To all those who have fretted over their bad retake..... Forum

[JazzOne]

nStiver, I have a real life example. I know someone who did everything right. He took two solid months plus an extra week or so to study for the LSAT. He took the Power Score course. He vigilently attended each lecture and did all the assignments. He did 15 real practice tests and did most of the bibles and ended up with a 144! Yes, I am sure that he did better than he would have done had he not studied as hard as he did,but he still did badly after practicing like a horse. Oh yes, he knows how to study. He graduated from grad school with highest distinction, number one in his class.

Since I was an SAT and GRE tutor , he asked me to critique him. His problem was obvious: he reads and comprehends much too slowly for the test. I think if he had unlimited time, he could answer almost every question correctly,but his comprehension speed was much too slow,which kills his score.

I do know that one person does not make a general rule;however, I would bet that this is a problem for thousands of test takers, which is why I believe that there is a natural ceiling for everyone and that studying for the test can only moderatly raise a score unless you have those necessary speed reading skills. Also, I am NOT talking about the games which I do believe is somewhat coachable.

This is why I never understood people who poo poo the advice to read outside material for LSAT prep. Sure, the Economist is not going to help someone understand the structure of the LSAT, but reading four to five hours per day will certainly improve his reading speed and endurance. I think people discount the importance of endurance. I am mostly talking about mental endurance, but some of that might be related to actual muscle fatigue in the eyes.

[masochist]

The LSAT is not an IQ test. It tests verbal abstraction, decision-making under multiple constraints, and processing speed (to a limited degree). There is no direct test of non-verbal cognitive abilities, applied problem solving, or fund of knowledge. The LSAT might not be fully teachable, but this is not because its scores are a direct reflection of intelligence.

IMO, a great deal of the difficulty with the LSAT comes from its unreliability. The way the test is designed makes it far more unreliable that the GRE or SAT, so it is difficult to tell if a low score on any one administration is the product of bad luck or inadequate skill. Many people retake when they shouldn't, and many people fail to retake when they should.

[JazzOne]

The LSAT is not an IQ test. It tests verbal abstraction, decision-making under multiple constraints, and processing speed (to a limited degree). There is no direct test of non-verbal cognitive abilities, applied problem solving, or fund of knowledge. The LSAT might not be fully teachable, but this is not because its scores are a direct reflection of intelligence.

IMO, a great deal of the difficulty with the LSAT comes from its unreliability. The way the test is designed makes it far more unreliable that the GRE or SAT, so it is difficult to tell if a low score on any one administration is the product of bad luck or inadequate skill. Many people retake when they shouldn't, and many people fail to retake when they should.

And many people make completely unsupported assertions like, "The way the test is designed makes it far more unreliable tha[n] the GRE or SAT." What is your basis for this? Your personal opinion?

[Deep Trench]

Just as running is a foundation for many sports, reading is a foundation for LSAT. Being able to read fast is definitely an asset. However, fortunately for the average-speed readers, there is no extra point for finishing the sections early. You just have to finish them in 35 minutes. And, that can be done while reading at a reasonable speed. I read at a mediocre speed at best, and I was able to finish all sections in time. You just need to be engaged and focused while reading so that you can understand passages and stimuli without having to read twice (except some extremely convoluted LR stimuli). Also, you need to be able spot flaws and pre-phrase answers while reading LR stimuli. Unless LSAC reduces the time limit for each section, slower readers can compete with fast readers.

I don't know anyone who scored above 170 who is a slow reader. I'd be happy to be proven wrong. It's just my anecdotal observation of my students over the past few years.

I was just saying that you don't have to be a "speed reader" to be able to score 170+. Of course, it will not be possible for a person who reads too slow to score 170, but people who read at average speed can definitely score 170+.

[bk1]

Whether or not the test is highly learnable or only slightly learnable is irrelevant. Almost everyone should retake at least once if not twice.

[Adjudicator]

Here's my advice to people wishing to improve at RC:

Make sure your parents read to you when you were a child. Then, read a lot of books when you were growing up.

[JazzOne]

Just as running is a foundation for many sports, reading is a foundation for LSAT. Being able to read fast is definitely an asset. However, fortunately for the average-speed readers, there is no extra point for finishing the sections early. You just have to finish them in 35 minutes. And, that can be done while reading at a reasonable speed. I read at a mediocre speed at best, and I was able to finish all sections in time. You just need to be engaged and focused while reading so that you can understand passages and stimuli without having to read twice (except some extremely convoluted LR stimuli). Also, you need to be able spot flaws and pre-phrase answers while reading LR stimuli. Unless LSAC reduces the time limit for each section, slower readers can compete with fast readers.

I don't know anyone who scored above 170 who is a slow reader. I'd be happy to be proven wrong. It's just my anecdotal observation of my students over the past few years.

I was just saying that you don't have to be a "speed reader" to be able to score 170+. Of course, it will not be possible for a person who reads too slow to score 170, but people who read at average speed can definitely score 170+.

It's a difficult point to argue. What are we going to consider "average"? TLS is such an unrepresentative sample. I submit to you that the average LSAT taker cannot complete the test in its entirety. I'm not even talking about accuracy here. I mean that they can't even get through all the questions.

[maxm2764]

The LSAT is not an IQ test.

[Deep Trench]

Just as running is a foundation for many sports, reading is a foundation for LSAT. Being able to read fast is definitely an asset. However, fortunately for the average-speed readers, there is no extra point for finishing the sections early. You just have to finish them in 35 minutes. And, that can be done while reading at a reasonable speed. I read at a mediocre speed at best, and I was able to finish all sections in time. You just need to be engaged and focused while reading so that you can understand passages and stimuli without having to read twice (except some extremely convoluted LR stimuli). Also, you need to be able spot flaws and pre-phrase answers while reading LR stimuli. Unless LSAC reduces the time limit for each section, slower readers can compete with fast readers.

I don't know anyone who scored above 170 who is a slow reader. I'd be happy to be proven wrong. It's just my anecdotal observation of my students over the past few years.

I was just saying that you don't have to be a "speed reader" to be able to score 170+. Of course, it will not be possible for a person who reads too slow to score 170, but people who read at average speed can definitely score 170+.

It's a difficult point to argue. What are we going to consider "average"? TLS is such an unrepresentative sample. I submit to you that the average LSAT taker cannot complete the test in its entirety. I'm not even talking about accuracy here. I mean that they can't even get through all the questions.

You may be right. I only have myself as a reference point, but you have seen many more students to compare. English is not even my native language, and I just don't feel like I read any faster than average college students/graduates. Maybe I read faster than I give myself credit for. I would caution you, though, that the inability to get through all questions does not necessarily show that the test taker is a slow reader. The time it takes to come up with the answers is usually the limiting factor. If you ask your students to read the entire section without answering the questions, I think most of them will be able to finish with time to spare.

[LockBox]

This thread gave me reason for pause. I've taken a prep course, studied diligently while working full time and wrote a 157. I signed up for december but after taking a prep test last night and scoring 157 I'm not sure what else I could do. I've decided to invest time in my PS and other aspects of my application and see what happens. If anyone has any advice one way or another it would be appreciated, but from my own personal experience I am tending to agree that unless there is some sort of drastic change in studying habits/time etc there won't be much difference in results.

[masochist]

The LSAT is not an IQ test. It tests verbal abstraction, decision-making under multiple constraints, and processing speed (to a limited degree). There is no direct test of non-verbal cognitive abilities, applied problem solving, or fund of knowledge. The LSAT might not be fully teachable, but this is not because its scores are a direct reflection of intelligence.

IMO, a great deal of the difficulty with the LSAT comes from its unreliability. The way the test is designed makes it far more unreliable that the GRE or SAT, so it is difficult to tell if a low score on any one administration is the product of bad luck or inadequate skill. Many people retake when they shouldn't, and many people fail to retake when they should.

And many people make completely unsupported assertions like, "The way the test is designed makes it far more unreliable tha[n] the GRE or SAT." What is your basis for this? Your personal opinion?

The GRE is designed using Item Response Theory which produces much more powerful tests using fewer questions. The reliability is increased by using correct answers in the early part of the test to predict groups of questions that the respondent is almost certain to answer correctly or that the respondent is almost certain to answer incorrectly. Thus, an IRT test can can have the reliability of a 500 or 1000 question test using as few as 200 questions. Published data at ETS suggest that GRE reliability is approximately .90 for both quant and verbal with an abyssmal .70 for analytical writing.

The SAT obtains better reliability by limiting the domains tapped by the test. Although it does not use an IRT based design, the scope is narrow and the number of questions are large enough that this doesn't matter much. College Board reports reliabiltities of around .90.

The LSAT ... doesn't publish reliabitily data. At least they don't publish them anywhere I can find. That said, even they state that an IRT test would improve reliability although they bury the report in the bowels of their statistical data. Look at figure 10 in the linked document.

http://www.lsac.org/LSACResources/Resea ... -99-14.pdf

This is not just my opinion, but it is a reflection of both established psychometric principles and published reliability data. Now, what is your opinion based upon?

[JazzOne]

The LSAT is not an IQ test. It tests verbal abstraction, decision-making under multiple constraints, and processing speed (to a limited degree). There is no direct test of non-verbal cognitive abilities, applied problem solving, or fund of knowledge. The LSAT might not be fully teachable, but this is not because its scores are a direct reflection of intelligence.

IMO, a great deal of the difficulty with the LSAT comes from its unreliability. The way the test is designed makes it far more unreliable that the GRE or SAT, so it is difficult to tell if a low score on any one administration is the product of bad luck or inadequate skill. Many people retake when they shouldn't, and many people fail to retake when they should.

And many people make completely unsupported assertions like, "The way the test is designed makes it far more unreliable tha[n] the GRE or SAT." What is your basis for this? Your personal opinion?

The GRE is designed using Item Response Theory which produces much more powerful tests using fewer questions. The reliability is increased by using correct answers in the early part of the test to predict groups of questions that the respondent is almost certain to answer correctly or that the respondent is almost certain to answer incorrectly. Thus, an IRT test can can have the reliability of a 500 or 1000 question test using as few as 200 questions. Published data at ETS suggest that GRE reliability is approximately .90 for both quant and verbal with an abyssmal .70 for analytical writing.

The SAT obtains better reliability by limiting the domains tapped by the test. Although it does not use an IRT based design, the scope is narrow and the number of questions are large enough that this doesn't matter much. College Board reports reliabiltities of around .90.

The LSAT ... doesn't publish reliabitily data. At least they don't publish them anywhere I can find. That said, even they state that an IRT test would improve reliability although they bury the report in the bowels of their statistical data. Look at figure 10 in the linked document.

http://www.lsac.org/LSACResources/Resea ... -99-14.pdf

This is not just my opinion, but it is a reflection of both established psychometric principles and published reliability data. Now, what is your opinion based upon?

I really don't have a well-formed opinion on the issue. I merely pointed out that your assertion was completely unsupported. Now that you have explained it further, I think you make a fair point. I find it hard to believe that LSAC would tolerate this state of affairs, but after experiencing some of the other unpleasantries of this field, I really shouldn't be surprised.

Edit: Now that I look at your data a little more carefully, I realize that there is no figure 10 in that document. I'm still skeptical.

[masochist]

[/quote]
I really don't have a well-formed opinion on the issue. I merely pointed out that your assertion was completely unsupported. Now that you have explained it further and provided some data, I think you make a fair point. I find it hard to believe that LSAC would tolerate this state of affairs, but after experiencing some of the other unpleasantries of this field, I really shouldn't be surprised.[/quote]

Sorry for the snarky response. Applications have made me more excitable than usual. I was coming back to the thread to tone down the aggression.

My background is in test design and administration, and I also find it odd that LSAT has not followed the example of most of the other high-stakes tests and moved to computer-adaptive administration. So much of a person's score is based upon luck given the current administration procedures. This was certainly reflected in my PTs (the only sample large enough for me to comment upon). In one month I managed to generate a 9-point range in PT scores. That is insanely unreliable.

Edit: and I don't know where 10 came from. It should be 4, 5, and 6. The P and P line gives the mean squared deviation of error from true score for a paper test. The other line is an IRT test. Lower error is (unsurprizingly) better.

[nStiver]

This thread gave me reason for pause. I've taken a prep course, studied diligently while working full time and wrote a 157. I signed up for december but after taking a prep test last night and scoring 157 I'm not sure what else I could do. I've decided to invest time in my PS and other aspects of my application and see what happens. If anyone has any advice one way or another it would be appreciated, but from my own personal experience I am tending to agree that unless there is some sort of drastic change in studying habits/time etc there won't be much difference in results.

I didn't break out of the high 150s until I did 20 PTs or so. For you, it may take less and it may take more. I really didn't start to perform well on the test until I put in an obscene number of intense hours of study. People don't realize what it takes to really score well on this test. You might have to do all of the PTs and both of the Bibles cover to cover. If you want to go to law school that badly, I say go for it. But you can't do it without confidence man. Don't retake unless you are prepared to put in every thing you have got...and I mean literally put your life on hold for a few months. We are talking 120% intensity for a very long period of time.

I tell people this: If you really decide to commit to the LSAT, do several things before you start to question your own abilities. Work through the 30 most recent LSATs. Review every single question on those tests. Work through both bibles cover to cover. If you are not acing Logic Games, do one section each day for two months--this should get you through all the games, (Cambridge LSAT has a great package that essentially gives you every LSAT ever released, a PDF library of LSATs that you can access quickly and easily).

My guess is that you have not done these things. If you had done them, you would have seen a substantial improvement in your ability to perform on the LSAT. Until you have honestly done all of the steps I have mentioned, don't come on TLS fretting about your inherent LSAT limits.

Once again, this strategy is really only for people who are serious about improving on the LSAT. If you go into your studies half-cocked, you won't finish and you won't improve much; the margin for error on this test is just too small. Only once you have made the decision to commit yourself to the test should you invest the substantial time and energy necessary to improve.

[LockBox]

This thread gave me reason for pause. I've taken a prep course, studied diligently while working full time and wrote a 157. I signed up for december but after taking a prep test last night and scoring 157 I'm not sure what else I could do. I've decided to invest time in my PS and other aspects of my application and see what happens. If anyone has any advice one way or another it would be appreciated, but from my own personal experience I am tending to agree that unless there is some sort of drastic change in studying habits/time etc there won't be much difference in results.

I didn't break out of the high 150s until I did 20 PTs or so. For you, it may take less and it may take more. I really didn't start to perform well on the test until I put in an obscene number of intense hours of study. People don't realize what it takes to really score well on this test. You might have to do all of the PTs and both of the Bibles cover to cover. If you want to go to law school that badly, I say go for it. But you can't do it without confidence man. Don't retake unless you are prepared to put in every thing you have got...and I mean literally put your life on hold for a few months. We are talking 120% intensity for a very long period of time.

I tell people this: If you really decide to commit to the LSAT, do several things before you start to question your own abilities. Work through the 30 most recent LSATs. Review every single question on those tests. Work through both bibles cover to cover. If you are not acing Logic Games, do one section each day for two months--this should get you through all the games, (Cambridge LSAT has a great package that essentially gives you every LSAT ever released, a PDF library of LSATs that you can access quickly and easily).

My guess is that you have not done these things. If you had done them, you would have seen a substantial improvement in your ability to perform on the LSAT. Until you have honestly done all of the steps I have mentioned, don't come on TLS fretting about your inherent LSAT limits.

Once again, this strategy is really only for people who are serious about improving on the LSAT. If you go into your studies half-cocked, you won't finish and you won't improve much; the margin for error on this test is just too small. Only once you have made the decision to commit yourself to the test should you invest the substantial time and energy necessary to improve.

I used to be like you. I used to think just like you do here. It sounds reasonable and should be the go-to advice for most people preparing for this exam. I, however, have done these things. I've taken a full length TM course, aside from about 5 or 6 PT's that I left for a retake, have taken all of the prep tests and have gone over my mistakes and where I went right.

Your advice worked for me in the past. When I wanted to get into a physics grad program without a physics degree this is what I did. And you know what, it worked. Perhaps now that i'm working full time it isn't as easy, but since about March of this year i've been studying on off hours, during weekends putting my life on hold. I guess I could cut sleep out but perhaps it is just reasonable to think that some point the sacrifice that must be rendered to improve your lsat score isn't worth it. This isn't to say i'm not serious about law school, quite to the contrary. But to believe that anyone can put insane amounts of time and achieve a 180 is absurd. The same line or reasoning applies to any score. Improvement can happen, but unless the foundation for this test is there I agree with the previous posters that it becomes exponentially difficult to achieve increasingly small gains on this exam.

[Rawlberto]

My first diagnostic was 147. I have scored 170+ on multiple practice tests. I have improved in all 3 sections of the LSAT, including RC and LR (RC is the hardest to improve, I will grant you that). This improvement did not come about right after I developed a basic familiarity with the questions. It came about as the result of long, hard hours practicing the LSAT.

Prepping for the LSAT does not make you smarter. However, it can make you so familiar with the kind of mental processes that the LSAT tests to the point that you can see massive improvements in your score. Trust me, the test is learnable. Everyone does have an "upper limit", but that limit is much higher than many people give themselves credit for.

This.

I feel that the test is learnable on the basis that some of the skills needed to succeed in the test I generally did not need in my UG, so they basically laid dormant. Improving on the LSAT has been a combination of getting familiar with the test and relearning to use some of those skills. While obviously reading comprehension was used in my UG, something like specificity of an argument was not needed as most liberal arts degrees are focused on a general overview. While helpful for Main Point questions, the rest of my UG had been worthless. I have yet to take the test but started at 141 and my current high is a 167, and I still have room for improvement. There may be a ceiling, but to say that it's not learnable does not seem to be the case.

[JazzOne]

Sorry for the snarky response. Applications have made me more excitable than usual. I was coming back to the thread to tone down the aggression.

My background is in test design and administration, and I also find it odd that LSAT has not followed the example of most of the other high-stakes tests and moved to computer-adaptive administration. So much of a person's score is based upon luck given the current administration procedures. This was certainly reflected in my PTs (the only sample large enough for me to comment upon). In one month I managed to generate a 9-point range in PT scores. That is insanely unreliable.

Edit: and I don't know where 10 came from. It should be 4, 5, and 6. The P and P line gives the mean squared deviation of error from true score for a paper test. The other line is an IRT test. Lower error is (unsurprizingly) better.

No worries. Your response was no more snarky than the general tenor of this forum. If you think applications are stressful, just wait until OCI.

I thought you were just some disgruntled test taker shooting from the hip, so I called you on it, but it seems that you actually know what you're talking about. Incidentally, I used to work in the test prep industry for a number of years teaching MCAT, LSAT, and SAT. I'm curious to know what your thoughts are on the effects that test prep companies have on standardized testing in general. Do the test makers specifically seek to counter our strategies? Or does the procedure for testing experimental questions take care of that on its own? There is a lot of speculation on this board about the arms race between testing companies and test prep companies, and since you have more experience in this field than most on this forum, I'd be interested in your observations.

[nStiver]

This thread gave me reason for pause. I've taken a prep course, studied diligently while working full time and wrote a 157. I signed up for december but after taking a prep test last night and scoring 157 I'm not sure what else I could do. I've decided to invest time in my PS and other aspects of my application and see what happens. If anyone has any advice one way or another it would be appreciated, but from my own personal experience I am tending to agree that unless there is some sort of drastic change in studying habits/time etc there won't be much difference in results.

I didn't break out of the high 150s until I did 20 PTs or so. For you, it may take less and it may take more. I really didn't start to perform well on the test until I put in an obscene number of intense hours of study. People don't realize what it takes to really score well on this test. You might have to do all of the PTs and both of the Bibles cover to cover. If you want to go to law school that badly, I say go for it. But you can't do it without confidence man. Don't retake unless you are prepared to put in every thing you have got...and I mean literally put your life on hold for a few months. We are talking 120% intensity for a very long period of time.

I tell people this: If you really decide to commit to the LSAT, do several things before you start to question your own abilities. Work through the 30 most recent LSATs. Review every single question on those tests. Work through both bibles cover to cover. If you are not acing Logic Games, do one section each day for two months--this should get you through all the games, (Cambridge LSAT has a great package that essentially gives you every LSAT ever released, a PDF library of LSATs that you can access quickly and easily).

My guess is that you have not done these things. If you had done them, you would have seen a substantial improvement in your ability to perform on the LSAT. Until you have honestly done all of the steps I have mentioned, don't come on TLS fretting about your inherent LSAT limits.

Once again, this strategy is really only for people who are serious about improving on the LSAT. If you go into your studies half-cocked, you won't finish and you won't improve much; the margin for error on this test is just too small. Only once you have made the decision to commit yourself to the test should you invest the substantial time and energy necessary to improve.

But to believe that anyone can put insane amounts of time and achieve a 180 is absurd. The same line or reasoning applies to any score. Improvement can happen, but unless the foundation for this test is there I agree with the previous posters that it becomes exponentially difficult to achieve increasingly small gains on this exam.

I am not saying that everyone is capable of a 180. I also agree with you that the higher up you go, the harder it is to see improvements. If you really feel as though you have reached your limit, then you know better than I.

[retiree]

...IMO, a great deal of the difficulty with the LSAT comes from its unreliability. The way the test is designed makes it far more unreliable that the GRE or SAT, so it is difficult to tell if a low score on any one administration is the product of bad luck or inadequate skill. Many people retake when they shouldn't, and many people fail to retake when they should.

Would you elaborate a bit further (perhaps one example of each) under what situations or circumstances someone should retake and when someone shouldn't retake. Please exclude those situations where a person was sick or under emotional duress not related to the test.

[fosterp]

Can't agree with this. I studied for a solid three months over the summer, and I took about 7 or so PTs, and stayed in the mid-upper 160 range, in preparation for october. Since I was going for 170+ I postponed to december. I have done nothing else besides drilling PTs and my avg for last 6 PTs is 174.6. I have yet to get a 180 but I am confident with a bit of luck it is not a far reach, ive been only 1 point off twice. The only thing that is different is familiarity with the test which seems to have made a big difference. I didn't learn any new tricks or overcome any common mistakes, its just simple proficiency, getting faster at thinking the way the test makers think, and practice with my own techniques, and that's something I think can only come with time.

3 Months is a great amount of time to get a great score, however I feel 6 months is truly what is needed to reach maximum potential.

...IMO, a great deal of the difficulty with the LSAT comes from its unreliability. The way the test is designed makes it far more unreliable that the GRE or SAT, so it is difficult to tell if a low score on any one administration is the product of bad luck or inadequate skill. Many people retake when they shouldn't, and many people fail to retake when they should.

Would you elaborate a bit further (perhaps one example of each) under what situations or circumstances someone should retake and when someone shouldn't retake. Please exclude those situations where a person was sick or under emotional duress not related to the test.

Its pretty simple. If your PT average is grossly different than your actual score, you know you can do better than that, assuming you actually did PTs emulating test conditions. If you don't know your average, you probably didn't prep enough and your score could be better.

If, after 6 months of prep, you score at your average for the last 5 tests or so, then that's probably an accurate score of your ability. Of course even LSAT admitted the actual band is like within 3 points or something, so you could retake hoping to get "luckier" if you score on the low end and you really need those extra points for admissions.