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Should You Take the LSAT or the GRE?

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This question is front and center for many, many of you! Which test is better for you? And how do you decide? 

First and foremost, do your target schools accept the GRE? Many law schools accept the GRE for admission to their JD programs, but not all do, so make sure you’re not cutting away application chances. To check, you can go to the ETS website.

Once you’ve got that part out of the way, how do you personally decide on which test to take?

First, you have to find out how each test operates, and the most basic element to that is taking a practice test. For the LSAT, take the free practice test available on LSAC’s website. Do not take one of the free tests available on the ETS website! LSAC publishes nearly all of their tests, so you have an extraordinary wealth of practice tests to use as you prepare. This is not the case for ETS: official practice tests from ETS are very limited, and you do not want to use one as an initial diagnostic. Instead, take a practice test from a reputable test prep company. (Since you’re reading this, I think you can guess which test I would recommend! But there are several good options out there.)

You need to know your timing benchmarks and goals before you take each practice test. My colleagues and I have written about timing on tests in these blogs, so this would be a good place to start (LSAT Timing | GRE Timing). Know the organization of the tests, and have some knowledge of the question types before taking the practice test. Have at least enough familiarity with each test so you can immediately recognize all the component question types of each test, and how each test is organized. 

What should be your goal with this practice test? Familiarity and comfort. Which test format felt more comfortable? Somewhat ironically, I would not make the decision based on your score on the practice tests. Both tests are very learnable; when you begin your studies, your score will improve. Don’t worry about the score; worry about the format. Which test felt more ‘natural’ to you?

But wait! That’s not all!

Here are some key differences in prep between the two tests: 

  1. The GRE has a significant memorization element. It does directly test vocabulary, so you will spend much of your time learning vocabulary. Correspondingly, there is an element of uncertainty to the GRE: it is very likely that you will need to guess on the GRE for the simple reason that you won’t know the meaning of some words. 
  2. The LSAT has no “math” math. While it does require knowledge of mathematical logic, (for example, some questions require knowledge of how percentages relate to numerical totals) there are no pure equations or algebraic manipulation on the LSAT. 
  3. The GRE is, overall, a more forgiving test. There are fewer portions of the GRE in which you might be struggling with a full block of questions and feel lost. This is a possibility on the LSAT due to the number of questions that come from a single Reading Comprehension passage or Logic Game. If you are completely lost in a Reading Comprehension passage on the LSAT, you now have six to eight questions that will give you a great amount of trouble. On the GRE, even if you’re very confused about a passage, no passage has that many questions devoted to it. 

 

So … LSAT or GRE?

This is a very challenging decision to make. The LSAT is (in my opinion) more consistent than the GRE: when you sit for the LSAT, you know the difficulty to expect. The GRE is less consistent: sometimes the GRE feels very easy, while other times the GRE feels nearly impossible. 

Which would seem to indicate that everyone should take the LSAT, yes? Not so fast, unfortunately! The LSAT is more consistent, but the questions are, on average, more difficult than the corresponding similar questions on the GRE. 

Anyone reading this might be at this point be thinking “Chris, are you ever going to give a clear answer?!?!” And I empathize if any readers are feeling frustrated with the lack of a clear “you should take test X” recommendation. I wish I could give one! 

But here are my best attempts at a “you should take test X” recommendation.

  1. If you like math, and have a strong vocabulary (Do you know what the word ‘importune’ means, for example?), you will probably prefer the GRE. 
  2. If you read a logic games explanation for the LSAT and think “huh, that sounds kind of fun now”, you will probably prefer the LSAT. Especially if you also dislike traditional math. 
  3. If you’ve done some study of and are somewhat comfortable with conditional logic, you should probably take the LSAT. 

But, and the following is a big but…your experience with a practice test should take precedence over all of the above. And if one of your target schools does not accept the GRE, well, the choice has been made for you. 

This is not an easy decision. Make it as early in the application timeline as you possibly can, and reserve time to pursue the other option if needed. Do not try to do both at once: make your choice, and give your best effort to that test exclusively. If you need to switch, switch completely.

I wish you good luck!

Don’t forget that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person LSAT courses absolutely free. We’re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here.

Chris Gentry is a Manhattan Prep LSAT, GMAT, and GRE instructor who lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Chris received his Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering from Clemson and JD from Emory University School of Law before realizing that he genuinely enjoys the challenge of standardized tests, and his true passion is teaching. Chris’ dual-pronged approach to understanding each test question has helped countless of his students to achieve their goal scores. What are you waiting for? Check out Chris’ upcoming LSAT courses here.