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Thought experiment:

If the LSAC were, on the night before test day, to hand you JUST the answer key to the test form you will be given, would you attempt to memorize the random sequence of 125 letters? Or would you just ignore it, seeing as if you skip around in the sequence at all / forget one letter, the entire test would go downhill? Or would you do something in between?

Personally I wouldn't have done it because I worked hard to earn my score, and wouldn't take the success that way.

If anonymous posting was allowed I'd possibly consent to answering your interesting scenario.o

crestor wrote:If anonymous posting was allowed I'd possibly consent to answering your interesting scenario.o

Haha fair enough. No need to respond, but I like the question as a sort of introspective tool...

I'd want to be rewarded for my investment. Now, if I were to hear this hypothetical before all the studying, then this would be a lot more tempting.

I don't think OP meant it to be a moral dilemma deciding between taking a free high score vs. sticking with whatever score your abilities produce. I think OP is assuming that everyone given the answer key would want to use it on test day to get a perfect score (Duh!! reality alert people, the hypo involves LSAC giving it to you, so no risk of getting busted, who's not going to want to use it? ha ha) and that the dilemma between using it or not is about the chance of you messing up remembering the letters and getting a really crappy score instead of a 180.

So, the question re-framed: If you are given the answer key and permission to memorize it before the test with no risk of getting busted for cheating, would you fill in the answer sheet from memory of the key hoping to remember it correctly to get 180 or would you rather bank on your ability to score high and just answer the questions like normal? I think that is what OP meant the question to be? Maybe?

I think you would only need to memorize the last 6 answers of each LR section or so, since they are usually the hard ones (for me at least).

wouldn't do it though, the lsat was a fun challenge.

Is this question about memorization? Because I'm confident I can memorize a pattern of 125 letters in a night. I'm good at memorizing. To show how geeky I can be, I might turn them into a code.

I don't get the question. Are you asking would I cheat, given that I can memorize the answers? No, I wouldn't cheat. Though I might do the section and double check it with the correct answers in my head, not sure, once the answers are in your head, it is hard to forget they are there.

I would never bring myself to flat out cheating. So, bottom line, no I wouldn't cheat. This exam is too important.

I wouldn't.

I'd be scared that I'd either fuck up in the middle by forgetting an answer and panicking and forgetting all of my actual test knowledge, or I'll misbubble somewhere and get everything wrong.

I'm not particularly confident in my ability to memorize all those bubbles.

i would probably memorize all the answers but still actually do the test myself and use the answers to double check my own
probably change those that i got wrong but at least i'd be able to say that i did the test lol

Bratva wrote:i would probably memorize all the answers but still actually do the test myself and use the answers to double check my own
probably change those that i got wrong but at least i'd be able to say that i did the test lol

This is an honest answer of what I bet most people would actually do in this scenario, no matter what they otherwise say they would do.

Jeffort wrote:I don't think OP meant it to be a moral dilemma deciding between taking a free high score vs. sticking with whatever score your abilities produce. I think OP is assuming that everyone given the answer key would want to use it on test day to get a perfect score (Duh!! reality alert people, the hypo involves LSAC giving it to you, so no risk of getting busted, who's not going to want to use it? ha ha) and that the dilemma between using it or not is about the chance of you messing up remembering the letters and getting a really crappy score instead of a 180.

So, the question re-framed: If you are given the answer key and permission to memorize it before the test with no risk of getting busted for cheating, would you fill in the answer sheet from memory of the key hoping to remember it correctly to get 180 or would you rather bank on your ability to score high and just answer the questions like normal? I think that is what OP meant the question to be? Maybe?

Yep, that's exactly what I meant.

Bratva wrote:i would probably memorize all the answers but still actually do the test myself and use the answers to double check my own
probably change those that i got wrong but at least i'd be able to say that i did the test lol

This is what I'd do too. ARE YOU LISTENING WENDY MARGOLIS? Please PM the answer key no later than 8 p.m. on Oct. 4. Thanks.

neprep wrote:

Jeffort wrote:I don't think OP meant it to be a moral dilemma deciding between taking a free high score vs. sticking with whatever score your abilities produce. I think OP is assuming that everyone given the answer key would want to use it on test day to get a perfect score (Duh!! reality alert people, the hypo involves LSAC giving it to you, so no risk of getting busted, who's not going to want to use it? ha ha) and that the dilemma between using it or not is about the chance of you messing up remembering the letters and getting a really crappy score instead of a 180.

So, the question re-framed: If you are given the answer key and permission to memorize it before the test with no risk of getting busted for cheating, would you fill in the answer sheet from memory of the key hoping to remember it correctly to get 180 or would you rather bank on your ability to score high and just answer the questions like normal? I think that is what OP meant the question to be? Maybe?

Yep, that's exactly what I meant.

Bratva wrote:i would probably memorize all the answers but still actually do the test myself and use the answers to double check my own
probably change those that i got wrong but at least i'd be able to say that i did the test lol

This is what I'd do too. ARE YOU LISTENING WENDY MARGOLIS? Please PM the answer key no later than 8 p.m. on Oct. 4. Thanks.

LOLZ

neprep wrote:Thought experiment:

If the LSAC were, on the night before test day, to hand you JUST the answer key to the test form you will be given, would you attempt to memorize the random sequence of 125 letters? Or would you just ignore it, seeing as if you skip around in the sequence at all / forget one letter, the entire test would go downhill? Or would you do something in between?

No. That's way too much effort and not enough time.

There's no moral difference between this hypo and engaging in an elaborate scheme months in advance to hack LSAC and steal the answers. It just takes less effort. The question is basically just "would you cheat on the LSAT or not."

blsingindisguise wrote:There's no moral difference between this hypo and engaging in an elaborate scheme months in advance to hack LSAC and steal the answers. It just takes less effort. The question is basically just "would you cheat on the LSAT or not."

Perhaps. I just figured that the LSAC's complicity altered the black-and-white nature of your paraphrased question.

neprep wrote:

blsingindisguise wrote:There's no moral difference between this hypo and engaging in an elaborate scheme months in advance to hack LSAC and steal the answers. It just takes less effort. The question is basically just "would you cheat on the LSAT or not."

Perhaps. I just figured that the LSAC's complicity altered the black-and-white nature of your paraphrased question.

I may have misunderstood your hypo actually -- I assumed you meant that someone from LSAC illicitly passed you the answers. Do you mean that LSAC suddenly decides to officially give everyone the answer key?

Some serious failure to understand the OP in this thread.

I mean, it seems like the best thing to do is just to find a way to make it not rely on memorization.

How about this...

Get 4 colors of beads, each of which corresponds to A/B/C/D. Red = A, Blue = B, etc.

Then just make a bracelet with a clearly indicated starting node (maybe a knot in the underlying rope), and add beads in the proper order until all questions have been exhausted.

You can quickly and easily follow the bead bracelet to a 180.


EDIT: And yeah, obviously this isn't a moral dilemma question. I thought LSAC just gave the answers to you, just for the sake of the thought experiment...way different from illegally obtaining them. Cheating is obviously out of the question, I just thought there was another solution to the thought experiment.

blsingindisguise wrote:

neprep wrote:

blsingindisguise wrote:There's no moral difference between this hypo and engaging in an elaborate scheme months in advance to hack LSAC and steal the answers. It just takes less effort. The question is basically just "would you cheat on the LSAT or not."

Perhaps. I just figured that the LSAC's complicity altered the black-and-white nature of your paraphrased question.

I may have misunderstood your hypo actually -- I assumed you meant that someone from LSAC illicitly passed you the answers. Do you mean that LSAC suddenly decides to officially give everyone the answer key?

Yep. Haha, it wasn't meant to be realistic in the least. Kind of along the lines of those "if you knew you would be stuck on an island for the rest of your life, what three books would you bring?*" questions that set up highly improbable scenarios and, yet, the way one responds to them is generally thought to be revealing of the respondent.

*An Austen, a Faulkner, and The Next 10 Actual, Official LSAT PrepTests.

Huey Freeman wrote:I mean, it seems like the best thing to do is just to find a way to make it not rely on memorization.

How about this...

Get 4 colors of beads, each of which corresponds to A/B/C/D. Red = A, Blue = B, etc.

Then just make a bracelet with a clearly indicated starting node (maybe a knot in the underlying rope), and add beads in the proper order until all questions have been exhausted.

You can quickly and easily follow the bead bracelet to a 180.

Brilliant.

Huey Freeman wrote:I mean, it seems like the best thing to do is just to find a way to make it not rely on memorization.

How about this...

Get 4 colors of beads, each of which corresponds to A/B/C/D. Red = A, Blue = B, etc.

Then just make a bracelet with a clearly indicated starting node (maybe a knot in the underlying rope), and add beads in the proper order until all questions have been exhausted.

You can quickly and easily follow the bead bracelet to a 180.


EDIT: And yeah, obviously this isn't a moral dilemma question. I thought LSAC just gave the answers to you, just for the sake of the thought experiment...way different from illegally obtaining them. Cheating is obviously out of the question, I just thought there was another solution to the thought experiment.

Just have to hope there are no Es on the test