Get to Know the LSAT 2024

Jaci Gustafson Author

12/19/2024 Added

6 Plays

Description

A general presentation on the Law School Admission Test (LSAT). Topics covered will include an overview of the exam and its sections, how to best prepare for the exam during your undergraduate education, practice LSAT opportunities, and timing of the test with law school admissions cycles

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[00:00:05.410]Jaci Gustafson: Okay, so welcome everyone. My name is Jaci Gustafson, I work in the Explore Center, and we're going to be talking about the LSAT today, as you can probably tell. So, I'm hoping that's why you're here, that you've brought some questions. We're going to overview the exam. What's on it? How does it work?
[00:00:24.780]Jaci Gustafson: How should you schedule it? How to study for it?
[00:00:28.719]Jaci Gustafson: And I just have a bunch of resources for you.
[00:00:32.351]Jaci Gustafson: I do like to know who's here in the room, and what kind of stage you're at with your preparation for law school. So how many 1st year students do we have here?
[00:00:44.460]Jaci Gustafson: Okay? Great
[00:00:46.180]Jaci Gustafson: Second year? Okay.
[00:00:48.930]Jaci Gustafson: Third year?
[00:00:50.530]Jaci Gustafson: Great. Fourth year?
[00:00:52.770]Jaci Gustafson: Awesome. That's typical, 3rd year is really, when you start kind of getting serious about
[00:01:01.790]Jaci Gustafson: LSAT. You can get serious about it earlier. But your timeline tends to start after your 3rd year, where you're really doing some serious things like taking the LSAT,
[00:01:12.820]Jaci Gustafson: applying to law schools and all of that. We'll go over a little bit of that timeline. But I'm glad we have a mix and feel free to ask questions. You're not the only person with a question that you might have. So just stop me if you have any in the middle of everything. I'm going to try to stand right here.
[00:01:31.521]Jaci Gustafson: But I don't know how to use the remote to advance my slides. So I'm going to go back, and this is where the sound is the best for the recording.
[00:01:51.880]Jaci Gustafson: So these are our topics for today. What is the LSAT? We're going to go over cost, your timeline, scoring, how to register, format, lots of things that I already said. We're going to do a little bit of practice, too. So I will have you guys pull up some practice questions and just get your brains thinking about, "how do I answer an LSAT test question?"
[00:02:13.540]Jaci Gustafson: Some of you have probably looked some of those up online already. But I think it's a nice activity to just get exposed to what it's going to be like. So that'll be one thing that we do as well.
[00:02:27.840]Jaci Gustafson: okay.
[00:02:29.230]Jaci Gustafson: So starting from basics, the LSAT is a multiple choice exam,
[00:02:34.420]Jaci Gustafson: and it's supposed to measure the skills that you possess for success in law school.
[00:02:40.126]Jaci Gustafson: It is just one part of your application to law school. However, there are other things that go into that. And one of the things I'm going to say at the end is that I'd encourage you to meet with a one of our pre-law advisors to talk about everything else. So today, we're just going to focus on the LSAT.
[00:02:57.614]Jaci Gustafson: It can really help with your academic profile for law schools. They look at GPA and LSAT score, and they tend to really emphasize the LSAT score. So it is an important academic metric for anyone applying to law school.
[00:03:11.220]Jaci Gustafson: How we kind of look at scores is up on the board here. Each school
[00:03:17.492]Jaci Gustafson: has this information available online of the different score ranges that they typically accept. So, for example, this is Creighton University's entering class 2023.
[00:03:28.889]Jaci Gustafson: So, their 50th percentile, a 152 that means that half the students they admitted scored higher than that and half scored lower than that.
[00:03:38.220]Jaci Gustafson: And then 75th percentile, 25% scored higher than that score, and then everyone else scored lower.
[00:03:45.371]Jaci Gustafson: And then vice versa for the 25th. And you can find those for any school on that website there.
[00:03:50.840]Jaci Gustafson: and we'll talk a little bit about strategy. But your goal for a score will really want to come from what schools you're considering and where their profile ends up, because these will vary widely. That's actually kind of on the low end of LSAT score averages, in my opinion. It's not the lowest, but
[00:04:10.400]Jaci Gustafson: You'll see schools where their 50th percentile is closer to the 160 mark, and that that's a pretty high score. The exam scores from 120 to 180, we'll go over that a little bit, too. But you want to aim for any of your schools LSAT score above the 50th percentile. That's your best chance of being looked at favorably, academically, at that school.
[00:04:34.230]Jaci Gustafson: Any questions about how that
[00:04:36.660]Jaci Gustafson: works and why?
[00:04:39.630]Jaci Gustafson: Great.
[00:04:44.970]Jaci Gustafson: So, a few kind of notes about this meeting. I'm guessing some of you took a standardized exam, maybe for entrance to colleges. That's not always the case, because we've gone test optional here. But this is a standardized test. In some ways similar to perhaps an ACT or an SAT only just a lot more difficult.
[00:05:10.440]Jaci Gustafson: This exam assesses your ability to read and analyze texts,
[00:05:16.530]Jaci Gustafson: to draw conclusions from pieces of information and to measure what they think are the skills that will make you successful in law school.
[00:05:25.370]Jaci Gustafson: It's not a content based exam. So there's no actual facts you need to know. It's an exam that tests how you think, not what you know. So the key for prepping for the LSAT is really about practicing thinking how the test wants you to think.
[00:05:41.380]Jaci Gustafson: And that's what most of your prep materials are going to do is teach you strategies to think how the test thinks.
[00:05:49.433]Jaci Gustafson: Some people will ask, "do I need to take the LSAT?" Yes, at this point in time everyone's pretty much requiring it. There are some schools that waive the LSAT. That would be a very individualized situation. But UNL Law does have a LSAT waiver situation.
[00:06:06.140]Jaci Gustafson: It's on their website and it you have to meet certain metrics. They're all listed up here. You really want to speak with the UNL Law school to see if you qualify. However, if you're planning on applying to more than just UNL law school, you're gonna want to take the LSAT because
[00:06:22.620]Jaci Gustafson: even though one school waives it.
[00:06:24.690]Jaci Gustafson: If you want to be considered at other schools, they're going to require it
[00:06:28.010]Jaci Gustafson: Any questions about kind of that general information? Do I need to take it?
[00:06:33.250]Jaci Gustafson: etc?
[00:06:39.800]Jaci Gustafson: So here's the cost for your exam, $238 for one attempt. There's these extra things you can pay for. So score preview is something where you can see your score before it's officially reported, and then you can decide whether you want it reported or not. You have to pay extra for that service. And then you will spend some money on LSAT preparation materials.
[00:07:05.950]Jaci Gustafson: You can be really budget friendly, or you can go for broke and buy LSAT prep courses that cost up to $4,000. So there are a range of things that you can do to prepare. But there are some costs to this test. There's also then further costs to apply to law school. So if you're if you're earlier on and or you have
[00:07:29.684]Jaci Gustafson: a lot of hours to work at a job. Start saving some money and put that towards your law school application budget.
[00:07:37.892]Jaci Gustafson: Because you will need that at some point.
[00:07:39.670]Jaci Gustafson: When you apply.
[00:07:41.340]Jaci Gustafson: There is a fee waiver program, and I will send you all the slides because everyone checked in.
[00:07:50.080]Jaci Gustafson: You're like, "I'm furiously taking notes." Yeah, I'll send you all the slides afterwards, because I'll have all your names and email addresses. So, you can click on the fee waiver process. You do need to apply for that about 6 months before
[00:08:06.610]Jaci Gustafson: you want to register for an LSAT, and there's a registration deadline
[00:08:10.900]Jaci Gustafson: chart as well. The fee waiver program is really awesome because it can give you both discounts on the exam, and prep materials, and it can give you discounts on the application process. So all those things I said you needed to save your money, for you could possibly get some of it paid for. So it's worth looking into for everyone, just to see if you might qualify.
[00:08:33.200]Jaci Gustafson: Timeline wise: We usually recommend that students prepare for about 4 months. At about probably 10 to 15 hours a week. You really do need to commit some time to this. So, I know you know, you law students can be very
[00:08:48.570]Jaci Gustafson: busy, and you're doing a lot of awesome things. But in those months before you're taking the exam, we recommend that you kind of
[00:08:58.060]Jaci Gustafson: clear your schedule so that you can really focus on preparing and studying and practicing.
[00:09:03.694]Jaci Gustafson: The exam is offered all throughout the year
[00:09:08.820]Jaci Gustafson: for the application cycle. We recommend that students take the exam sometime between June and August
[00:09:16.310]Jaci Gustafson: of the year before they plan to start law school. So that's normally the summer before Senior year.
[00:09:23.660]Jaci Gustafson: or maybe before your 5th year.
[00:09:27.020]Jaci Gustafson: And so in that case, if you're taking it in the summer, then you'd be wanting to start studying sometime in the spring.
[00:09:34.160]Jaci Gustafson: And it can also be helpful to manage your course load that spring as well. And just think about, "am I taking all the hardest classes in my major, this semester?" Maybe you could ask your advisor if there's a way to switch that up a little bit and give your brain some room to study for the LSAT.
[00:09:50.020]Jaci Gustafson: Any questions about timeline. I usually do get some questions here.
[00:09:55.620]Jaci Gustafson: Pretty clear?
[00:09:58.000]Jaci Gustafson: [Student speaking] So the question is, "Can law schools see all your attempts?" Yes, they can. They will.
[00:10:07.010]Jaci Gustafson: That's why they give that score preview option, if you want to pay for it, you can
[00:10:13.500]Jaci Gustafson: decline for it to be
[00:10:16.010]Jaci Gustafson: submitted. Yeah, yes. [Student Speaking] They'll see that you canceled your score.
[00:10:26.420]Jaci Gustafson: Does that affect you negatively? If you do it a lot, it will affect you negatively, but probably not once. They wouldn't offer this option if it affected you. If you just did it once. You really only want to do that once, if you can help it.
[00:10:38.950]Jaci Gustafson: [Student speaking] For the score preview?
[00:10:45.440]Jaci Gustafson: Probably every time, I didn't look at that, but I'm guessing they would charge you every time.
[00:10:50.295]Jaci Gustafson: Here's the one thing about entrance exams for grad school for any grad school for any further education you're doing. You really don't want to take these tests more than once, if you can help it, because they all get reported, so don't take it for practice. Don't take it when you're not prepared, because you will present yourself
[00:11:08.650]Jaci Gustafson: in a poor light. If you have a 130 something, and it was just because you thought you'd take it for fun. That's not going to look good on your application. So, you really want to take this exam when you've done the work. When you know you're prepared, you've done a lot of practice exams, and your practice exams are going. Well, that can tell you, "I'm ready to go. I'm ready to have an official score that will be recorded for my last place."
[00:11:32.393]Jaci Gustafson: I had a few hands. Yeah. [Student Speaking]
[00:11:52.360]Jaci Gustafson: [Student Speaking] Yes, yes. So, I'm going to repeat that for the recording because I think it's a good example. So, example for a timeline for someone who is in their junior year right now would be
[00:12:10.920]Jaci Gustafson: taking the LSAT next summer.
[00:12:13.430]Jaci Gustafson: Working, so
[00:12:15.200]Jaci Gustafson: Studying on in the spring, taking the LSAT next summer in 2025,
[00:12:19.825]Jaci Gustafson: applying to law school in that
[00:12:22.190]Jaci Gustafson: summer/fall of 2025, then that whole year you're finding out if you get in or not, and then you'd be going to law school in fall 26.
[00:12:32.060]Jaci Gustafson: [Student Speaking] It's about 3 weeks. for your scores to come back.
[00:12:40.680]Jaci Gustafson: I think if you do the score preview, you get it a lot sooner and you can make a decision. I'm not sure how soon. But
[00:12:48.560]Jaci Gustafson: [Student Speaking] No, but good question.
[00:12:53.480]Jaci Gustafson: I wonder if that's my next slide.
[00:12:59.160]Jaci Gustafson: It's not. But we'll get to it, I promise. Where do I take this thing? Yeah, okay, good.
[00:13:04.780]Jaci Gustafson: So I'm gonna move on to scoring and then sections. So
[00:13:09.120]Jaci Gustafson: your score range is 120 to 180 and so we already talked about what scores to shoot for, it depends on where you're going to apply.
[00:13:16.880]Jaci Gustafson: And here's your sections. There's 1: Reading Comprehension. Section 2: Logical reasoning sections. Those 3 sections are scored. Those
[00:13:26.940]Jaci Gustafson: comprise your score.
[00:13:28.680]Jaci Gustafson: You have to complete a 4th section which is unscored, but you will not know. Out of the 4 sections you take, which one was unscored. So 3 of the 4 you take will be unscored, and that one experimental, unscored section can either be reading comprehension or logical reasoning. And again, we'll go over what these
[00:13:46.720]Jaci Gustafson: are. So that's your sit down. Multiple choice exam is those 4 sections. It takes about 2 and a half hours to complete that.
[00:13:56.579]Jaci Gustafson: Then you're and then you're done with that part of it. But there's also a part to the exam that's called argumentative writing.
[00:14:03.560]Jaci Gustafson: And that is also a required part of the exam where you have to write an essay, basically
[00:14:11.917]Jaci Gustafson: with a prompt that you just received right that day. It's not going to happen on your test day. You can do argumentative writing up to I think it's 8 days before the exam. But you have to complete it before they will score your whole exam. So, you need to do it as soon around your exam time as you can, but that's 1 you can do on your own at home.
[00:14:34.120]Jaci Gustafson: It's a remote kind of situation, too. [Student Speaking] Oh, no.
[00:14:40.900]Jaci Gustafson: It's all pretty locked down
[00:14:44.740]Jaci Gustafson: and your resources wouldn't help at all, because it's not about knowledge. It's not about knowledge of the topics that are asked in the argumentative. It's about how you make an argument in your essay using the facts they're given to you in case. We'll look at some examples, great question. Yes, [Student Speaking] it's about 2 and a half hours for just those 4 multiple choice sections.
[00:15:06.480]Jaci Gustafson: Yeah. So timing is something that you'll want to work on in your preparation.
[00:15:11.490]Jaci Gustafson: Taking as many full length
[00:15:14.920]Jaci Gustafson: practice exams as you can, can really help you know "How much time can I spend on each question?"
[00:15:19.710]Jaci Gustafson: So
[00:15:21.170]Jaci Gustafson: that's a great LSAT preparation method.
[00:15:23.750]Jaci Gustafson: Score Reports
[00:15:25.420]Jaci Gustafson: These are things that get sent to the law schools you apply to. They'll receive all any scores you've taken up to that point in time. And they'll see any absences or cancellations.
[00:15:40.630]Jaci Gustafson: And they'll receive it 24 to 48 h after your score is released. So, it takes 3 weeks for the score, and then the schools will get it, right about 2 days after that.
[00:15:50.052]Jaci Gustafson: I've talked a lot about score preview already. I think you guys
[00:15:53.490]Jaci Gustafson: know how that works.
[00:15:55.850]Jaci Gustafson: You do have a lifetime test limit, so you can only take the LSAT a lifetime limit of 7 times in your life.
[00:16:03.030]Jaci Gustafson: And so I've never advised anyone who's gotten even close to that. The most that I've had someone take is
[00:16:10.620]Jaci Gustafson: 3 times. But
[00:16:13.050]Jaci Gustafson: I'm not going to say it doesn't happen. But
[00:16:15.597]Jaci Gustafson: we'll talk about repeats and like why and how and when to repeat here at some point. It might be next, or in a few slides.
[00:16:23.520]Jaci Gustafson: Any other questions on score in the sections? We'll break down the sections, too here. Did you have another question? [Student Speaking] Okay!
[00:16:34.570]Jaci Gustafson: Alright. So what is a good score?
[00:16:38.455]Jaci Gustafson: So
[00:16:39.410]Jaci Gustafson: It depends and we already talked about this related to your law schools. We listed out just some examples of different school and what their medians are, these are their 50 percentiles.
[00:16:50.886]Jaci Gustafson: Some of your a lot harder to get into schools. The last 3 that are listed on this slide will have scores that are getting real close to that 180 score.
[00:17:02.200]Jaci Gustafson: So, if you're going for a school like that, or any multiple schools like that.
[00:17:08.010]Jaci Gustafson: That's going to probably more be your goal than in the 150's, 160's, which is good for most other schools.
[00:17:16.450]Jaci Gustafson: Should I retake the LSAT? So, this is a complicated question. And this is a question that's really well suited to bringing 1-1 to an academic advisor in the Explore Center. So, we can talk about it because it's kind of like
[00:17:30.450]Jaci Gustafson: What happened? Do you know that you can improve on the exam before you take it another time. What would you do to improve? Do you have time to make the efforts you need to improve your score.
[00:17:44.059]Jaci Gustafson: You know. How much money do you want to spend on this? What schools are you considering? There's a lot of factors to consider. It's not a terrible thing to take it twice. That is
[00:17:54.510]Jaci Gustafson: pretty common in my experience.
[00:17:57.430]Jaci Gustafson: Again, it's expensive, so don't try to throw your money away, but
[00:18:02.930]Jaci Gustafson: It is normal. Schools will see both scores, and some schools will look at the highest score. Some schools will look at the most recent score. Some schools will average the scores, and so you won't know what they're going to do with a repeat unless you ask them and so it can also depend on what schools you're targeting, too. So
[00:18:26.702]Jaci Gustafson: there's not a like purifier. Yes, you should retake or no, you shouldn't retake because it depends on a lot of factors and kind of more easier to have a conversation about that.
[00:18:38.280]Jaci Gustafson: Any questions about repeating?
[00:18:47.690]Jaci Gustafson: Okay, how to register.
[00:18:49.940]Jaci Gustafson: Some of you may have already created an LSAC.org account.
[00:18:54.328]Jaci Gustafson: LSAC is the like governing body of the LSAT and your centralized application for law school. So it's a great organization and website to get familiar with. I'm going to share a lot of links from their website. But you can create a free account and
[00:19:11.520]Jaci Gustafson: just cruise around in the resources and materials they have in your account. And then that's also how you would use that same login to sign up for an LSAT and everything like that.
[00:19:24.030]Jaci Gustafson: Test dates are available year round. They're usually... right now they're scheduling them on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, so you can just kind of pick a day that works for you, and they're pretty much every month. There's a group of Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday that you can register, for. So, it's nice and flexible to take when you know you're going to be at your best.
[00:19:44.990]Jaci Gustafson: Do you pay attention to deadlines for registering? You can't just register like right before most of the time.
[00:19:52.800]Jaci Gustafson: And if you are going to apply for testing accommodations, which I think is my next slide, or B waiver you are going to want to start those processes
[00:20:04.220]Jaci Gustafson: as well. And give yourself more time before your actual exam. So you can get those as well.
[00:20:11.077]Jaci Gustafson: You'll receive an email about 3 weeks prior to the Administration.
[00:20:16.590]Jaci Gustafson: Let's see.
[00:20:24.680]Jaci Gustafson: I don't know what that sentence means. I think that from previous presentation, and I don't know what that means. Don't worry about that 3-week thing. Okay. So, this goes back to your question about where do I take this?
[00:20:37.806]Jaci Gustafson: They offer it 2 ways. You can take the LSAT. So this is the the 4 sections that are the multiple choice exam, you can take that live remotely proctored at home. So that's an option. Or you know, somewhere, it doesn't have to be your home, but it has to be somewhere. That meets the testing specifications, which basically means
[00:20:59.300]Jaci Gustafson: you're in a room with no windows, basically.
[00:21:03.140]Jaci Gustafson: So that's an option. And then the other option is prometric test centers. So in Lincoln there is a prometric test center.
[00:21:11.800]Jaci Gustafson: I don't remember where it is, but there's 1 in Lincoln. There are ones in lots of cities.
[00:21:17.168]Jaci Gustafson: And you can choose to take it anywhere you feel like it. So those are your 2 options. So that second option is you going into a testing center, using their technology, their computer to take the exam.
[00:21:27.535]Jaci Gustafson: and we advise you guys to to choose what works best for you.
[00:21:33.013]Jaci Gustafson: Recent update, they did just send out a notification that the new Mac operating system isn't working with the LSAT right now.
[00:21:42.560]Jaci Gustafson: So if you're taking this exam in the next month.
[00:21:46.670]Jaci Gustafson: You want to make sure you're
[00:21:49.160]Jaci Gustafson: viewing those warnings on the LSAT/LSAC website about that. But they should get those bugs worked out into the future. I don't see why that would be a problem after the new update gets kind of more into everybody's computers.
[00:22:06.100]Jaci Gustafson: There is a way to practice with the interface, and it'll be the same interface that you use either at the Prometric Testing Center or at home. It's in LawHub and LawHub is something I'm going to talk a lot about when we get to preparation. But there's ways to practice with that that's really helpful, because then you're you know where all where to click and how to highlight and all those things. It's really helpful to do a little bit of practice with the system as well.
[00:22:30.780]Jaci Gustafson: Any questions about these like how to register.
[00:22:34.240]Jaci Gustafson: Where are you taking it?
[00:22:43.130]Jaci Gustafson: So you can request testing accommodation. So if you already receive educational accommodations, or you have in the past, and you think you might need to, there is a whole website about applying for accommodations.
[00:22:58.003]Jaci Gustafson: They want you to request and apply for accommodations after you're registered for the LSAT.
[00:23:03.679]Jaci Gustafson: But 2 months before the registration deadline, which I think is about a month before the test date. So you're really wanting to start this kind of 3 to 4 months ahead of the date that you want to take the exam. There's a lot of documentation that you have to submit, and there are also deadlines for that. But, you can go to this website and take a look and see if you might want to think about applying
[00:23:29.375]Jaci Gustafson: So,
[00:23:30.190]Jaci Gustafson: cruise that information. If you are interested in the option.
[00:23:39.360]Jaci Gustafson: Alright. So now we're going to get into the components.
[00:23:43.920]Jaci Gustafson: A little bit more about each each section. So the reading comprehension section
[00:23:48.330]Jaci Gustafson: is 35 minutes
[00:23:50.360]Jaci Gustafson: and you have
[00:23:53.670]Jaci Gustafson: 3 single passage questions and one passage pair question. So
[00:23:59.950]Jaci Gustafson: they're actually sets of questions. So the single passage is like a big, long reading. And then there's 4 questions about that reading something like that.
[00:24:07.890]Jaci Gustafson: and then then you'll have another one of those and another one of those, and then you'll have a 2 passage pair where it's 2 people have written something, and then you have questions about the passage pair and how they relate to each other.
[00:24:19.320]Jaci Gustafson: So that's your reading, comprehension section.
[00:24:22.000]Jaci Gustafson: And then, logical reasoning, there are 2, these 2 of these sections, and it's a 35 min sec. Section, and we'll go over the what those questions are like.
[00:24:31.020]Jaci Gustafson: And then the unscored variable section is also 35 min.
[00:24:34.870]Jaci Gustafson: and it can be one of either of the 2 that you've already done
[00:24:38.540]Jaci Gustafson: argumentative writing, asynchronous.
[00:24:40.920]Jaci Gustafson: So we're going to kind of jump into reading comprehension first
[00:24:46.010]Jaci Gustafson: Oh, there are breaks. This is just to show you that there are breaks.
[00:24:52.190]Jaci Gustafson: Yeah, it's about.... so it's about 3 hours if you add in the like check in time, and the breaks and everything
[00:25:03.320]Jaci Gustafson: and the multiple choice sections can appear in any order. So I've put these on here just in whatever order. I felt like it, but they can be mixed up. And you can get logical reasoning. 1st
[00:25:12.960]Jaci Gustafson: .
[00:25:15.390]Jaci Gustafson: Okay.
[00:25:17.170]Jaci Gustafson: Reading comprehension. This one might actually feel the most similar to other multiple choice exams you've taken, where you're you're reading a passage and answering questions about it.
[00:25:31.220]Jaci Gustafson: This is the reason they have you do this. Law school is all reading, really dense, really hard to read text.
[00:25:40.140]Jaci Gustafson: And then pulling out the relevant information from it, also understanding what the writer is trying to communicate
[00:25:47.470]Jaci Gustafson: and what they're not trying to communicate.
[00:25:50.700]Jaci Gustafson: So
[00:25:52.050]Jaci Gustafson: we'll do an example of this. The topics of these essays that you're going to read
[00:25:58.880]Jaci Gustafson: are
[00:25:59.980]Jaci Gustafson: any and everything it could be about choreography. It could be about marine biology. It could be about just about anything.
[00:26:09.360]Jaci Gustafson: You don't have to have any knowledge of those subjects in order to answer the questions. It's not about you knowing anything about the subject. It's about you, understanding what the writer is communicating
[00:26:23.070]Jaci Gustafson: and making inferences based on the text.
[00:26:31.550]Jaci Gustafson: So the questions will probably ask you something along the lines of what's the main idea that this person is getting across? It might ask you about information that's in the passage. It might ask you about information that can be inferred from the passage. You might have to know the meaning and purpose of words and phrases. Those aren't going to be technical words like for marine biology. For example, you're not going to need to know anything about
[00:26:57.876]Jaci Gustafson: sea creatures, but it's going to be, do you understand the language that they're using
[00:27:04.199]Jaci Gustafson: Organization and structure. Can you apply the information that you read in the passage to a different context? That might be one of the questions they ask, which is similar to analogies. And then can you interpret the tone of the author and answer questions about that?
[00:27:22.690]Jaci Gustafson: So really this, I mean the whole LSAT comes down to practice practicing with these types of questions and situations. To be able to
[00:27:31.980]Jaci Gustafson: adequately answer
[00:27:33.830]Jaci Gustafson: questions like this.
[00:27:35.040]Jaci Gustafson: We're going to just kind of take a look at an example. If you have your phones, there's QR. Code. I hope it works. When I go to these workshops and they put things up here. There's always a glare, and I can't get my phone to work. So
[00:27:49.070]Jaci Gustafson: Is it working?
[00:27:50.980]Jaci Gustafson: Yes, okay.
[00:27:53.150]Jaci Gustafson: These walls aren't as shiny
[00:27:56.110]Jaci Gustafson: So go ahead and just look at the the 1st question on there. I think there's probably 4 example questions.
[00:28:02.990]Jaci Gustafson: Just to give yourself an an idea of what these are like.
[00:28:06.040]Jaci Gustafson: I'll give you about a minute to do that.
[00:28:08.620]Jaci Gustafson: Try to get the right answer, too, if you can challenge yourself.
[00:28:31.270]Jaci Gustafson: Okay? So hopefully, you guys have at least a chance to kind of
[00:28:35.370]Jaci Gustafson: feel what this feels like. So
[00:28:37.783]Jaci Gustafson: this question wants to is kind of going off of that tone or attitude. What tone or attitude is this author
[00:28:46.130]Jaci Gustafson: exuding about the topic they're talking about. So that's 1 of those types of questions you will probably get.
[00:28:54.660]Jaci Gustafson: There are definitely some strategies to
[00:28:58.630]Jaci Gustafson: reading
[00:29:00.520]Jaci Gustafson: the hard part about the LSAT is you have to keep going. You have to keep answering questions, and you have to get. You have to have a strategy for getting the information. Really, by only reading the passage once, you might only have time to read it once, and then maybe go back to it for the question. So
[00:29:17.969]Jaci Gustafson: that's where your practice will really help in getting exposed to as many of these questions as possible. I think there's 3 or 4 others on this page that you can kind of look at on your own time. I wanted you guys to just have a little bit of example, what I'm talking about when I'm saying reading comprehension. So you'll have 4 of these types of situations and each
[00:29:37.310]Jaci Gustafson: reading comprehension passage will have about 4-5 questions related to it.
[00:29:54.870]Jaci Gustafson: Okay.
[00:29:56.740]Jaci Gustafson: .
[00:30:01.670]Jaci Gustafson: All right. Logical reasoning.
[00:30:05.179]Jaci Gustafson: So these
[00:30:06.310]Jaci Gustafson: types of these will be they're kind of just shorter passages than what you saw. And they're going to want you to. If this is kind of an if this, then that you're logically
[00:30:18.580]Jaci Gustafson: drawing conclusions from what they present to you.
[00:30:23.840]Jaci Gustafson: There are short arguments. Sometimes it's an argument between 2 people, and you have to decide like, what's this person arguing for? And what's this person arguing for? How are they different? How are they similar?
[00:30:34.700]Jaci Gustafson: And
[00:30:35.660]Jaci Gustafson: that's a really
[00:30:38.520]Jaci Gustafson: huge skill to have as an attorney.
[00:30:41.770]Jaci Gustafson: Again, you don't have to have any special knowledge, so you don't need to know anything about what the people are talking about. But you do need to understand what they're trying to
[00:30:50.580]Jaci Gustafson: say and be able to draw some conclusions from what they're saying.
[00:30:58.940]Jaci Gustafson: This one will be quicker because it does. It's not as much reading. We'll look at an example here, too.
[00:31:14.090]Jaci Gustafson: Okay, so that one, you guys got a little taste of that. But
[00:31:19.030]Jaci Gustafson: those can be tricky. What's really nice about that particular website is it goes through and tells you why each wrong answer is wrong, and then why each right answer is right. That's going to be the mark of your best preparation resources as you're doing practice questions. You want some resource there to tell you why certain questions were wrong, and why certain answers are were right. Because
[00:31:46.110]Jaci Gustafson: that helps, you understand. Oh, I need to pay attention to this versus this and the
[00:31:53.320]Jaci Gustafson: questions will start to make more sense, and you'll start to get better at doing logical reasoning
[00:31:58.660]Jaci Gustafson: So there's 2 sections of this on the exam. And then the 3rd unscored section can be either one. So you could get 3 of these. You could get 2 of the other list of things
[00:32:11.760]Jaci Gustafson: So argumentative writing. This one's just really hard to explain, because it's part of the exam. But it's not how we traditionally think of an exam. It's basically your 5th section of the exam. But it's a writing exercise you can do anytime. If that makes sense. It's a 50 min exercise.
[00:32:30.680]Jaci Gustafson: and they give you 15 min for a pre-writing, which you get to see the prompt, and you get to see how they want you to consider the prompt and what they want you to write about, so you can generate ideas and outline what you're going to say. And then you have to write the response. In 35 min.
[00:32:49.817]Jaci Gustafson: This is not scored. This is not scored, but your test is not complete until you've completed this, and then this writing sample gets sent to your law schools that you apply to and
[00:33:02.729]Jaci Gustafson: law schools. They look at it differently than each other. So some will really
[00:33:09.290]Jaci Gustafson: hone in on this and make this a really important part of your application. Others will, you know, not use it quite as much in the admissions. Decision. But you do have to complete it. And you want to do your best that you can. There are definitely ways to practice this and resources online to
[00:33:29.250]Jaci Gustafson: work on this.
[00:33:31.621]Jaci Gustafson: Overall. It's a it's a debatable issue with different perspectives. And you have to take a side or
[00:33:40.260]Jaci Gustafson: state your own side, even if it doesn't agree with one or the other, and kind of
[00:33:46.160]Jaci Gustafson: logically support your position. So
[00:33:49.654]Jaci Gustafson: the practice will really help on this. There's examples, and
[00:33:53.240]Jaci Gustafson: think I have that one linked here. I don't think we'll take the time to
[00:33:57.390]Jaci Gustafson: look at it together.
[00:34:01.670]Jaci Gustafson: So one of the reasons why this is part of the exam, is that
[00:34:07.600]Jaci Gustafson: faculty really care about students, ability to organize and present evidence, and in written form. That's what you're going to be doing a lot in law school. And that's not something you're doing on the multiple choice answers, questions and answers. That's something you can get better at as far as concerned, and get better at answering the right answers.
[00:34:31.530]Jaci Gustafson: But the argumentative writing gives them an actual sample of how you would express your position on something which can help them know. Are you going to be able to hit the possible curriculum. Are you going to be.
[00:34:42.989]Jaci Gustafson: successful in their program?
[00:34:46.130]Jaci Gustafson: So
[00:34:47.100]Jaci Gustafson: That's why you're doing it. They really want to see that right?
[00:34:56.389]Jaci Gustafson: There's tips and strategies on the LSAC website as well that I linked here because I think that's most the most helpful thing on the argumentative writing part
[00:35:05.710]Jaci Gustafson: and an example question. But it's really long to read.
[00:35:09.683]Jaci Gustafson: And I'm not gonna use the time to do that.
[00:35:14.670]Jaci Gustafson: Okay, that's our last like section section. Next, I'm going to move into preparation, and how to what to utilize for that. Do you all have questions about the sections.
[00:35:25.690]Jaci Gustafson: :
[00:35:31.640]Jaci Gustafson: Okay, you can ask them later, too.
[00:35:36.430]Jaci Gustafson: So study resources. There is a lot out there. These are just the ones that we've heard from students that they really like.
[00:35:43.530]Jaci Gustafson: So, want to share that with you guys as well. Each of these particular companies or websites have different products. You can purchase from just some review books that you can buy for maybe a couple of $100 to
[00:36:01.670]Jaci Gustafson: full courses that you can enroll in and get tips and tricks and
[00:36:08.250]Jaci Gustafson: feedback and everything.
[00:36:10.330]Jaci Gustafson: So we just kind of present these. These are not the only things that are out there for LSAT study. You can ask around other people who have taken the LSAT to see if they put up found any new resources. There's probably always new resources being provided. I am gonna jump into the law hub to show you what that looks like, because there's a lot of free stuff on there that's actually provided by the LSAC. And I think it's
[00:36:35.360]Jaci Gustafson: necessary for everyone to at least.
[00:36:38.810]Jaci Gustafson: :
[00:37:10.100]Jaci Gustafson: Okay, so
[00:37:16.250]Jaci Gustafson: you go over here onto the side on LSAT prep
[00:37:20.010]Jaci Gustafson: and
[00:37:21.630]Jaci Gustafson: and down.
[00:37:25.610]Jaci Gustafson: So anything that says official LSAT prep test is a full length of those 4 sections, and you should do all of these. They're free. They're there for you. And then there is an argumentative writing prep, which would be really helpful to do. There might be a couple more that you could purchase
[00:37:45.914]Jaci Gustafson: and then, if you create a LawHub account.
[00:37:50.720]Jaci Gustafson: You can also purchase more practice exams or resources from LSAC, and it'll just be loaded right in here. This uses the exact
[00:38:00.760]Jaci Gustafson: interface that you'll be using on the real LSAT. So that's also a good thing to practice with.
[00:38:07.490]Jaci Gustafson: So this is just like really essential to at least get the free things off of here
[00:38:12.190]Jaci Gustafson: You can redo these exams as many times as you want to. You will get a score you do have to do it in exam mode, I believe, to get the score.
[00:38:22.780]Jaci Gustafson: Yeah, self paced Mode, I think you is more of a I'm I'm kind of practicing and studying. But exam mode, we give you the actual experience of
[00:38:30.850]Jaci Gustafson: taking it in times conditions, and getting scored.
[00:38:35.300]Jaci Gustafson: But you can take these as many times as you want. I do like the Learning Library, where they have a lot of really great
[00:38:42.710]Jaci Gustafson: resources on applying, and everything that's great stuff, too. And then they have tutorials as well
[00:38:57.110]Jaci Gustafson: just about how to answer the questions, and a few tips and tricks. They're pretty short.
[00:39:02.960]Jaci Gustafson: This is a great thing to get started in and none of it
[00:39:09.270]Jaci Gustafson: is
[00:39:10.170]Jaci Gustafson: actually
[00:39:11.490]Jaci Gustafson: official and doesn't get reported on your law school application. But great preparation and practice
[00:39:18.150]Jaci Gustafson: along with many of the other resources. So I would suggest, everyone do this, and then figure out what additional resources you need to really get good at the different sections?
[00:39:29.270]Jaci Gustafson: These are some questions.
[00:39:35.520]Jaci Gustafson: Okay, there is an FAQ page, the LSAC has a lot of stuff about the LSAT on their their website. So
[00:39:43.693]Jaci Gustafson: all the information I got for this workshop is on there.
[00:39:47.910]Jaci Gustafson: All the things about registering, scheduling all that's on there as well. So I would encourage you to utilize the website to find information if you need it.
[00:39:57.750]Jaci Gustafson: And then
[00:39:59.160]Jaci Gustafson: I wanted to share about some LSAT related workshops we have coming up. We partnered with Princeton Review and TestMasters. Testmasters wasn't on the previous slide, but they also offer LSAT preparation, and they're great.
[00:40:12.770]Jaci Gustafson: We have one coming up next week. It's pretty much every week now, for you know the next few weeks, and then one in November.
[00:40:19.830]Jaci Gustafson: and so invite you to that. If you get Explore Center emails, you're getting this information and we'll remind you that it's coming up. You do need to register for all of these, to get the actual link to the activity or to be at the webinar. All of it's free, though. So you just need to register.
[00:40:45.400]Jaci Gustafson: We have some resources downstairs at the Explore Center. We do have
[00:40:49.920]Jaci Gustafson: a lot of copies of printed
[00:40:53.750]Jaci Gustafson: prep tests that we can't use anymore. And so if you'd like to, it's an exam. If you'd like to do one you can sure get one.
[00:41:02.470]Jaci Gustafson: These are the old formats. Because they just changed the format last month where there's a section in here you're not going to have. It's called analytical reasoning. So what you just get is practice on the 2 other types of sections. You could skip the analytical reasoning, but it would just be another way to practice some exam questions. We're happy to give these out for break. You stop by the front desk.
[00:41:27.360]Jaci Gustafson: Next week on Thursday, we're having gaining experiences as a law student, free law student workshop. That that'll be great for anybody, but especially our earlier on students who are like, what should I get involved in?
[00:41:41.020]Jaci Gustafson: What do I need on my resume to be competitive? That works, really helpful, a lot of practical
[00:41:47.070]Jaci Gustafson: activities you can get involved into and how to get started with that.
[00:41:52.010]Jaci Gustafson: Okay? Questions at this point? My only last thing is I would like to ask for you guys to give me an evaluation on the workshop today. It should take about 5 min. But let's take a little bit of time for the for any questions people have at this point. So I make sure I answer them all.
[00:42:19.460]Jaci Gustafson: [Student asking question]
[00:42:32.320]Jaci Gustafson: I think yes, there's a lot of practice exams you can download. I think one thing, and I just don't know if this is part of the upgrade.
[00:42:40.940]Jaci Gustafson: One thing you would want to make sure is in. There is some kind of a strategy.
[00:42:45.530]Jaci Gustafson: a strategy.
[00:42:46.810]Jaci Gustafson: Some kind of book that walks you through strategies to use with different question types.
[00:42:51.080]Jaci Gustafson: I don't know if that's part of it. You might check into that upgrade, and if its just practice exams
[00:42:58.010]Jaci Gustafson: you won't get that. The practice exams are great, but you might want to also [inaudible]
[00:43:04.020]Jaci Gustafson: Great question
[00:43:06.000]Jaci Gustafson: Any other questions before I move on?
[00:43:09.370]Jaci Gustafson: Okay, well, thanks, guys, for coming. I'm excited for you. Let us know what we can do to help our website has our scheduling for any advice you need 1-1 with an advisor. But have a good evening. Thanks.
[00:43:26.100]Jaci Gustafson: ;

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Get to Know the LSAT 2024

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