NewsVine_Mariyam
Platinum Member
What it means is that the people taking the LSAT already have an undergraduate degree. Having a bachelor's is a 'prerequisite' to getting accepted into law school.
And what you need to score in order to get into each law school is posted on the internet so there is no guessing here.
There is something though that you all probably don't know if you've never looked at the test. It's a friggin hard exam and not the kind of knowledge one acquires anywhere through the normal course of life. Preparing for the LSAT is like having to learn algebra first, so that you can become proficient at trigonometry or at least understand calculus although it has nothing to do with math. LSAT training teaches you how to think logically & scientifically about "arguments" - how they're structured, what they're composed of (premise, principle, main point, subsidiary conclusion, [main] conclusion), how to dissect them explain them and then put the argument back together in order to answer questions about what the author of the passage is trying to convey and what part each of the different sections play in the author's endeavor. It also consists of a bunch of logic games that made my head throb when I first encountered them but the reason I say that learning what you need to know is sort of like having to learn algebra so you can excel at trigonometry is because the questions provide you with premises and ask you to figure out the conclusion or they will give you one or more premises along with the conclusion and ask you to determine what the missing premise should be. It's like algebra in the sense where you're solving for an unknown but it's also like math word problems.
It's not a natural way of thinking but it's how you have to be able to think in order to be an attorney and develop the ability to construct valid arguments as well as eviscerate for the trier of fact (the judge or jury) opposing council's invalid arguments. They refer to it as developing critical thinking skills but in actuality it goes well beyond basic critical thinking skills. It's a "scientific" way of proffering indisputable facts in argument format such as 'if something MUST BE TRUE then it CANNOT BE FALSE', which I get but not the other six, at least not easily.
In any case, something that you all probably don't know is that the highest scoring LSAT students took the exam more than once. I believe you can take it up to three times in a single year. Some of the law schools as well as these high scorers (170+) advise students to take it more than once with the goal of improving your score so that you increase your chances of being accepted at your school of choice.
And IM2 was right about the cost of training being kind of pricey. Not everyone can drop $1800 to be spoon fed what they need to know in order to do well on the exam (there is no passing score). The challenge however is that there is such a massive amount of information that is needed to be learned and synthesized that you ideally would need at least a full semester or quarter of class time in order to fully understand it all. And it's not something that can be crammed.
One of the instructors at one of the companies whose videos I was watching said to give yourself ideally, 6 to 9 months to prepare for the exam. Of course not everyone needs that much time but this particular young lady quit her job so that she could spend ALL of her time studying and preparing for the exam. I understand that urge but how many people do you know who can afford to quit their job just so that they can study for the LSAT?
I don't know why you don't understand that every time any of you make the claim that Black people are this, that and the other without any consideration of why there is this discrepancy, you reveal your supremacist thinking & beliefs BECAUSE in the view of supremacists, any differences in outcomes can only be due to one thing and one thing only - the alleged inferiority of Black people, which by believing this, is the very thing that makes you all supremacists.
So what does it say about you, that for whatever reason it never occurred to you that "Black" people taking the LSAT are already college graduates or are soon to be graduates? The LSAC may be publishing its numbers but what would tell you what you all REALLY want to know (or maybe not) is what the differences are in how each student prepared for the exam versus the final score, as well as how many times each of them took the exam. As far as the schools and the LSAC is concerned only your highest score matters since that's the one they submit to the law schools along with your application and other documentation.
And some students can afford to study, train, and take the test as many times as necessary in order to get the score they want. That's a method, one that can be learned and implemented by anyone who has the time and resources to keep going until they achieve their desired score.
