Why the February LSAT is Undisclosed

If you take the June, October, or December LSAT, you'll be able to see (and download) the exam you took by logging into your LSAC account once you receive your score via email.

You'll also be able to see exactly which questions you answered incorrectly and what you chose for each.

(This assumes, among other things, you're not taking the LSAT outside North America, or taking a special Sabbath observers' administration.)

However, none of you who take the February LSAT will ever get to see the exam once you've taken it, nor will you get to see how many questions you answered incorrectly.

All you'll get is your score out of 180, and your percentile.

Why?

LSAC's Director of Communications, Wendy Margolis, explained via email:

The reason the February LSAT is nondisclosed is because it is important for LSAC to have some nondisclosed test forms and questions available in reserve for emergencies and special uses. The nondisclosed February test forms play this role. This has been LSAC practice since 1996. In case you need to point your students to information about test disclosure, the following language and link appears on the LSAC.org page for the February LSAT:

NOTE: Not every LSAT is disclosed.

Basically, LSAC needs to have unreleased exams on file in case of inclement weather, and perhaps for use in overseas administrations (those outside the Americas) and Sabbath observers' administrations.

A lot of work goes into creating a single LSAT, and LSAC doesn't want to have to create a new exam for a relatively-small number of test-takers.

That's just the way it is, folks. Sorry.

(Some details on LSAC's website.)

Photo by tinfoilraccoon

LSAT Logical Reasoning Solutions PDF

I've written explanations for over 1,000 LSAT questions.

You can get the full LSAT PrepTest explanations for TONS of exams HERE.

Logic and Games

* Done with the LSAT for good? Here's how one guy got rid of his prep books. [YouTube]

* The State Bar of Wisconsin co-sponsors a resolution to promote fair accommodations for disabled LSAT-takers. [Wisconsin Bar]

* A kidnapper sues his former hostages for breach of contract. [Above The Law]

* Chick-Fil-A sues kid for selling t-shirts with the message "Eat More Kale." [Gawker]

* Amazon may finally start charging sales tax next year nationwide. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Ever wonder how landlords figure out what to charge in rent? Computers. [NYTimes]

December 2011 LSAT Score Release Dates

UPDATE:

LSAC began releasing December 2011 LSAT scores on Wednesday, January 4th, beginning around 5:30PM Eastern. Scores are released in batches, and it may take several hours for everyone to receive their scores.

Good luck!

***

The December 2011 LSAT scores / results are scheduled to be released via email by Friday, January 6, 2012.

However, the scores consistently come out more than a few days before the scheduled score release date.

Let's look at the trend over the past several years (click to enlarge):

As you can see, there's a general trend - LSAC is taking longer and longer to come back with the results. Also, the difference between the scheduled score release dates and actual score release dates is decreasing over time.

Unfortunately, it's extremely difficult to predict a specific date, or even a few dates, that would be the most likely actual score release date for the December 2011 LSAT.

My best guess is that December 2011 LSAT scores will be released sometime close to Saturday, December 31st - within a few days before or after.

"But at what time specifically? I need to know when to constantly refresh my email / LSAC account!"

In batches over the course of several hours. Likely starting late in the day (Eastern Time).

No one knows how the batches are organized, if at all.

The batches do not seem to be organized in any of these ways:

alphabetical/regional/high-to-low scores/low-to-high scores/test center #, etc.

Wish everyone all the best!

***

See other LSAT score release dates posts.

***

While you're waiting for your score, get busy with my admissions-related blog posts.

Also see, Should You to Cancel Your LSAT Score?

Feel free to leave comments and vent at the injustice of having to wait so long for what is rightfully yours.

December 2011 LSAT Curve: PrepTest 65

Good luck to everyone taking the December 2011 LSAT!

Did you know that December exams tend to have most lenient curves?

The "curve" on the most recent December exams was very generous. The December 2009 and December 2010 LSATs each allowed you to have 14 incorrect answers but still get a 170. (The average for December exams in recent years prior was only 11.375 incorrect answers).

The below chart contains recent data regarding the number of questions you could get wrong on recent exams and still achieve a particular scaled score (out of 180):








(See what it's taken to get an LSAT score of 160 or 170 on all LSAT PrepTests.)

Come back to this blog post after you take the LSAT and post your curve predictions in the comments!

Photo by blprnt_van

LSAT Test Day Food Recommendations

An LSAT distance tutoring student of mine recently emailed me:

"Any tips on what to eat for breakfast the morning of the LSAT? I know you say to have a big breakfast, but what? And what do you suggest for the break and to drink?"

At least one of the items pictured above is not part of a healthy LSAT breakfast.

If you guessed FourLoko, you're on your way to a top LSAT score. Congrats!

(McDonald's probably isn't part of any healthy breakfast, but there's a reason I didn't go to medical school.)

More about food in a bit, but first, coffee and cigarettes (breakfast of champions?).

I've already gone over whether coffee, cigarettes, and gum are allowed on Test Day. Now, the question remains, should you drink coffee or have cigarettes in the morning before the exam?

Answer: Do whatever you normally do. If you normally have coffee or cigarettes in the morning, don't try to go cold turkey now or you'll almost certainly find yourself with a pounding headache.

I don't know why you'd suddenly take up smoking, but now's not the time to start (if there ever was). Coffee will probably empty your intestines in the middle of the exam if you haven't had it in a while, so it's probably not a good idea for folks new to it.

You want to be fully alert, so a pre-test wake and bake isn't a good idea. What you do after the test is up to you (assuming it's for medicinal purposes, of course). Maybe California will vote to legalize next time, folks.


Oatmeal with bananas, raisins, or cranberries is probably about as healthy as it gets, while mild enough that it shouldn't give you any stomach issues. Eat it well before the exam starts so that you'll have time to go to the bathroom (oatmeal has lots of fiber).



Perhaps I misspoke - yogurt and granola might top oatmeal and fruit for "healthiest breakfast of the year." Again, it's mild and has carbs, but unlike oatmeal, yogurt has lots of protein as well. (Perhaps the nutritionists can chime in with their recommendations.)


Eggs have a lot of protein. However, depending upon how you cook them, you might also end up with lots of fat. Fat can make you sleepy. For this reason, lay off the butter and oil. Consider eating them hard-boiled, perhaps with a little salt for flavor. Alternatively, you can go the Rocky route and drink them raw, but don't blame me if you get salmonella.



Pancakes, waffles, muffins, bagels, cold cereal, etc. are also all good, just make sure you have also some protein.

Cold (or warm) pizza is probably good too (cheese has protein), but this is coming from a guy who sometimes eats leftover burritos for breakfast, so you may not want to listen to me on this one.

The bottom line is that you'll want to eat some carbs to give you energy, and some protein to improve your mental performance.

(This site appears to have some simple, yet comprehensive, nutrition advice. This link on it is also good.)

***

LSAT Snacks For During The Break:

Try not to be the guy who brings this:









Here are some more practical alternatives that the proctors will probably allow:

Granola bars: quick to unwrap, easy to eat, sugar

Bananas: quick to peel, easy to eat, sugar

Water: reduces thirst

Juice: reduces thirst, sugar

Coffee will likely be cold by now, but I suppose it's ok if you don't care about that sort of thing.

With all beverages, don't drink too much in order to avoid bathroom breaks. Your test center may have a water fountain, which would eliminate the need to bring a water bottle. Or maybe you're one of those people who's paranoid about tap water or lives in a part of the U.S. / world where the water's unsafe to drink.

***

See all LSAT Test Day tips.

***

Discuss the best breakfast foods and snacks in the comments. I'm sure that most of you know more about nutrition than I do. If you know something, please comment!

Law School Regular Decision Dates

I was recently forwarded the following description of a list (in spreadsheet form) containing information about how and when law schools get back to applicants with their decisions.

(Elisabeth also created a list of law schools offering application fee waivers and law school application deadlines.)

Those of you applying to law school in this admissions cycle will likely find it useful:

For the last spreadsheet in this series, we looked at admissions decision information on law school websites. See http://ow.ly/7uvsY.

We used our same unscientific process: If we found this information within a couple minutes of searching the law school website, we added it to a Google spreadsheet. Corrections, welcome.

Please feel free to share the URLs with colleagues and applicants. Applicants should be advised to contact individual law schools for accurate information.

Application Fee Waivers: http://ow.ly/6OuFM
Deadlines & Dean's Letter Requirements: http://ow.ly/7jZdY
Decisions, Decisions: http://ow.ly/7uvsY

Elisabeth Steele Hutchison
Director of Admissions & Special Projects
University of Hawai'i at Manoa | William S. Richardson School of Law

Phone pieterouwerkerk

Logic and Games

* Woman with brain disorder sues for more time on the LSAT. [Reuters; ABA Journal; CBS]

* Lawyer accused of seeking secretary with 'benefits' gets one-year suspension. [ABA Journal; Legal Profession Blog]

* Strippers in Miami are posing as paralegals. [Above The Law]

* Congressman Barney Frank won't be seeking reelection. [The Daily Beast]

* Facebook settles with FTC over privacy violations.

* Rapper Mac Lethal is responsible for two of the funniest things I've seen online this week. [Gawker]

Logic and Games

* Some advice on navigating the wild world of unpaid internships. [The Daily Beast]

* Beverage manufacturers in Europe are no longer allowed to claim that water reduces the risk of dehydration. [The Telegraph]

* Soon, all advertising will be in the form of cat videos. [YouTube]

* An editorial with ideas on reforming legal education... [NYTimes]

* And a response to those ideas. [Brian Leiter]

Virginia Law School Admissions Dean Interview

In this LSAT Blog post, I interview the University of Virginia's Senior Assistant Dean of Admissions, Jason Wu Trujillo. Our discussion follows.

1. What percentage of seats are reserved for in-state residents?

While the University of Virginia School of Law does not receive any state funding, we still reserve 40% of our seats for residents of the Commonwealth of Virginia.


2. What can wait-listed / deferred applicants do to improve their chances, and where is the line between an applicant's enthusiasm and obsession?

Wait-listed students can do many things to improve their chances of being made an offer. First, many wait-listed students will choose to retake the LSAT in February or even June. We have made offers from the waiting list due to the results of the June LSAT. If an applicant is still in school, the very best thing they can show is a strong final semester. They should update LSAC with their final grades as soon as they become available. Wait-listed applicants for whom Virginia is their absolute first choice should let us know. I will often receive a letter or email which states that, should an offer become available, the applicant will accept it unhesitatingly. That is a powerful statement and valuable information for me to have. If I have spots available, I will look to those applicants first.

There is a fine line between enthusiasm and obsession. A single letter of interest is sufficient. Even a letter or email once a month is fine. Beyond that, I think you run the risk of being too repetitive.


3. What makes Virginia Law unique? Would you please talk a bit about the student newspaper?

Virginia Law has a unique culture of collegiality. When I was choosing among law schools, I chose Virginia because the students seemed genuinely happy. Unfortunately there is no satisfaction quotient that one can use to measure this. I think the closest measure is the rate at which a school's alumni give back. In our most recent annual giving year, 52% of our alumni gave back to the Law School in the form of a financial contribution. That is #1 in the country and a statistic that truly demonstrates the satisfaction our alums have with their legal education. Moreover, more recent classes have been giving at rates in excess of 90%. If you can get 90% of newly minted lawyers to agree on anything, you are doing something right.

Our student newspaper, the Virginia Law Weekly, has won numerous awards for excellence. It has earned the American Bar Association's Best Law School Newspaper Award three years in a row.


4. Anything else?

I encourage interested students to visit Virginia. You are welcome anytime!

Bio: Jason Wu Trujillo, the Senior Assistant Dean for Admissions and Financial Aid at the University of Virginia School of Law.

Photo by 51170735@N02

LSAT Logic and the Velocity of an Unladen Swallow

In the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, there's a scene during Arthur's quest in which he encounters a bridge-keeper.

The bridge-keeper asks him, among other things, "what is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?"

Bridge-keeper: Stop! What is your name?
King Arthur: It is Arthur, King of the Britons.
Bridge-keeper: What is your quest?
King Arthur: To seek the Holy Grail.
Bridge-keeper: What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?
King Arthur: What do you mean? An African or European swallow?
Bridge-keeper: What? I don't know that! [falls into abyss]
Sir Bedemir: How do know so much about swallows?
King Arthur: Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.

Now, this is funny, but why am I talking about it?

Arthur's response is an interesting argumentative technique, and Bedemir commits a logical fallacy. Both of their responses are related to types of reasoning we see on the LSAT.

***

Rather than attempt to answer the question or admit that he doesn't know the answer, Arthur simply responds with a question of his own. The bridge-keeper happens to be shocked by the question and doesn't know how to deal with it.

Arthur's response doesn't actually demonstrate any knowledge related to the velocity of unladen swallows at all, other than to suggest that perhaps he knows that the velocities of African and European swallows differ.

Bedemir is far more impressed with Arthur's response than he should be. He improperly assumes that it indicates Arthur knows something significant about the unladen swallows' airspeed velocity.

Arthur's response serves as irrelevant evidence when it comes to supporting the conclusion that he knows a great deal about swallows.

In order to properly conclude that Arthur knows something about the velocity of unladen swallows, we'd have to actually hear him say something related to their actual speed. Even if we didn't hear a firm number (such as "20 kilometers per hour") the response that it's "the same as that of a 10-year-old child riding a bicycle" would serve as much firmer evidence than what Arthur asked. (These guys did a good job of suggesting they know what they're talking about.)

See PrepTest 36 (December 2001 LSAT), Section 1, Question 12, page 257 in Next 10) for an example of an actual LSAT question where the evidence provided gives us little reason to support the conclusion.

Logic and Games

* Lobbying firm's memo spells out plan to undermine Occupy Wall Street. [MSNBC]

* Bad analogy #22: "He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River." [House of Figs]

* Two dozen millionaires have asked Congress to raise their taxes. [CNN]

* Sick of seeing engagement and wedding photos on Facebook? Here's one photo album that's actually awesome. Make sure to scroll down to the end. [Unreality Magazine]

* Beyoncé songs re-imagined as undergraduate theses in Women’s and Gender Studies. [The Hairpin]

* First there was sexting, now there's supposedly "sleep-texting." 10 bucks says this isn't a real thing. [MSNBC]