Question About Curve Forum

[prerna]

Ok so this may seem like a silly question but could someone explain the curve to me...bc from what I'm getting, if the curve's -10 that means you can miss 10 and get a 170?...I was looking through my collegeboard book of old lsats and i think on average you could get 89 right and score a 170 (so -12 curve)...im just confused as to why the curve is being predicted so low for the june test...or maybe im not understanding it right...thankss

[baconpuffs]

http://www.blueprintprep.com/resources/resources2.php

TL;DR: The curve has gotten tighter in recent years.

[hax123]

The curve -- as it's discussed here -- is the number of questions you can answer incorrectly and still get a 170. On every LSAT, the difficulty of getting a 170 (or any other score) is the same, regardless of the overall difficulty of the test's questions. Hard tests tend to have more generous curves while easy tests have stricter curves. People are predicting that the June 2010 curve will be about average (-10 or -11) because its difficulty was about average.

[baconpuffs]

The curve -- as it's discussed here -- is the number of questions you can answer incorrectly and still get a 170. On every LSAT, the difficulty of getting a 170 (or any other score) is the same, regardless of the overall difficulty of the test's questions. Hard tests tend to have more generous curves while easy tests have stricter curves.

I think the OP understands that part. (S)he believes that -12 is average, and while at one time that may have been true, it is no longer the case. Now -10 is average.

[LSAT Blog]

Ok so this may seem like a silly question but could someone explain the curve to me...bc from what I'm getting, if the curve's -10 that means you can miss 10 and get a 170?...I was looking through my collegeboard book of old lsats and i think on average you could get 89 right and score a 170 (so -12 curve)...im just confused as to why the curve is being predicted so low for the june test...or maybe im not understanding it right...thankss

You are understanding it right, but the curve since the old books of 10.

The average June curve (looking at every curve from June 02- June 09) was:

-10 for 170
-16.5 for 165
-24.125 for 160


June curves as compared to others:



Here's the range for June exams since 2002 (when the overall curve really started shifting downward):

June 04 = -12
June 07 = -8

If you want to check out more of the data on this (and see a graph depicting the curves over time), check out How Many Questions to Score 170/160 and Easiest LSAT Curve: December | Hardest LSAT Curve: June.