October. The month of terrifying things. Ghosts. Zombies. Sparkly vampires. And the LSAT.
Whereas we know what to expect from those monsters, the LSAT is an unknown quantity, and thus most terrifying of all. Luckily, I’m here with my Ouija board and a bottle of Scotch to look into the future and see what awaits you all this weekend on the October LSAT.
2013 October LSAT Prediction I: Logic Games
The June LSAT Logic Games were fairly straightforward, except for one killer game. Even our mystery instructor who sat for the June LSAT was momentarily tripped up by it.
So what to expect after an average section with a hard game? A slightly harder than average section without any particularly hard game!
I’d expect to see one easy game followed by three harder games, but nothing at the mauve dinosaur level. The trick will be to manage your time to ensure you have enough to get through the fourth game. It won’t be the difficulty that gets to you; it’ll be the fact that the three harder games should each be allotted about 9 minutes to complete.
Crazy prediction: Robots.
2013 October LSAT Prediction II: Logical Reasoning
As usual, reports from the previous LSAT Logical Reasoning section commented on how standard it was. Which is, you know, standard.
Last time, a few rare question types popped up (Crux and Agree). Expect that to continue. However, also expect a few weird prompts that read like new question types (they won’t be – so figure out which question type you’re actually dealing with). Also, expect a few absolute killers – akin to that weird space exploration question from a couple tests ago.
Crazy prediction: Rainer Maria Rilke.
2013 October LSAT Prediction III: Reading Comprehension
The last LSAT Reading Comprehension section was reportedly difficult. And I’ve just predicted a hard Logical Reasoning and Games section. So this should be easy, right?
Right.
I don’t see any killer passages coming up. Expect some esoteric topics, including something in science, but nothing crazy. Focus on the arguments and, as always, you’ll be fine.
Like the rest of the October LSAT, I see the average difficulty of the Reading Comp passages being higher than the average over the past few tests, but that will come from a bunch of slightly-higher-than-average passages, not one or two killers.
Crazy prediction: Reality television.
2013 October LSAT Prediction IV: The LSAT Curve
This is a tough one, as I think the difficulty will be, overall, higher, but there will be fewer questions that are absolute killers, which means people should get more questions correct. Also, with an easier RC section, scores should be a little more stabilized, since swings in that section tend to cause a lot of fluctuations.
Let’s call it -12 for a 170, -26 for a 160, and -40 for a 152.
2013 October LSAT Prediction V: Specific Predictions
October LSAT Logic Games:
• Something sci-fi.
• A rule-replacement question that you can answer based on the elimination question.
• A mix of regular game types (think the tiered grouping mauve dino game, only less difficult).
October LSAT Logical Reasoning:
• German poets.
• Getting out of jury duty.
• Back-to-back Parallel questions.
October LSAT Reading Comprehension:
• Reality television.
• A Synthesis passage.
• One of those questions that asks you to pick a sentence that would fit at the end of the passage.
