Anyone else think December tests are easier than June/Octobe Forum

[crestor]

All my highest PTs came on December. I know all the various flaws with this argument but I just believe the December curve just makes it 180. People say that the curve is like this because this one is "allegedly" a little bit more difficult but I believe quite the opposite. I think December is essentially the least popular month out of the big 3 (October, June and December) and is more of a hail mary like February for potential applicants in the cycle. LSAC has to account for this.


Thoughts?

[aesth24]

Those humanoids over at LSAC don't believe they have to account for anything for anyone.

[crestor]

Those humanoids over at LSAC don't believe they have to account for anything for anyone.

This is true. I took all of 60s and 50s. Pretty funny that 69 and 70 IMO were harder than any test in the 50s/60-68). this coupled with the fact that law school apps are down across the board and there are less test-takers every year. lsac just doesn't give a damn.

[wiz]

All my highest PTs came on December. I know all the various flaws with this argument but I just believe the December curve just makes it 180. People say that the curve is like this because this one is "allegedly" a little bit more difficult but I believe quite the opposite. I think December is essentially the least popular month out of the big 3 (October, June and December) and is more of a hail mary like February for potential applicants in the cycle. LSAC has to account for this.


Thoughts?

I agree. LSAC should review a high school/college transcript, IQ test, horoscope quiz, and SAT score for each candidate.

By adjusting for these testing profile discrepancies, LSAC could come up with a more suitable December scale to account for the inferior applicants.

[vicpin5190]

I feel like December tends to have a higher margin of error to get an equivalent score which could (obviously not always) lead to gaining higher scores if you tend to be more consistent on the # of points off you get per test as opposed to going with the flow of the curve.

[crestor]

I feel like December tends to have a higher margin of error to get an equivalent score which could (obviously not always) lead to gaining higher scores if you tend to be more consistent on the # of points off you get per test as opposed to going with the flow of the curve.

I usually range from 78-84 with outliers so this might be it.

[dosto]

.

[iamgeorgebush]

No.

[paglababa]

Wish i kept my old PTs to analyze this. I thought 70 was brutal. Usually missed 5-7 on the PTs but went -10 in Oct.

[wtrc]

62 was a December test bro, I think possibly the hardest test ever given, and the -14 didn't fully account for it.

[vicpin5190]

62 was a December test bro, I think possibly the hardest test ever given, and the -14 didn't fully account for it.

Weirdly enough this was the "game changer" PT for me or whatever, i.e. it's the one where I went from scoring 162-164 to 168-170s, yet I had scored about the same off on this PT as on my previous 2 PTs before going into 62.

Of course, I sometimes get things off that everyone else thought was easy so maybe I'm just weird.

But all in all, I don't think December's are any different from other PTs.

[dosto]

.

[PDaddy]

All my highest PTs came on December. I know all the various flaws with this argument but I just believe the December curve just makes it 180. People say that the curve is like this because this one is "allegedly" a little bit more difficult but I believe quite the opposite. I think December is essentially the least popular month out of the big 3 (October, June and December) and is more of a hail mary like February for potential applicants in the cycle. LSAC has to account for this. Thoughts?

A) Cites an unrepresentative sample size
B) Fails to consider, without justification, another possible cause for his high December scores
C) Accepts, without justification, the accuracy of the cited statistics
D) Appeals to authority (Ok, so OP doesn't claim to be a pychometrician or other "expert", but still...)
E) Employs (predominantly) circular reasoning (OP does offer one suspect piece of supportive evidence: "...'my' highest PTs...")

I know I am being a gunner here, but I couldn't resist. I just had to write out "all of the various flaws"...lol. It's actually a fun exercise.

[amb89]

All my highest PTs came on December. I know all the various flaws with this argument but I just believe the December curve just makes it 180. People say that the curve is like this because this one is "allegedly" a little bit more difficult but I believe quite the opposite. I think December is essentially the least popular month out of the big 3 (October, June and December) and is more of a hail mary like February for potential applicants in the cycle. LSAC has to account for this. Thoughts?

A) Cites an unrepresentative sample size
B) Fails to consider, without justification, another possible cause for his high December scores
C) Accepts, without justification, the accuracy of the cited statistics
D) Appeals to authority (Ok, so OP doesn't claim to be a pychometrician or other "expert", but still...)
E) Employs (predominantly) circular reasoning (OP does offer one suspect piece of supportive evidence: "...'my' highest PTs...")

I know I am being a gunner here, but I couldn't resist. I just had to write out "all of the various flaws"...lol. It's actually a fun exercise.

lmaoooo ive done the same thing with every situation in my life for the past 3 months

[Brettanomyces]

Those humanoids over at LSAC don't believe they have to account for anything for anyone.

This is true. I took all of 60s and 50s. Pretty funny that 69 and 70 IMO were harder than any test in the 50s/60-68). this coupled with the fact that law school apps are down across the board and there are less test-takers every year. lsac just doesn't give a damn.

I shit myself through most of the 60s, but found 70 to be relatively easy.

Chalk it up to divine intervention... or weird test-day energy. Plenty of anecdotal evidence pertaining to both.

[wealtheow]

yeah no. i sat for 65. scored lower than i had on any PT everrr. obviously nerves played a part... but still, no. f dutch agriculture, those passages were a nightmare!

[vicpin5190]

For what it's worth, I've been using this site called zenof180 for further analysis of my PTing, and I took a gander at PT 68 (a December administration), and it looks like that test is HARD given that many of the LR's and LG's, far more than usual, are labeled "Hard" or "Very Hard" (there are scattered "Very Easy's" to counteract, but I've never seen that many hard questions all at once in an LR section). I believe this site is something like 7sage offers in terms of difficulty rating, but yeah, seeing that got me kind of nervous about how 71 will be...

Here's what I mean: http://www.zenof180.com/lsat/preptests/68/

[wealtheow]

For what it's worth, I've been using this site called zenof180 for further analysis of my PTing, and I took a gander at PT 68 (a December administration), and it looks like that test is HARD given that many of the LR's and LG's, far more than usual, are labeled "Hard" or "Very Hard" (there are scattered "Very Easy's" to counteract, but I've never seen that many hard questions all at once in an LR section). I believe this site is something like 7sage offers in terms of difficulty rating, but yeah, seeing that got me kind of nervous about how 71 will be...

Here's what I mean: http://www.zenof180.com/lsat/preptests/68/

wow. not ONE medium difficulty? that's harrowing.

[vicpin5190]

For what it's worth, I've been using this site called zenof180 for further analysis of my PTing, and I took a gander at PT 68 (a December administration), and it looks like that test is HARD given that many of the LR's and LG's, far more than usual, are labeled "Hard" or "Very Hard" (there are scattered "Very Easy's" to counteract, but I've never seen that many hard questions all at once in an LR section). I believe this site is something like 7sage offers in terms of difficulty rating, but yeah, seeing that got me kind of nervous about how 71 will be...

Here's what I mean: http://www.zenof180.com/lsat/preptests/68/

wow. not ONE medium difficulty? that's harrowing.

unfortunately the site hasn't provided grading of PT 67 or 69, so there's no way to tell if this is the new norm or a tremendous outlier....

[koalacity]

Trolling?

I found December tests to be, if anything, harder. More importantly, you do realize LSAC sets the curve before the administration, right? They do this precisely to account for the variance in test-taking population between administrations-i.e. so that if February takers are all a bunch of slackers, they don't unfairly benefit from a super-generous curve because none of them performed well.

[aboutmydaylight]

Personally I've also found December to be my highest PT averages with June being my lowest. Granted its not a huge difference, but its there. For what its worth, I've always performed better/felt more comfortable with difficult tests + big curve instead of easier tests + small curves. Ever since undergrad I've felt that this gives people that are better prepared more of an opportunity to show it, and lessens the chance of lucking out of a good score since the margin of error is bigger.

[mellow]

Personally I've also found December to be my highest PT averages with June being my lowest. Granted its not a huge difference, but its there. For what its worth, I've always performed better/felt more comfortable with difficult tests + big curve instead of easier tests + small curves. Ever since undergrad I've felt that this gives people that are better prepared more of an opportunity to show it, and lessens the chance of lucking out of a good score since the margin of error is bigger.

This was my experience as well. The number of questions I get wrong for each test remains fairly consistent no matter how easy or difficult they are, so the curve matters a lot to me. For me, regardless of the test's difficulty, there will always be a couple questions that I get stuck between two answer choices because I accidentally eliminated the correct one or just didn't like one more than the other.

For example, I got -5 on PT63 (June), PT 64 (October), and PT 65 (December) for a 174, 176, and a 177 respectively.

[steel_shot]

I used to think this, but I found that I generally prefer a more standard test with a standard curve than a more difficult test with a more generous curve. Especially during the actual thing, I'd rather go through standard shit than panic because of a really hard section (which seem to be more common in December tests).

I think that June tests tended to be my best scores.

[Jeffort]

For what it's worth, I've been using this site called zenof180 for further analysis of my PTing, and I took a gander at PT 68 (a December administration), and it looks like that test is HARD given that many of the LR's and LG's, far more than usual, are labeled "Hard" or "Very Hard" (there are scattered "Very Easy's" to counteract, but I've never seen that many hard questions all at once in an LR section). I believe this site is something like 7sage offers in terms of difficulty rating, but yeah, seeing that got me kind of nervous about how 71 will be...

Here's what I mean: http://www.zenof180.com/lsat/preptests/68/

wow. not ONE medium difficulty? that's harrowing.

unfortunately the site hasn't provided grading of PT 67 or 69, so there's no way to tell if this is the new norm or a tremendous outlier....

Those difficulty ratings are crappy and inaccurate. It has six of the first ten questions of an LR section labeled as HARD, with 'very hard' being the only higher rank, which is total nonsense, therefore the ratings are wrong and meaningless.

[vicpin5190]

For what it's worth, I've been using this site called zenof180 for further analysis of my PTing, and I took a gander at PT 68 (a December administration), and it looks like that test is HARD given that many of the LR's and LG's, far more than usual, are labeled "Hard" or "Very Hard" (there are scattered "Very Easy's" to counteract, but I've never seen that many hard questions all at once in an LR section). I believe this site is something like 7sage offers in terms of difficulty rating, but yeah, seeing that got me kind of nervous about how 71 will be...

Here's what I mean: http://www.zenof180.com/lsat/preptests/68/

wow. not ONE medium difficulty? that's harrowing.

unfortunately the site hasn't provided grading of PT 67 or 69, so there's no way to tell if this is the new norm or a tremendous outlier....

Those difficulty ratings are crappy and inaccurate. It has six of the first ten questions of an LR section labeled as HARD, with 'very hard' being the only higher rank, which is total nonsense, therefore the ratings are wrong and meaningless.

Though probably not perfect by any means, I've found them somewhat reliable. I do notice a bias towards rating the later 60s significantly harder, and idk how accurate or not that is, but I wouldn't say it's complete nonsense. It's just supplementary and I linked it to give some perspective, nothing more.