I just want to say, for December 09, it was the LR... Forum

[Sourpunch]

Not the RC, that was the fuck fest. I got my typical and EXPECTED -4 (3 mistakes on Nogochi, 1 mistake on a random passage) on RC, and my typical and expected -1 on LG.

Now, the plan was this: LG, -1, RC, -4, LR, -4, for a total of -9 which would equal to a 174 on this exam, 172/3 on others.

What happened?

THE LOGICAL REASONING WAS A LITERAL FUCK FEST.

I got -10 on LR, and those extra 6 points lost were enough to tip me into a 169 LSAT, which is still great (I am happy), but of course not as well as I had done over the past 20 PTs (all 173+, mostly 175s).

This is why the exam was -14. The RC was easy. The comparative was a piece of cake. Other two passages were a breeze. Nogochi had about 3 hard Qs, I got them wrong, no biggie. There has to be SOMETHING hard.

[rw2264]

this test was weird. got minus 13, scattered all over the place whereas i usually get minus 8-10 concentrated in the LR... i'm glad the curve was forgiving.

[superserial]

you had a -14 curve. quit your bitchin'.

[Kobe_Teeth]

And I wouldn't say the LR as a whole but specifically the first LR. I got a -1 on the second one and am embarrassed to say what I got on the first.

The RC I did my average and on the LG I was on the bad end of my average.

[Kobe_Teeth]

you had a -14 curve. quit your bitchin'.

To add to this, I am unhappy with my performance but still pleased with my score! Praise the -14!!

[cubswin]

I didn't think the LR was so bad.

However, the curve indicates that most testers would probably agree with you.

[Sourpunch]

The curve is like that just because of the influx of test takers who didn't study at all for this exam. That is the true reason. HANDS DOWN. So trust me, I should have gotten a 165, and so on. The -14 curve I think wasn't neccessary, the exam was hard, but more of a -11, -12 max, not -14.

Not that I'm not happy. The economy really is fucked to the point that so many people took this exam (the most in LSAT history) thus leading to a -14.

Also, I want to add on LR1. I got -7 on that, and -3 on LR2. Kind of sad. And the funny thing is, I got inspectors, babies and qwerty all right. Lol. Fucked up on THE most random questions!

[UTexas]

For me it was LG -- a section I usually destroy, damn it. -4 on gameday for LG. I hadn't failed to finish a games section with at least four minutes remaining for weeks until I took the real test. -1 on RC and -0 on LR. RC and LR did seem tougher than usual, though.

[antonin]

This was an unusually hard test because, I also think, of the LR.
The games were ordinary in my opinion, RC had one hard section, but there is always a hard section. Originally I thought that the only problem with the test was that the last game had seven question instead of the usual five, so I had to guess like 4-5 of them, when I usually guess 2-3 of the last questions.

LR though, I was looking back at it and I felt that there were many more tricky questions. I was doing on PT's from -1 to -3 in LR. I took the test and I felt good after it. I got the score and was disappointed. Looked back at the section, I did horrible at LR, I looked back at the specific questions and I noticed so many tricky questions who even if I was to do them again I would not be surprised to put down again my original mistaken answer.

My fault might have been that I was studying using the old material, until PT 38, but it sucks because I went from low 170's in September to mid 160 in December! Worse, I took the September test without much studying (working hard, 60+ hours weeks), being late, and having to use the bathroom. I took the December test extremely comfortable and I did so much worse. I was so confident in December because I had studied more and did not need to use the bathroom; how wrong was I. Considering taking February now just because of wounded pride.

[rundoxierun]

The curve is like that just because of the influx of test takers who didn't study at all for this exam. That is the true reason. HANDS DOWN. So trust me, I should have gotten a 165, and so on. The -14 curve I think wasn't neccessary, the exam was hard, but more of a -11, -12 max, not -14.

Not that I'm not happy. The economy really is fucked to the point that so many people took this exam (the most in LSAT history) thus leading to a -14.

Also, I want to add on LR1. I got -7 on that, and -3 on LR2. Kind of sad. And the funny thing is, I got inspectors, babies and qwerty all right. Lol. Fucked up on THE most random questions!

Where is it indicated that this test had the most in LSAT history?? I highly doubt a December exam would be a record breaker but I could be wrong.

[monkeyboy]

LG was an epic fail for me. I PT between 0 and -3 on games. I missed 9. I gotta say, I think they were harder. The experimental games section, I rocked. Destroyed it actually. This test was harder (a little). I have to say I've never looked at a games section and had that WTF feeling half way through like I did on this exam. At least not in quite a while.

[monkeyboy]

The curve is like that just because of the influx of test takers who didn't study at all for this exam. That is the true reason. HANDS DOWN. So trust me, I should have gotten a 165, and so on. The -14 curve I think wasn't neccessary, the exam was hard, but more of a -11, -12 max, not -14.

Not that I'm not happy. The economy really is fucked to the point that so many people took this exam (the most in LSAT history) thus leading to a -14.

Also, I want to add on LR1. I got -7 on that, and -3 on LR2. Kind of sad. And the funny thing is, I got inspectors, babies and qwerty all right. Lol. Fucked up on THE most random questions!

Where is it indicated that this test had the most in LSAT history?? I highly doubt a December exam would be a record breaker but I could be wrong.

I don't know if sourpunch is right or not regarding the number of test takers, but I gotta believe he might be right. I also expect an extraordinary number of takers for the Feb exam. People are looking for a safe haven in this economy, and the kids graduating in May are scared. They don't want to work at Safeway upon graduation.

[aether]

The economy really is fucked to the point that so many people took this exam (the most in LSAT history) thus leading to a -14.

Where is it indicated that this test had the most in LSAT history?? I highly doubt a December exam would be a record breaker but I could be wrong.

You're right.

The total December 2009 numbers haven't been released yet, but it's very unlikely that a December exam would have the most test-takers in LSAT history. The October exam is generally the big one, and in 2009 the October exam did indeed have the most test-takers in LSAT history: 60,746.

The December exam will be smaller. Expect something like 51-52K, which will make it the largest December exam in LSAT history, but not the largest overall.

[bloodonthetracks]

The curve is like that just because of the influx of test takers who didn't study at all for this exam. That is the true reason. HANDS DOWN. So trust me, I should have gotten a 165, and so on. The -14 curve I think wasn't neccessary, the exam was hard, but more of a -11, -12 max, not -14.

Not that I'm not happy. The economy really is fucked to the point that so many people took this exam (the most in LSAT history) thus leading to a -14.

Also, I want to add on LR1. I got -7 on that, and -3 on LR2. Kind of sad. And the funny thing is, I got inspectors, babies and qwerty all right. Lol. Fucked up on THE most random questions!

this is not how a curve works. you have no idea what you are talking about. read the numerous other threads on this test's curve.

[bblobber]

this is not how a curve works. you have no idea what you are talking about. read the numerous other threads on this test's curve.

Yup. Quick version: the curve is pre-determined because every question on the December exam was pre-tested as experimental sections in previous tests (although the question wording has undoubtedly changed, the logical structure of the questions will be exactly the same). It was normalized with the scores of the test-takers who took them as experimental sections. E.g., if you took the September test and got a 165 (-16), and you had a -4 on the experimental section then LSAC knows that that section was right in line with how difficult the rest of the test was. If you had a -16 on the actual test and a -7 on the experimental section then they have to believe that the experimental section was harder. (Of course they are doing this over thousands and thousands of test-takers.)

Of course they don't necessarily re-use entire experimental sections, but rather questions from them. They can perform the same analysis on a per-question basis. If 90%+ of people miss a question on the experimental section, then they know it is a hard question. Then they can combine this with the actual scores of the test-takers vs. how they did on every experimental question. They can do some very in-depth analysis of every experimental question, e.g.: experimental question #17 was missed by 70% of 170 scorers, 90% of 160 scorers, 95% of 150 scorers, etc.

To make it clear: the curve is pre-determined before test day, based on experimental sections in previous tests. The mechanics behind this aren't 100% clear, but they are not difficult to extrapolate either. It has nothing to do with how many people take any given test.

Also, the LR wasn't necessarily hard. I had -2/-2 LR, -1 RC and -1 LG for a -6=177. It was the best (or tied with the best) performance, overall and per-section, that I have had on any LSAT.

[stratocophic]

The economy really is fucked to the point that so many people took this exam (the most in LSAT history) thus leading to a -14.

Where is it indicated that this test had the most in LSAT history?? I highly doubt a December exam would be a record breaker but I could be wrong.

You're right.

The total December 2009 numbers haven't been released yet, but it's very unlikely that a December exam would have the most test-takers in LSAT history. The October exam is generally the big one, and in 2009 the October exam did indeed have the most test-takers in LSAT history: 60,746.

The December exam will be smaller. Expect something like 51-52K, which will make it the largest December exam in LSAT history, but not the largest overall.

Yeah, my test center had 2 rooms in use, down from 3 in September. December's not the big one. Not that the room is indicative of anything, but I'd be willing to bet it holds true across the board.

[democrattotheend]

I totally disagree. I got 50 out of 51 right on the LR. The LG was harder than usual and I couldn't finish 3, and I missed 5 on RC, more than I usually missed on prep tests where I managed to finish the section.

[Sourpunch]

I'm sorry guys, but I highly doubt LSAC made the exam and decided they would curve it at -14. Something HAPPENED. They must have gotten the scores back and realized that this huge influx of test takers meant that a -10/-11 curve would not be sufficient to ensure a similiar pattern to previous LSAT administrations.

This theory has been talked about by LSAT prep instructors at many prep companies and actually, Blueprint talks about it on their blog:

End of Year LSAT Review

It is debatable whether this trend will continue into the future, but it appears that the increasing numbers of test takers are finally having an effect. Less studying by them means a better curve for you. Thank you very much.

I sincerely believe that each and every one of us performed at a -11 level, but because of this huge influx of unprepared test takers, we were all basically given a 3-4 point boost. It's a Christmas miracle, hehe.

[monkeyboy]

I totally disagree. I got 50 out of 51 right on the LR. The LG was harder than usual and I couldn't finish 3, and I missed 5 on RC, more than I usually missed on prep tests where I managed to finish the section.

I agree. I obviously didn't do as well as you, but I had an extraordinary amount of difficulty with games. I missed 2-3 more on LR than I normally would have because I rushed through them (after eating it on my first section, games) and finished 5 minutes early on each LR section. I wasn't careful on those sections, and I think I paid for it a bit. Reading comp was right about my avg. I missed about 9 more than I normally would have, but 6-7 of those were games questions because they were just harder to figure out in the given amount of time.

[bblobber]

I'm sorry guys, but I highly doubt LSAC made the exam and decided they would curve it at -14. Something HAPPENED. They must have gotten the scores back and realized that this huge influx of test takers meant that a -10/-11 curve would not be sufficient to ensure a similiar pattern to previous LSAT administrations.

This theory has been talked about by LSAT prep instructors at many prep companies and actually, Blueprint talks about it on their blog:

End of Year LSAT Review

It is debatable whether this trend will continue into the future, but it appears that the increasing numbers of test takers are finally having an effect. Less studying by them means a better curve for you. Thank you very much.

I sincerely believe that each and every one of us performed at a -11 level, but because of this huge influx of unprepared test takers, we were all basically given a 3-4 point boost. It's a Christmas miracle, hehe.

I'm sorry, but there's no way that LSAC would destroy their own creditability like that. You're saying that they would essentially be putting an asterisk on every December test-taker's score. December scores would not be comparable to September scores, or any previous scores for that matter. LSAC would not screw things up for adcomms like that. And I'm not just saying that to defend my own performance on the test. My -6 was a 177 with the -14 curve, and it would have been a 175 with the September curve. 2 points, big whoop. I know those 2 points would make a difference at HYS, but those aren't even close to the kinds of schools I'm considering.

[ATOIsp07]

would you guys say the December LSAT was harder than the September version? or about the same?

[UTexas]

would you guys say the December LSAT was harder than the September version? or about the same?

I thought it was significantly harder. Out of all the tests from June 2002 to present, I thought it was the hardest.

Granted, it was the first time the test actually counted for me. But I had been hitting 177-180 on PTs for the two weeks prior, and I got a 178 on December test, so I'm inclined to think the curve reflected the difficulty of the test. I certainly left the test center thinking that was the hardest LSAT I had ever taken, with the possible exception of a PT or two from the 1990s.

[Sourpunch]

I left thinking it was an OK exam, not hard nor easy. At first, I thought fuuuck the LR had some toughies- funny thing is, I got all the tough ones right, probably because I paid them more attention- while the RC was really easy and the LG was typical.

So honestly, if your big pet peeves are RC and LG, then you should have taken the test in december, they were both a piece of cake.

As for the curve, why would LSAC be destroyign their credbility? I think law schools would be more concerned if there were significantly less 170+ers than usual (percentage wise) and would wonder why. I think the issue here is that more test takers=more low scores=LSAC needs to curve the exam properly in order to keep the whole scores chart at a somewhat equal footing with previous test administrations.

Had december not recieved a -14 curve,then the curve would have been steeped so much towards the 150-160 side, with hardly anyone in the 160-170 and even less in the 170-180. Think about it. Your 177 would be a 175. My 169 would be a 165. All those 163s would be 155s. And so on.