February LSAT 2010: Man vs. Machine
The February LSAT gets a bad rep for no good reason. I assure you, it’s just another LSAT (which may or may not make it worth a bad rep), but for one of my students the test was fine, but the test-center was awful. After an unexpected re-assignment to a location in a galaxy far, far away, my student — let’s call him Luke — found himself in a large auditorium. OK, that’s not so far out of the range of expectations. But, these auditorium seats were not built for the LSAT. The little flip-up desk seat was about half the size of the LSAT paper! So, not only did the 80 or so victims in there have to deal with the LSAT, but they were subjected to a constant spatial-relations puzzle/dance-dance revolution game in which you scored points by being able to keep your test on the table so that you could actually bubble in your answers.
Alright, perhaps he’s a whiner. When I was a kid we had to take the LSAT in a pool, walking uphill. But then partway through the first section – RC for him — the radiator started a John Cage piece. Many a New Yorker is well-accustomed to falling asleep to the erratic — erotic? — banging of the building’s heating system, but apparently this one was so loud that the test-takers revolted and the proctors paused the test at the end of the section to bring in an engineer. While the engineers calmed the angry beast, the hapless prisoner — at least those following the rules –were not allowed to go to the bathroom since this was not an “official” break.
At least 10% of the test-takers simply walked out of the room and canceled on the spot. Luke tells me he couldn’t finish that first section, which is unheard of for him, though he totally rocked the rest of the exam. Alas Luke, go and seek your LSAT destiny in June! And for everyone else, read up on your testing site (and rate yours) on this test-center-ranking site.