Law School Admissions Test: my experience

Feel free not to read this. I ramble… a.. Lot.

Ok, so the LSAT is one of the two biggest factors law school admissions councils look at to weed out potential candidates (along with GPA). While different schools apply different weights to various criteria, some consider the LSAT the top indicator of first year performance (which can be argued). Meaning that today I took a four hour test that potentially is more important than four years of college grades combine. Yikes. So I knew it was a big deal so I made sure I was all set last night…

It’s a very controlled test. You may not wear a hat, a hoodie, you may only bring 20 oz. of fluid, a snack, wooden pencils, no mechanical ones, ID and stuff, and you have to bring them in a plastic ziplock no bigger than 1 gallon. After I spent the afternoon at mass (on my knees the whole time of course), I went home, carefully laid out all my stuff on the desk and saw it was about 10. I know myself. And if it’s one thing I know, it’s that I function 110% better when I have had a full nights sleep (defined as 9-10 hours easy). So I ran through a few practice problems, did alright, watched the news for an hour, read only good blogs and online reports- things that would uplift- read a few pages of my most recent book, did my nightly routine, and turned off the light at midnight. Problem: I don’t fall asleep til 2 usually. I tried just listening to my fan hummm…mmmm..mmm.. But realized I was being hypnotized. So it resorted to the pills. 12 generic brand sleep pills. Needless to say, that did the trick.

I woke up 10 hours later feeling pretty good. First order of business is a long long shower to wake up and rinse off sleep-med residue. I picked out my outfit with care. I mean, my clothes. Dudes don’t wear outfits. I then scoured the internet for the people who took the LSAT in China and Japan. They were already done before I woke up. I found three people on my blog that said they were done and wished us luck, but I failed to find where they posted their answers online. Oh well. Next I ate some Life cereal since it has fiber and I’ve heard horror stories of people having to make a life or death decision in the middle of section 3: take a few points of the LSAT or a bladder infection. Most choose a bladder infection- doctors can treat you later. The hour before the test I slapped myself around a lot in my living room. You need to be awake and sharp. I didn’t want to bruise and draw attention to myself, so I resorted to stretching. When I got to the Wilkinson center I saw the huge line waiting to go into the test. I drop by the restroom and catch a fellow test taker blowing chunks. I kinda felt sorry for the guy.

I got in the A-H line and starting talking to the guy behind me. This guy didn’t know anything about the test. He had brought a backpack (strike one) a cell phone (strike 6), and like one pencil (he shouldn’t even be in college much less law school). To get into the test you get fingerprinted, sign your name in like 7 places, sometimes in cursive, print, or regular handwriting. It was over the top lock down. No way you were going to be cheating. So the kids behind me is assigned the seat next to me. Later we were spread out (every other seat) and he said to the proctor “But I want to stay here, he looks smart”. My eyes got wide as they met the proctors eyes. “I’ve never seen this guy before in my life”. Proctor says “good save”. Half way through the hour long instructions a proctor notices this guy has his backpack still! Hahaha they took that a way in a hurry. He asks the proctor if there’s going to be a break. At this point I think he’s kidding. He must have walked in off the street. I bet he’s never seen a practice test in his life.

So I look around the room. I see a kid with a baseball cap on (against the rules), I see a kid a few rows up with what looks like tuna fish in his snack bag. He’s going to get his face beat in if I catch even a whiff of that while I’m trying to concentrate. I’m sure I won’t have to worry about it since the people next to him will most likely do it for me. Luckily I didn’t hear any sniffling or coughing. I hear horror stories of people taking the test with bronchitis or the plague. Everyone around them is praying they’ll keel over so they can carry on. After the test, I checked my blog TLS. Here’s a few problems my fellow law school bloggers had today:

Quotes

“This dog kept on barking while I was taking the test. I wanted to shove a baseball bat *&^$#@*$@”

“Leading up to the room, I overheard two gentlemen in front of me discussing the test. One had just started preparing for the LSAT like the prior week, and the other was a re-taker who was hoping to break 150 this time to get a scholarship. (Where the ____ was he going?)

I think that actually helped calm me down.

If you were one of those guys, thanks.”

“There was this guy who was sitting next to me and had a $(*#&$@ coughing spasm during the first section. He was coughing violently for *15* minutes! Anyway, he completely threw off my concentration on that section… I think I’m going to have to cancel my score.”

“I got a huge head ached during the break and had trouble finishing strong on one of the Logic Games…

I feel like such a failure…All those months of prep just for me to cancel.”

“The girl sitting next to me was underlining and constantly writing the whole test. The fact that she pressed so hard and her pencil made a screeching noise every 15 seconds really threw me on the 2nd section. I ended up getting frustrated and just guessing on the last 15 because I couldn’t concentrate to actually read. I got used to my annoying neighbor after that, but it was too late.”

“My proctor messed up pretty bad twice though. I felt bad there were more than 250 people at my site and by the break about 50 cancelled… Section 2: She set the timer weird so it rang at five minutes until the end. She confused it thinking that it was the final time so she told everyone to put their pencils down, but really we had 5 minutes. She apologized but still, it just took a lot of people out of the zone, me included… Section 3: She completely forget to announce the 5minute clock. Luckily I kept my own time but a lot of people were depending on her warning before filling in their answers. SO a good portion of people got zero on the section 3 because they didn’t fill anything in. Bummer… for them.”

Anyways, As far as the actual test went, my experience was pretty good. I was sharp, did the best of my abilities on all the reading and logical reasoning sections. The only section where I might accept a do over would be the logical games (analytical reasoning). I know how to do them, but I feel I got a bit tripped up on that section. However once I got home I read people’s reactions and it made me feel better. Seems like lots of people had a hard time on that section. I’m just sad that one of my best sections won’t count (experimental) while my worst section (logical games) will. Dang it. Oh well, that’s life. I guess that’s the only reason I’m a little nervous… I think I’ll do great for me (160s) unless that pesky logical games section were to do me in (150s)… ugh!! I just want to know!!! But I have to wait THREE weeks to find out. Kill me now. When I find out I’ll have a decision to make- accept the score and apply with it, or brush up on those logic games and take it again in October. I’ll keep you posted.

For now, it’s over. On one hand I’m relieved, on the other hand I’ll be anxious for 3 weeks.