What's up with the -16 Curve on PT27? Forum

[Anaconda]

I was going to take this PT and attempt the infamous Snakes and Lizards game, but I saw the curve is a -16! A -10 nets you a 175!!! For those of you that took PT 27, is the curve really justified? I don't want to get a low raw score that correlates to a high lsat score if it's going to deceptively get my hopes up, haha.

[DrackedaryMaster]

Most of the difficulty seems to come out of the Snakes/Buffs LG and the first LR. I took the LG section timed and went -0 in the 3 games I finished (decided the Buff game was easier to tackle for me), but only had 5 minutes for snakes and enough concentration to answer the first two questions before time expired.

I tanked on the first LR (went -7). The second LR was less difficult (-3), while the RC didn't seem so bad (-3), timed. Overall raw was 88, but that is severally inflated because while I answered the snakes game Q's all correct, I was outside the time box. I believe I also carried over on both LR's. Only RC was where I stayed under the 35.

Took this about two weeks ago.

[Anaconda]

Damn I guess LG were killers on some of the older games.

[Calla Lily]

I just took this test, and I don't know if the -16 curve is justified. I normally am -0 or -1 on LG, but got -5 on LG for this test (snakes and buffs sucked my time and I didn't get to the fourth game at all). Despite the big difference in my games performance, I only got 1 wrong on the entire rest of the test, which was in RC. I normally range from -3 to -8 total on LR and -2 to -4 on RC, so this test was quite abnormal for me. The games were brutal, but the rest of the sections definitely felt a little easier while I was taking them.

[gdane]

F*ck the curve!

Just do what you gotta do.

Ciao pussycat.

[pattymac]

Movie buffs wasn't even that difficult, especially untimed the second time around, it was all about figuring out the distribution...snakes was a fucking pain in the ass that I didn't even attempt. The rest of the games were fairly manageable I thought although I didn't do so hot on this PT.

[fosterp]

the snakes gets a lot easier when you realize theres only two possible distributions for the snakes/lizards in cages

if i remember correctly it has to be either

S L
SSSLL

or

SSL
SSLL with one empty

Of course there is proximity involved and those distributions dont represent the proximity

I think that is accurate if I remember correctly. Oh at least one lizard and two snakes were always female. Something like that.

[Calla Lily]

There is one other combo where you can have SS SS L L L. I think the last question on the game specifically deals with this scenario.

Seeing the distributions definitely helps...I just got caught up in all the different variables (habitats 1-5, m/f, s/l) at first, which brought my speed down. This is definitely good practice for using distribution to unlock games.

[lastch2]

i don't know about a -16 curve, but that test was effing hard. although..wasn't the june test like a -14?

[Calla Lily]

The June test was -12, but the December 09 test was -14. However, at least for June, the 170-180 scale was much more favorable toward the bottom of the range than the top, while the PT 27 scale was pretty generous throughout, with a -4 = 180 and -6 = 179.

[2014]

Bumping this from 2 weeks old but I just took the thing.

First of all what a brutal LG section. Honestly snakes and lizards wasn't that bad (for me) but the buffs one sucked up 13 minutes. I spent 8 minutes on the first, 10 on snakes, 14 on buffs, leaving 3 minutes for the last one, which fortunately was easy, but realistically I wouldn't be able to rambo through it on test day conditions.

Other than that, I did well on the rest of the test, ended up with -8 overall for a 177, by far my best score yet but that curve was extremely generous. I'm not banking on that much help on the real thing, but I can't fathom a LG section that hard on the real deal either.