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Hi everyone! I've been lurking this site for some time now, but this is my first post. Apologies in advance if the following topic has been discussed somewhere else on TLS- a cursory look around the site didn't yield an answer to my question, so here it goes (and I'm sorry if this is a stupid question):

I took the Dec. 7th test at in New Brunswick, NJ, where the testing center was evacuated twice due to fire alarms (in addition to the test being stopped a couple of times by university officials). After LSAC reviewed accounts of that day's testing conditions, they granted all of those affected by the distractions the ability to take a make-up test this coming Saturday (which will be undisclosed).

I'm somewhat familiar with the implications of taking an undisclosed test in the cases of those offered in Feb (not being able to see the test after you've received your score, etc) but I'm wondering how LSAC determines the 'curve' (I know it's not a *true* curve) for tests with far fewer takers. It seems to me like the small number of people taking a different, undisclosed test wouldn't yield a totally accurate curve, given that the sample may be a bit more biased than the much larger pool of takers of the normal Dec. 7th lsat (too small a sample, taken from only a few testing locations across the world, etc).

So, my questions are: compared to normal/disclosed tests, how are the curves on undisclosed make-up tests determined (do they have, like, a control group somewhere that's already taken this test so that they have something to compare our scores to?), and are they comparable to those of their disclosed counterparts? Or, perhaps, are they just smaller-scale versions of the February test?

If anyone has any knowledge of or experience with LSAT make-up exams/ undisclosed (non february) tests, I'd love some information!

Thanks!!

It's not a curve. It's equated. They do statistical mumbo-jumbo to make sure that each test form is similar to every other test form in terms of the difficulty of achieving each score.

All of the sections have appeared as experimental sections on other exams in the past, and they use the results to determine how to score the new test when it's assembled.

So it'll be the same as every other LSAT.

I was wondering the same thing and assumed that's what they did but what about in the case where they remove an item for scoring?

tomwatts wrote:It's not a curve. It's equated. They do statistical mumbo-jumbo to make sure that each test form is similar to every other test form in terms of the difficulty of achieving each score.

All of the sections have appeared as experimental sections on other exams in the past, and they use the results to determine how to score the new test when it's assembled.

So it'll be the same as every other LSAT.

Aha, ok, that makes sense! Clearly I lack a strong understanding of how the whole 'equating' thing works (math/stats in general, haha), but this sounds a lot more reasonable than what I had imagined. Thanks!!