New LSAT To Debut in June '07

For the first time in 15 years, the Law School Admissions Council will be taking an eraser to two sections of the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT).

The LSAT, which administers the test, announced Monday that starting in June 2007, the reading comprehension section will include a comparative reading portion and the writing section—which is not currently scored—will have one essay prompt instead of two.

The 101-question LSAT is scored on a 120- to 180-point scale and contains six sections, four of which count toward the final score.

The director of pre-law programs at Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions, Steven Marietti, said that the comparative reading section is a “fairly significant change.”

“We are introducing comparative reading because it allows us to measure the broad reading comprehension construct in a way that parallels a common task that law students perform—comparing and contrasting texts,” Jim Vaseleck, the executive assistant to the president at LSAC, wrote in an e-mail.

But the jury’s still out on how test takers will react to these changes.

“If the difference is only five or six questions, it shouldn’t be too big of a deal,” wrote Hayley Jade Fink ’08, who plans to take the LSAT in June.

“I might rethink when I take the test,” said Alyssa E.S. King ’08 when she heard about the changes.

Vaseleck said, however, that the changes will not make the test more difficult or alter the skills that the test assesses. In addition, free sample comparative reading questions will be offered beginning in February.

Marietti said that he doesn’t anticipate that the changes will cause dramatic fluctuation in scores. However, he did recommend that students who need to take the test over the next year do so before the adjustments are introduced because “any time there’s a change in the exam there’s a level of unpredictability.”

The LSAT, which was taken by 137,000 aspiring law students last year, plays a large role in admission decisions, carrying approximately 50 percent of the application’s weight at most schools, according to Marietti.