I took the LSAT last week. For those of you fortunate enough to be ignorant of what the Law School Admissions Test is, consider yourselves all the happier for it.
This test consists of twisted-logic passages to test your reasoning, obnoxiously boring reading selections to test your critical skills, and frustrating “logic” games intended to prove your analytical skills. What results, however, is generally a mess of guessing, stressing and crying.
In other words, it’s a palpable, paper metaphor for the field of law.
The LSAT, like most graduate school admissions tests-with fun names such as MCAT, GMAT, GRE, DAT and my personal favorite: NCLEX (pronounced en-clex)-basically determines whether you can go to the graduate school of your choice.
Think ACT, but more serious, more expensive and more illogical.
Score well on your test, and doors open to Harvard, Yale and Stanford. Dreams of becoming an M.D., J.D., M.B.A. or Ph.D. suddenly become a reality.
Score poorly and you may just be out of luck-flippin’ burgers with a bachelor’s degree is not unheard of.
Dressed sharply in my sweat pants, slippers and lucky Ken Griffey T-shirt, I arrived at the FAMB building Saturday morning armed with a root beer, a bag of Fritos, two mechanical pencils and a watch.
I felt confident and self-assured because I had a secret weapon up my academic sleeve: test prep.
Having worked for more than a year at Kaplan, Inc. (“World’s Leader in Test Preparation!”-they build futures one success story at a time!), I knew a prep class would be beneficial in my scoring well on the LSAT. So months before the test, I sat down and forced myself to take a prep class.
While I chose Kaplan for a variety of reasons (including my employee discount), there are plenty of other local test-prep options: ACE, Princeton Review and the U’s own department of continuing education, just to name a few. All have excellent programs and are designed with one purpose in mind: to bump up your score.
Here’s the intriguing part: They work. Some go so far as to guarantee you’ll get a better score or your money back.
Not to pile any more expenses on starving students, but if you’re considering grad school, you might just need to look into this.
The test-prep industry has created its own cyclical cash cow: As testers become better prepared, test makers must create more difficult exams in order to keep their curve at a nice bell shape, forcing students to become even better prepared or risk failure.
In recent months, both the SAT and ACT revamped their tests, and the makers of the MCAT just announced that in 2007, its exam will be administered via computer.
In this world of increasing academic competition, prep courses are becoming quasi-essential in order to succeed. Nearly every student in my testing room had taken a prep class of some kind.
My secret weapon, it seems, wasn’t so secret after all. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.