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According to one percentile table, 2% of test takers get lower than 130. That's about the same as people who get 171/172+. Out of curiosity I graded a couple tests guessing all "E"s or picking random letters, and I got 131 and 130. To get in the low 120s, you have to actively choose wrong answers with greater frequency than pure chance. This seems difficult to contemplate, unless it's an intentional act of self-sabotage, or a language-barrier issue. Where are the 120-129 people coming from?

dummies

I'm not really sure what answer you're looking for.

I'm in a Facebook group for LSAT study and there was a guy from Nigeria who was consistently PTing in the low 130s after he claimed four months of study. some people are just literally clueless. If you can't read and process English you probably aren't going to be doing so well.

encore1101 wrote:I'm not really sure what answer you're looking for.

The truth! The answer I"m looking for is not "dumb people" (because I don't think that that makes sense. You would still do a little better than random guessing). I wonder if there are people who actively get 120-129's for some reason, or for LSAC to maintain a normal distribution?

People who aren't aware that it's a test that needs to be specifically prepared for, and don't have anyone of any kind of legal background to warn them. My cousin was the first person in our extended family to ever go to law school, and he took the LSAT on 2-weeks notice and never studied. He scored in the low 150s, but he's a very clever guy. Imagine if you're someone who is not naturally gifted, you have no mentor to warn you what the test is like, and you take the LSAT on short notice. All of a sudden getting overwhelmed and actively bombing the test becomes more understandable.

Hell, imagine you're an incredibly intelligent person who grew up in rural or urban poverty with no educational resources, went to a small state school or junior college that was the only thing you could afford, and have never been properly acquainted with the logical form of English; it'd be like reading a foreign language. There a plenty of ways someone can perform extremely poorly on the LSAT, and none of them require that person to be a monumental idiot.

All of that being said, sometimes monumental idiots take the test. Or kids whose parents force them to take the test. Or any of a billion things. This question is flawed because its inverse is flawed: the question "who gets more than 170?" is a question with no specific answer. There are people who study for years and can't break 165, and there are people who can score 175 after only studying for a few days.

BirdLawExpert wrote:People who aren't aware that it's a test that needs to be specifically prepared for, and don't have anyone of any kind of legal background to warn them. My cousin was the first person in our extended family to ever go to law school, and he took the LSAT on 2-weeks notice and never studied. He scored in the low 150s, but he's a very clever guy. Imagine if you're someone who is not naturally gifted, you have no mentor to warn you what the test is like, and you take the LSAT on short notice. All of a sudden getting overwhelmed and actively bombing the test becomes more understandable.

Hell, imagine you're an incredibly intelligent person who grew up in rural or urban poverty with no educational resources, went to a small state school or junior college that was the only thing you could afford, and have never been properly acquainted with the logical form of English; it'd be like reading a foreign language. There a plenty of ways someone can perform extremely poorly on the LSAT, and none of them require that person to be a monumental idiot.

I agree; I don't think anyone at any score level would be a monumental idiot (hence the uncertainty of LSAT/IQ correlations; I've seen plenty of 171+ people whose reading extends to Harry Potter and many very bright friends who didn't break that number). I think you're onto something with language problems or taking the exam on short notice. Does that happen often?

conticuere wrote: I agree; I don't think anyone at any score level would be a monumental idiot (hence the uncertainty of LSAT/IQ correlations; I've seen plenty of 171+ people whose reading extends to Harry Potter and many very bright friends who didn't break that number). I think you're onto something with language problems or taking the exam on short notice. Does that happen often?

I took the LSAT last year in downtown Houston. 90% of the people I was taking the test with that I spoke to had registered in the last week or two registration was up because they couldn't secure a job after graduating from undergrad. You have to remember that this website and others like it represents the vast, overwhelming minority of test takers and future law students.

BirdLawExpert wrote:

conticuere wrote: I agree; I don't think anyone at any score level would be a monumental idiot (hence the uncertainty of LSAT/IQ correlations; I've seen plenty of 171+ people whose reading extends to Harry Potter and many very bright friends who didn't break that number). I think you're onto something with language problems or taking the exam on short notice. Does that happen often?

I took the LSAT last year in downtown Houston. 90% of the people I was taking the test with that I spoke to had registered in the last week or two registration was up because they couldn't secure a job after graduating from undergrad. You have to remember that this website and others like it represents the vast, overwhelming minority of test takers and future law students.

I can see why the exam exists, then: to weed out people who don't even really want to go to law school and were only contemplating law school because there was no other option. I wonder sometimes about the narcissism of minor differences on exams like these, where a difference of 4 questions more correct than someone else could make a $100,000 difference in "merit" aid.

BirdLaw's answer is sport on. I just want to add that in my test center a year or two ago, we had roughly 30 people in the room and two people left during the first section. That's nearly 7 percent, I'm not sure if those people were anomalies (I would guess they are not, though).

It is posible, like Birdlaw said, that for some people this is like a second language. (Or quite literally in some cases)

If that is the case, AND they didn't prepare, perhaps they end up taking too long on a handful or questions and as a result leave tons blank.

And they don't even know that wrong answers aren't penalized, and thus, don't even bother.

proteinshake wrote:dummies

this was a joke, but yeah just not being prepared. no one is going to waste hundreds of dollars to purposely score low.

conticuere wrote:

BirdLawExpert wrote:People who aren't aware that it's a test that needs to be specifically prepared for, and don't have anyone of any kind of legal background to warn them. My cousin was the first person in our extended family to ever go to law school, and he took the LSAT on 2-weeks notice and never studied. He scored in the low 150s, but he's a very clever guy. Imagine if you're someone who is not naturally gifted, you have no mentor to warn you what the test is like, and you take the LSAT on short notice. All of a sudden getting overwhelmed and actively bombing the test becomes more understandable.

Hell, imagine you're an incredibly intelligent person who grew up in rural or urban poverty with no educational resources, went to a small state school or junior college that was the only thing you could afford, and have never been properly acquainted with the logical form of English; it'd be like reading a foreign language. There a plenty of ways someone can perform extremely poorly on the LSAT, and none of them require that person to be a monumental idiot.

I agree; I don't think anyone at any score level would be a monumental idiot (hence the uncertainty of LSAT/IQ correlations; I've seen plenty of 171+ people whose reading extends to Harry Potter and many very bright friends who didn't break that number). I think you're onto something with language problems or taking the exam on short notice. Does that happen often?

I'd trust an LSAT score over how much James Joyce a person has read as an indicator of intelligence.

Test prep companies and instructors who spend their time focusing on the questions so they can develop better tests and don't give a crap about getting into law school.

Hikikomorist wrote:

conticuere wrote:

BirdLawExpert wrote:People who aren't aware that it's a test that needs to be specifically prepared for, and don't have anyone of any kind of legal background to warn them. My cousin was the first person in our extended family to ever go to law school, and he took the LSAT on 2-weeks notice and never studied. He scored in the low 150s, but he's a very clever guy. Imagine if you're someone who is not naturally gifted, you have no mentor to warn you what the test is like, and you take the LSAT on short notice. All of a sudden getting overwhelmed and actively bombing the test becomes more understandable.

Hell, imagine you're an incredibly intelligent person who grew up in rural or urban poverty with no educational resources, went to a small state school or junior college that was the only thing you could afford, and have never been properly acquainted with the logical form of English; it'd be like reading a foreign language. There a plenty of ways someone can perform extremely poorly on the LSAT, and none of them require that person to be a monumental idiot.

I agree; I don't think anyone at any score level would be a monumental idiot (hence the uncertainty of LSAT/IQ correlations; I've seen plenty of 171+ people whose reading extends to Harry Potter and many very bright friends who didn't break that number). I think you're onto something with language problems or taking the exam on short notice. Does that happen often?

I'd trust an LSAT score over how much James Joyce a person has read as an indicator of intelligence.

I wouldn't. The sheer number of pages someone has read of Joyce, surely, does not matter. But given the number of brainless people who achieve a 170+ score I don't think you can count on that very much, either.

psu2016 wrote:Test prep companies and instructors who spend their time focusing on the questions so they can develop better tests and don't give a crap about getting into law school.

hmm never considered this. Perhaps it is very possible.

Possibly, given the number of intentionally enticing, but incorrect questions (that appeal to faulty thought) throughout RC and LR, that some takers do even more poorly than random chance due to them being actively drawn to these answer choices (so, beyond getting questions correct and incorrect due to randomness).

URMs.

Ilovemydogxo wrote:URMs.

Savage. I'm positive you're a troll.