LSAT - The Law School Admission Test

The Law School Admission Test (LSAT) is a half-day, standardized test administered four times each year at designated testing centers throughout the world. The test is an integral part of the law school admission process in the United States, Canada, and a growing number of other countries. It provides a standard measure of acquired reading and verbal reasoning skills that law schools can use as one of several factors in assessing applicants.

In the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, and some other countries, the LSAT is administered on a Saturday, except in June, when it is generally administered on a Monday. For Saturday Sabbath observers, the test is also administered on a weekday following Saturday administrations.

Many law schools require that the LSAT be taken by December for admission the following fall. However, taking the test earlier—in June or September—is often advised.

Test Format
The test consists of five 35-minute sections of multiple-choice questions. Four of the five sections contribute to the test taker's score. The unscored section, commonly referred to as the variable section, typically is used to pretest new test questions or to pre equate new test forms. The placement of this section will vary. A 35-minute writing sample is administered at the end of the test. LSAC does not score the writing sample, but copies of the writing sample are sent to all law schools to which you apply.

What the Test Measures
The LSAT is designed to measure skills that are considered essential for success in law school: the reading and comprehension of complex texts with accuracy and insight; the organization and management of information and the ability to draw reasonable inferences from it; the ability to think critically; and the analysis and evaluation of the reasoning and arguments of others.

The three multiple-choice question types in the LSAT are:

• Reading Comprehension Questions—These questions measure the ability to read, with understanding and insight, examples of lengthy and complex materials similar to those commonly encountered in law school. The Reading Comprehension section contains four sets of reading questions, each consisting of a selection of reading material, followed by five to eight questions that test reading and reasoning abilities.
• Analytical Reasoning Questions—These questions measure the ability to understand a structure of relationships and to draw logical conclusions about that structure. You are asked to reason deductively from a set of statements and rules or principles that describe relationships among persons, things, or events. Analytical Reasoning questions reflect the kinds of complex analyses that a law student performs in the course of legal problem solving.
• Logical Reasoning Questions—These questions assess the ability to analyze, critically evaluate, and complete arguments as they occur in ordinary language. Each Logical Reasoning question requires the test taker to read and comprehend a short passage, then answer a question about it. The questions are designed to assess a wide range of skills involved in thinking critically, with an emphasis on skills that are central to legal reasoning. These skills include drawing well-supported conclusions, reasoning by analogy, determining how additional evidence affects an argument, applying principles or rules, and identifying argument flaws.

The Experimental section will be games, arguments, or reading section. You will not know which the real section is and which the experimental section is, so you must just try your best on every single section. The good news is that if at some point you have a strangely difficult section that makes no sense, there is a strong chance that it was the experimental section. There is also a writing sample or essay section. The writing sample does not count towards your score, but the law schools to which you apply will receive a copy of your essay to evaluate. The duration of the test is about 3.5 hours. There is no negative marking as such, but you are expected to attend all the questions. After your test is graded, your score will be converted into an LSAT score ranging from a low of 120 to a high of 180. Your score and hence your percentile will roughly follow along a bell curve pattern, a score of 150 is an average one, and 170 is the 99th percentile.

For LSAT dates and dead line, please visit: https://www.lsac.org/jd/lsat/test-dates-deadlines  

Books: LSAT Prep Tests, Master The LSAT by Jeff Kolby and Scott Thornburg.

For more details, please visit: https://www.lsac.org  
 

Published date : 20 Aug 2014 05:39PM