In March, and with little fanfare, the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC) announced that major changes are coming to the long ignored LSAT Writing Sample. While this update to the exam may seem insignificant compared to the retirement of Logic Games as part of the 2024-2025 LSAT testing year that starts in August, this new writing sample format could lead to a scored writing section as soon as the 2025-2026 LSAT testing year!
Rejoice! The LSAC official Lawhub online practice resource has released composite preptests utilizing the new test format that will be live as of the August 2024 administration after Logic Games are retired following the June 2024 LSAT administration. Test takers logging into the free (or paid) interface are now greeted with the following options:
As a result of a lawsuit filed against the LSAT in 2019, the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC) agreed to retire the Logic Games section of the exam within five years. Taking full advantage of that timeframe, last October, LSAC announced that the section would be removed from the exam following the June 2024 administration of the test. Now, law school applicants targeting round 1 applications in 2024 are confronted with a unique option - take the exam with Logic Games or without.
In the wake of COVID-19 standardized testing cancellations worldwide, this week the LSAC announced that the in-person April LSAT has indeed been cancelled. This second consecutive LSAT cancellation has prompted the creation of an alternative LSAT-Flex exam that will be available only to LSAT candidates who had previously registered for either of the now-cancelled March or April exams. All April registrants will be automatically registered for the LSAT-Flex, unless they proactively choose a different LSAT date by April 15. Currently, the next three in-person LSAT exam administrations are scheduled for June 8, July 13, and August 29.
While the LSAT Logical Reasoning section may seem to have an infinite number of potential scenarios and prompts, the vast majority of the problems found in the section follow basic rules governing argumentation that date back to the time of the Roman Empire. The key to succeeding on this section is following some consistent basic steps that will allow you to understand first what the question is asking you to do, second what the conclusion of the argument is, and lastly to predict what the answer should do to appropriately address the question task. This skill is the subject of today’s video tutorial with our Director of Online Tutoring – Stefan Maisnier.
The Law School Admissions Council (LSAC) is a monolithic and conservative entity befitting a gatekeeper of legal academia. However, it’s beginning to be forced to change with the times in the face of some significant challenges. The number of LSATs administered annually has declined by more than a third this decade from 170,000+ at the end of the 2009-10 testing year to fewer than 110,000 during the 2016-17 testing year. Then came the news that, beginning with applications submitted in the fall of 2017, Harvard Law will accept the GRE as an acceptable alternative to the LSAT for incoming applicants.