but it took a while. Game 3 was plug 'n chug for me.

Hoping that I scored a few points higher than I did in October.

[ahhhh1]

RC -usually my weakest section-8 those damn lichens and the last section was a rush the middle 2 were fair
LR -3 It felt pretty good nothing too crazy this one counted also
LR- exp and I knew it so I handled it like my exp -5
LG -1 It was cool I did a perfect job of forecasting the game from previous tests I expected the conditionals were going to reign and looked over it last night
LR -6 I was wore down and I didn't finish last 3 questions and I was unsure about 3 questions.

so total 84 raw which gives me a 166 under Oct scale and I'm hoping this one will be similar or better. I am URM and looking to apply to Fordham, NYU, Columbia, and Yale (long shot). I am in my 30's and I have been successful in my professional career. I have a 3.2 from undergrad 12 years ago. any opinions?

I think you are in great shape for URM admission. I have a friend who had significantly lower stats than you and still managed to get into Harvard last cycle and was URM as well.

As for the test, I found the games pretty easy too. I thought more than the 2nd game, the 3rd game was harder. LR though, I agree it was long. I barely finished and didn't get to go back and check a few that I wanted to go back to. Best of luck.

[nneal2]

This was my second time to take the test, the first being June 2009. My PTs have been averaging 6-7 points higher than my score from that test. I told myself no way could I be unlucky enough to have the same horrid things happen again on this test. But they did. After 3 mind-numbing sections of LR (usually my best section, but these 3 just seem a blur of picking unsure answers) I finally got to LG, my last section. Got through the first game pretty easy even with no room to write. Took one look at stained glass and bubbled "D" for all the answers. Finished games 3 and 4...definately some guessing but overall not horrible. Went to bubble in my last answer for question 23 and realized I was bubbling for #24....went into complete panic mode when I realized I had bubbled one too many "D"s for the game I skipped. Knew I didn't have enough time to fix my answers but erased all from 14 down anyways and tried to rebubble. Barely got bubbles fixed for 3rd game, none for 4th. The proctor called time and my heart sank. I seriously fought back tears the entire writing section. They took the test up and I had NO time whatsoever to go back and finish bubbling. WORST POSSIBLE SCENARIO EVER!!!!!! I cannot believe this test will plague my life for another 3 months and I will be applying soooo f'n late...bye bye scholarship $$$

[ATR]

Just - and this is, in my opinion, great advice for all the LSAT takers who are yet to apply - take the nervous energy of "OMG WHEN WILL THIS SCORE COME HOW DID I DO???" and channel it into writing great essays. You can't change a damn thing about how you did today, so focus on what you can actually affect.

Good advice, although the "zOMG WHAT WILL TEH CURVE BE I'M SO NERVOUS!!!" talk can be cathartic.