LSAT difficulty by year: when do they start to get hard? Forum

[58932ugahoige]

Pretty much what the title said. I know that you want to write newer LSATs, I'm just wondering when the difficulty curve starts to go up. I mean, 90's LSATs are cake compared to today, but are early 2000's (like 2003-2004) at the same level of difficulty as the 2008-2010 tests?

I just seem to be scoring a little better than I'm used to scoring (haven't written since Oct sitting) and I'm not sure if it's because of new strategies I've implemented, or because they are just simply easier.

Cheers.

[Nonok]

I don't think the test as a whole has gotten harder. The difficulty of the sections have changed. LG is easier now and RC is harder. LR has stayed the same for the most part in terms of difficulty but the distribution of question types asked during LR sections has changed.

[The Gentleman]

I don't think the test as a whole has gotten harder. The difficulty of the sections have changed. LG is easier now and RC is harder. LR has stayed the same for the most part in terms of difficulty but the distribution of question types asked during LR sections has changed.

The LGs in the 10 most recent PTs are tougher than most of their predecessors IMHO. There's more hybrid games, which tend to be tougher, and the questions are more time consuming. (rule substitution etc.)

LR seems to be changing as well. PT 60 & 61 had some very odd questions that I had never seen before.

But the curve has been generous over the past 3 or 4 LSATs. (roughly -12 for a 170)

[58932ugahoige]

Yeah, I wrote one from 2003 and scored a couple points higher than my average PT from 2005+. That was even with only getting 22/24 on logic games; I usually rock logic games -0.

[almostthereee]

The PTs after the 40's got harder compared to the 30's but were still cake compared to the 50's IMO.

From the 50's on I feel like:

LG has more curveballs. There's usually one or two strange rules where you need to make a big inference. Prior to that, setups for games were more based on the basic principles of diagramming games I felt like.

LR difficulty has stayed the same. But as stated, there are questions worded very weirdly now. Distribution is also a bit more unpredictable -- #6 or #7 can easily be a 5 star question.

RC... I don't even know. I feel like RC was "manageable" for people who don't have the crazy natural speed reading skills but now they can get straight ugly. Passages are denser and the most noticeable difference is that incorrect answers are harder to eliminate. Prior to the 50's, I could read a passage and rarely need to refer back with the correct answer more or less jumping out at me or at the very least I could eliminate down to 2 contenders fairly easily. Now, I've had to completely revamp my RC strategy as I find myself needing to refer back to the passage more often.

[58932ugahoige]

Well, in the late 40's and all the 50's, I was very consistent in my scoring, with 172 over 8x in a row.

In the early 40's (I'm out of practice) I got a 169, a 174 and a 177... none with a perfect logic game section, which was my norm going into the test.

Fucking weirding me out.

[lawandi]

I would say past 2004 they start to get harder. But there are some post 2004's that are still relatively easy. I agree that the 90s and 00s were way easier.