What is the LSAT?

LSAT Basics

The Standard Info

The LSAT is a standardized exam given four times per year (Feb, June, Sep/Oct, Dec) that is used by law school admissions offices to evaluate applications. Sign-up at www.lsac.org. It costs $136 to register for the LSAT.

The test is comprised of 5 sections and a writing sample.

Section	Questions	Scored?	Time	Order
Logical Reasoning #1	24-25	Yes	35 mins	These sections may come in any order.
Logical Reasoning #2	24-25	Yes	35 mins
Analytical Reasoning (Logic Games)	22-23	Yes	35 mins
Reading Comprehension	25-28	Yes	35 mins
Experimental (can be any of the above types)	22-28	No	35 mins
Essay	One Essay	No	35 mins	This section always comes last.

The experimental section is used to test out questions for use in future exams. There is one break between sections three and four. Between sections there is no break whatsoever – five minutes before the end of the section, the proctor will give a warning, and at the end of the section, the proctor will announce its end and immediately begin the next section. Be sure to be as rigorous during your practice tests.

The LSAT is scored from 120-180, with a median score (50th percentile) of 150. Those accepted to top-ten ranked law schools generally score between 165 – 175, with a median of 169.

Scores are e-mailed to test-takers about three weeks after the LSAT. When you receive your score, if you take any exam other than the February one, you’ll receive a copy of the test and your answer sheet, so you can see which questions you answered correctly. For some, that’s the icing on the cake, for other’s it’s salt on the wound!

For most people, the essay is wholly unimportant. While law schools are given a copy of the essay you write (on a topic dictated by the LSAT), it is rarely used in making decisions about law school admittance. Most likely it is used in cases in which a candidate is not a native English speaker, or if there’s a question as to whether a candidate wrote his or her own application essay. In short, write a standard essay, do not be provocative, and do not try to be creative. If you are worried about the essay, read our short guide to writing a good LSAT essay.

The Mastery Info

Be sure to sign up at least 4 months in advance. Seats in convenient testing centers may fill up quickly. If you’re worried about the quality of your testing center (how quiet it is, how comfortable are the seats, etc., check out reviews online. Don’t worry if you sign-up far in advance and are put on a waiting list; the LSAC will open more testing centers and you’ll be moved off the list. If you want to try to change your testing location, go ahead and give them a call.

You can cancel your score within 6 days of having taken the LSAT (or you can do it during or immediately after the test). Because of recent changes to the way that law schools report the scores of their students (see below), it’s no longer as much of a problem to take the LSAT multiple times. However, it’s always best to have one great score on your record, so practice predicting your score after you each practice test you take. That way you’ll have a better chance of accurately sensing your score on the real exam, perhaps giving you an edge over others who have no idea how to gauge whether to cancel. If you do cancel your score, the effect on your LSAT record will be almost identical to if you do not show up to the test. Neither you nor any schools you apply to will find out what score you “would have gotten,” and all those schools will know is that you cancelled a score. Cancelling a score happens relatively frequently, and a single cancellation is not considered a flaw.

You can be assured that the experimental section will be among the first three sections. The LSAC places the experimental early in the exam probably to ensure that you’re still alert and useful as a guinea pig! LSAC has also somewhat standardized the order of the sections so that you’re ensured that you’ll have one logical reasoning section before the break and one afterwards. Actually, everyone taking the LSAT on that day will get the same logical reasoning section before the break and the same one afterwards – this helps prevent cheating during the break. If you get two logical reasoning sections before the break, you’ll know that one of them was an experimental. However, you’ll never be able to know that you’re doing an experimental until afterwards, so don’t bother trying to “game” the LSAT by not trying on one section – this is a game you’ll lose!

The Law School Admissions Brain, in pie-chart format

The big change in how law schools report your score is that the ABA – the American Bar Association – no longer requires that law schools average multiple LSATs for each student when calculating an average or median LSAT score for the school. Since law schools are eager to show a more competitive student body, many schools – but not all! – are more than happy to ignore a poor LSAT score and simply consider your best one. However, this is not universal, so it’s crucial that you research the schools that interest you and find out their policies. For some schools, they will make an exception to their averaging rule if they see a significant change from one score to the next. But beware, re-taking does not often result in a significant improvement – see what the data says!

It is often said that admissions offices give your LSAT score twice the weight of your undergraduate GPA. It’s difficult for those offices to discern the relative value of different majors and GPAs at schools of varying rigor, so the LSAT provides a standardized measurement.

Why is the LSAT so important in your application? Besides the challenge of comparing different majors and GPAs, the LSAT has proven to be a fairly strong predictor of a student’s grades during his or her first year law school (read what LSAC has to say) It is roughly twice as predictive as the GMAT is for grades in business school. The LSAC – the folks who write and manage the LSAT – have managed to craft an exam that rather successfully “measures 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." (that is according to their site.) Read what Aileen, one of our teachers and 2L at Yale has to say about how the LSAT relates to what you’ll be doing in law school.

Part of becoming truly strong at the LSAT, particularly on Reading Comprehension and Logical Reasoning, is to start reading and thinking like a law student. If you’re interested in learning more about this, you might find one of our LSAT workshops to be useful. We work on a few LSAT questions to show you the difference between an average test-taker and a 170+ one.