Five ways the digital LSAT will be just like the paper LSAT (and one way it should be better)

There is justifiable tension among prospective law students---ugh. Strike that. I took a break from writing a law school paper to talk about the LSAT for a minute, and IT SHOWS. I’ve never read a more law-school-papery first clause of a sentence than that one. I’m sorry. Now where were we? 

Yes: People are worried because the LSAT is going digital. That makes sense! We don’t like change. It’s probably evolutionarily programmed for us to fear change; in the primordial ancestry, change was never good. I bet none of our earliest forebears looked up to see something rushing toward them that turned out to be someone in a hurry to do something nice to them. So we don’t like it when things change. But it’s OK. This change is not going to be very much of a change. 

To help reassure you, here are five ways the new digital version of the LSAT will be just like the paper version of the test we all know and love fear hate:

1. The digital LSAT, just like the paper LSAT, will have four scored sections. They’re the same four! Two scored sections of Logical Reasoning, one scored Games section, and good old Reading Comp. 
2. The digital LSAT will continue to be multiple choice. Personally, I think that’s bad for students. But most students I know like the multiple choice, and if you’re in that majority, then rest easy; the new digital format won’t change that feature.
3. The digital LSAT, just like the paper LSAT, will be timed at 35 minutes per section. You won’t have to move any faster on the digital test than you did on any paper LSAT. Of course, you also won’t get more time (but I mean, I said this would be about five ways the digital test was the same, not five ways in which it would be better*).
4. You’ll still have to do a stupid Experimental unscored section, and you still won’t be able to tell (for certain) which section it is. I mean, if your digital LSAT gives you Games in section one and then again in section four, you can be sure that one of those sections didn’t count. But (1) you still—just like on the paper test—won’t know which one, and (2) it still won’t matter which one (because, what difference could it possibly make? So don’t worry about it!) Just like with the paper LSAT.
5. You will be asked the same kinds of questions on the digital LSAT that LSAC has been asking for the last million years on the paper LSAT. Relax. If you’re one of our students, then you’ll be ready for the digital LSAT just the same way you’d be ready for the paper LSAT. The content isn’t changing, and our awesome methods (that sound you hear is me, tooting my own horn!) are going to work, well, awesomely.

*There is at least one way the digital LSAT may be better than paper versions; the tablet it’s given on is supposed to contain a timer that can automatically deliver a 5-minute warning. The reason I think this is an improvement is that at one memorable test site, my proctor gave us (in some order I cannot now remember) one section with no warning, and for the other five sections, three fives,, a ten, and a nine-minute warning (remember that although only 4 sections will be scored, you’ve still got six sections when you include the experimental and the writing sample). Human error, in this case delivered rather extremely. Ostensibly, the timer on the digital LSAT tablet will not be so capricious, and you will be assured of a consistent and accurate warning. 

See? The digital LSAT won’t be so bad!

Questions? Comments? Complaints? Post them below, or shoot me an email.

Be good to one another, for we need it now more than ever,

d

P.S. Looking for a smoking hot Velocity LSAT discount code? Use this code: DAVE10 at checkout to get 10% off your enrollment in any course! That code will work throughout 2018.