Top Law Schools

In comparison to other administrations, how does this exam stack up?

This goes without saying, but I'll say it: If you didn't take it, please don't respond. If you did take it, please do.

Moderately difficult. LG's harder than normal, everything else average.

whitman wrote:Moderately difficult. LG's harder than normal, everything else average.

LG was ridiculous.

LR sections were expected, even the exp wasn't that bad.

RC was a bit tedious - to say the least.

1 to 10, 10 being the most difficult, I'd rate it at 6.5/10. (5 being average)

worst thing for me was the feminist RC... so many ambiguous questions, where I felt that 2 of them could be the right answer, and had no idea what was the key word or phrase that would make one right and the other wrong... worried about that section score.

I've done all the practice tests, and I went with average. Nothing too out of the ordinary; no one game was exceptionally difficult, though I don't think any single game stood out as exceedingly easy or routine (unless you made a key inference on a couple of them, but I suspect less than a majority of test takers would spot the inferences quickly). The LR felt pretty basic to me, though the distribution of kinds of questions seemed different to me. Not harder or easier, just different.

The truth is that it is pretty hard to give any objection indication. I felt pretty "up" for the exam and it was my first time taking an LSAT in real conditions, so I can't compare it to the PTs I've took with exact precision. I felt better than usual on the logical reasoning--there wasn't a single question that didn't eventually click--and the game section was a bit cumbersome but I didn't find it too bad. Though I was shocked people found PT 57's games hard, so I might be a bad judge. RC felt tough to me but I got it last and I don't do well on RC when I'm fatigued.

I also think someone who studies for 3 months--like I did and I am sure a lot of others on this forum did--is a poor judge of the general difficulty of the exam; questions appear easy to me now that I am sure I would have got wrong 2-3 weeks into my studies. If the test has more of those kinds of questions, I'm not sure if I'd even notice anymore, but that isn't to say they aren't difficult, I've just figured out the type/pattern. I'm sure this is true for most TLSers. Kind of wish I could know the curve, but happy it is over!

whitman wrote:Moderately difficult. LG's harder than normal, everything else average.

ditto

I voted moderately difficult. RC and LR always seem about the same for me. I do well there consistently. Nothing stood out as wild here; maybe the last passage on RC was tough due to alot of unfamiliar terms and their definitions, but I arrived there with a workable amount of time. But I vary in LG, and I thought the LG section here was quite difficult. As others have said, not one of the four was a quick and easy game. And then there is the fact that getting razz'd on one section can affect performance on others, so for those reasons I chose moderately difficult.

LR - average

RC - harder than average, questions were kind of ridiculous (except comparative reasoning)

LG - LSAC has to be joking. if LG 1 wasn't the experimental I don't even want to go to law school because I want nothing more to do with their "non-profit" organization

So...... Too early to call, but based on early poll results, it appears that the test may have been a bit more difficult that past administrations.

monkeyboy wrote:So...... Too early to call, but based on early poll results, it appears that the test may have been a bit more difficult that past administrations.

I have sensed a significant uptick in difficulty from PTs 50-55 to the more recent 56-60. Might just be me, but I've found especially LR sections to be harder of late.

Of course, I found LG and RC relatively easier yesterday, so I might not be a good barometer.

monkeyboy wrote:So...... Too early to call, but based on early poll results, it appears that the test may have been a bit more difficult that past administrations.

I'd guess that most people will rate a real test as harder than the practice tests they are used to (consciously or not), so that might be all that we are seeing here. Would be interesting to know how past polls went. I know December underestimated the curve quite a bit if you go by the poll (I think -11 was around the median guess). Hoping for at least a -10 myself, and I should be ok.

februaryftw wrote:

monkeyboy wrote:So...... Too early to call, but based on early poll results, it appears that the test may have been a bit more difficult that past administrations.

I'd guess that most people will rate a real test as harder than the practice tests they are used to (consciously or not), so that might be all that we are seeing here. Would be interesting to know how past polls went. I know December underestimated the curve quite a bit if you go by the poll (I think -11 was around the median guess). Hoping for at least a -10 myself, and I should be ok.

I thought about that. You're probably right.

I wish there were an option between Average and Moderately Difficult. lol.

The truth is LG wasn't difficult. It just wasn't as straight forward and the games were individually more time consuming.

LR was about the same. There are always going to be a few iffy questions.

and RC was about the same. Except I got -1 in June and Sept. on RC and felt like there were 2 or 3 very iffy questions in Feb. Could have been stress though.

I put moderately difficult.

The PTs I had been doing were all between 19 and 35. I felt like this one was harder than those. I should have done the more recent ones, I guess.

30s have the hardest logic games.

I felt that Logic Games, which was in my first section, was more difficult than what I have seen in the past, to such a degree that I have never before utilized the answer choice "D" as much as I did yesterday in that section.

What killed me was the reading comp at the end. I hit the proverbial "Brick Wall" after my second passage. This was unexpected as I had just finished owning the Darwin passage. I think identical tests differ in difficulty based on how the sections are positioned, although I don't think this is necessarily accounted for in the curve.

Statistically, your performance on Logic Games typically rules your entire test mentality.
If your LG section is first, and it is especially difficult, it can really throw off the rest off your game. On another point, having reading comp at the end is more difficult than having LR or even LG because of the intense mental focus required for RC.

If you compare the results of equally competent test takers, one of which has LG LR LG LR RC and the other having LR LG RC LR LR I am certain that you would discover that in the first scenario the tester's overall score was lower on average by at least a couple of points, especially in the case that the LG section was especially difficult.

I know we're all hoping for a generous curve...............I certainly am.

I had no problems with LG or LR but may well have blown it on RC (5th section). The questions weren't particularly hard, but the passages were fairly dense I think. I was pretty hurried on the last passage

That is EXACTLY how the test was for me... not sure if I should cancel or not...

Me as well... fine on LR/LG, hit a wall on the fifth section (RC). I thought I had a decent grasp of the passages themselves, but the questions felt a little trickier than usual to me. I was probably just tired by that point.

baneofmyexistence wrote:LG - LSAC has to be joking. if LG 1 wasn't the experimental I don't even want to go to law school because I want nothing more to do with their "non-profit" organization

Amen! I too am hoping that the first LG was the experimental. In prepping, I was consistently -4. I barely made it through two games on the test and didn't even feel that great about them.

I would have said easy, but the LG section was a fucking time sucker. Then again, I wont really know if it was easy or difficult until I see how many questions I actually got right. Sometimes you drop a "phantom bomb" and think you did really well only to find out you blew it.

edit: spelling

nStiver wrote:I would have said easy, but the LG section was a fucking time sucker. Then again, I don't really know if it was easy or difficult until I see how many questions I actually got rights. Sometimes you drop a "phantom bomb" and think you did really well only to find out you blew it.

Unfortunately, you'll never know -- all you're going to see is your score and percentile for the Feb test.

It's possible that they'll release this test at a future date (a few years, right?) but until then I think you're going to have to live without knowing.

I felt like every section, other than LG, was fairly average. The LG definitely seemed more time consuming than any of the PT's I took, but not necessarily more difficult.

....

My exam:

LG,LR,LG,LR,RC

I felt that one LR section was easy, the other one was a little more difficult but not too bad. RC was about average, but as others have said, ambiguous answers... What threw me off on RC were a couple questions that had 2 answers worded differently, but essentially saying the same thing. In a time crunch, it's difficult to analyze the differences between answers like that.

LG, well that is another story... I got slammed on the real section. I was praying the 2nd section was real because I finished it with 5 minutes remaining. Unfortunately the games section I aced was experimental.

I have been pretty accurate in figuring my scores in the past. So, I'm pretty sure blowing the games section will bring me to around a 157-159 when I was averaging 162-164 on all of my practice tests.

If my predictions are correct, June 2009, here I come!