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I know everyone says that dec 11 had a difficult RC so I should have a decent curve, however I'm a little concerned because pt 63 had a crazy hard RC (I think 63 was Kate Chopin and the underwater science passage) and it only had a -9 curve! Why would it only get -9 for an RC like that?! It seems like RC difficulty doesn't mean much to lsac. So wouldn't dec 2011 end up in the same situation?

swtlilsoni wrote:I know everyone says that dec 11 had a difficult RC so I should have a decent curve, however I'm a little concerned because pt 63 had a crazy hard RC (I think 63 was Kate Chopin and the underwater science passage) and it only had a -9 curve! Why would it only get -9 for an RC like that?! It seems like RC difficulty doesn't mean much to lsac. So wouldn't dec 2011 end up in the same situation?

Yeah, LG seems to have a much bigger effect on the curve than RC or LR.

swtlilsoni wrote:I know everyone says that dec 11 had a difficult RC so I should have a decent curve, however I'm a little concerned because pt 63 had a crazy hard RC (I think 63 was Kate Chopin and the underwater science passage) and it only had a -9 curve! Why would it only get -9 for an RC like that?! It seems like RC difficulty doesn't mean much to lsac. So wouldn't dec 2011 end up in the same situation?

I'm going to ignore this and keep thinking in my head that it had a -12 curve.

PT63 didn't have a -9 curve. It was -11.

tmon wrote:PT63 didn't have a -9 curve. It was -11.

Yep, it was -11... which seems about right for this one too. Maybe -12 if we get some December luck.

iamrobk wrote:

swtlilsoni wrote:I know everyone says that dec 11 had a difficult RC so I should have a decent curve, however I'm a little concerned because pt 63 had a crazy hard RC (I think 63 was Kate Chopin and the underwater science passage) and it only had a -9 curve! Why would it only get -9 for an RC like that?! It seems like RC difficulty doesn't mean much to lsac. So wouldn't dec 2011 end up in the same situation?

Yeah, LG seems to have a much bigger effect on the curve than RC or LR.

This is credited. Also, June RC wasn't terribly difficult. It was really just the magnetism passage.

tmon wrote:PT63 didn't have a -9 curve. It was -11.

+1. When's the last time there has been a -9?

I think it will be a -13 curve.... rc was very difficult and logic games had two unusual games

ziegltic wrote:I think it will be a -13 curve.... rc was very difficult and logic games had two unusual games

I hope so. I can't tell if I was stressing hard or not but that felt like one of the hardest RCs out of the past 20 tests.

ziegltic wrote:I think it will be a -13 curve.... rc was very difficult and logic games had two unusual games

2 linears, a grouping, and a linear that required a slightly different approach?

-11.

Okay guys powerscore has a list of the tests with the hardest Rcs ever. I checked the curves for each. I also looked at the list of lsats wth he hardest games sections of all time and marked those as such.

Oct 91: -10 (waterbugs) HARD GAMES(Hannah, the dogs)
Feb 94: -11 (civil rights theories)
Dec 95: -15 (legal cases that are not easily solved)
Dec 98: -16 (the effects of names on personality) HARD GAMES(lizards and snakes)
June 99: -13 (steady state economics)
Oct 00: -14 (multicultural education)
Dec 05: -8 (embryo polarity and Louise Gluck )
June 06: -10 (maize)
Sept 06: -10 (riddled basins of attraction)
Oct 08: -9 (Chinese talk story)

So the ones with hard games can be eliminated since thy dot represent this exam, however if we just find out which of those tests from the list had a considerably easy games section comparable to dec11, we can compare the curves.

hopefully this is a good indicator.

I actually found RC on PT 63 fairly easy, I got -2. LR and the brutal curve killed me on that test though (-8 total). But the biggest factor in that harsh curve was that LG on PT 63 were SUPER easy.

The reason LG affects the curve more than RC is because, on average (TLS is NOT a representative sample), LG is by far the worst section for most people, and you probably see the most variation in scores as well.

I remember on my first cold diagnostic and on most of my first few preptests, LG scores of -10, -11, -12 were commonplace, whereas I'd go -5, -6, -7 at worst on the others. You can improve LG to a fairly consistent -0 to -2 with solid prep, which is a massive improvement, whereas if you cold diagnostic -5 to -7 on LR/RC you probably won't improve to much better than -2 to -4. A much smaller improvement, meaning less potential to impact the curve.

Think of it this way:

TLS student: The difficulty of the section with the lowest average scores amongst all test takers plays the most significant role in determining the curve on a given test: the more difficult that section, the more generous the curve. RC is my lowest-scoring section. Almost everyone I talk to on TLS says RC is their lowest-scoring section. RC was difficult in the December test, so the curve for the December test will be generous.

The TLS student's argument is vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it...

Bad news: Everyone is saying LG were very easy in December.

If the curve is single digits, I'm going to cry.

noleknight16 wrote:If the curve is single digits, I'm going to cry.

Personally, I'll be waking up from my dream.

Does anyone have an explanation for why the past two December tests were -14, but this one will be -9 to -11?

Don't look too much into past correlations between month and scale.

180asBreath wrote:

noleknight16 wrote:If the curve is single digits, I'm going to cry.

Personally, I'll be waking up from my dream.

Does anyone have an explanation for why the past two December tests were -14, but this one will be -9 to -11?

I cannot answer for December 2009, but I took December 2010 and it was brutal for me. This test went much smoother (I think). lol

what scares me is that Dec 05 had a hard RC too and it had a minus 8 curve .. that means its possible that this one will also ..

noleknight16 wrote:

180asBreath wrote:

noleknight16 wrote:If the curve is single digits, I'm going to cry.

I cannot answer for December 2009, but I took December 2010 and it was brutal for me. This test went much smoother (I think). lol

AGREED. I did that for a PT and got something like 162; hardest one i've seen since the new millennium.

Impossible to guess the curve based on a few anecdotal reports from various test takers on Top Law Schools.

baaron008 wrote:Impossible to guess the curve based on a few anecdotal reports from various test takers on Top Law Schools.

Eh, I disagree. The polls on the June and October threads correctly guessed the curves on those tests.

baaron008 wrote:Impossible to guess the curve based on a few anecdotal reports from various test takers on Top Law Schools.

Exactly. Worrying about it will just give you an ulcer. We already took the test, nothing that can be done now.

And it seems for the most part, people that are good at logic games seem to think most logic games sections are easy, regardless. I had no problems on the dec 10 and 09 logic games, which appear to be some of the hardest in memory for most test takers.

The last two games of 11 were very time consuming for most, which could be an indicator of difficulty. I certainly did not think these lgs were as easy as some of the late 40s.

iamrobk wrote:

baaron008 wrote:Impossible to guess the curve based on a few anecdotal reports from various test takers on Top Law Schools.

Eh, I disagree. The polls on the June and October threads correctly guessed the curves on those tests.

Then we're looking at -11 or -12, and people still need to stop worrying.

iamrobk wrote:

baaron008 wrote:Impossible to guess the curve based on a few anecdotal reports from various test takers on Top Law Schools.

Eh, I disagree. The polls on the June and October threads correctly guessed the curves on those tests.

Coincidence IMHO.