LNAT: Clarification

Hey, since people are still freaking out about their LNAT scores (one of the search terms that lead to this website was 'has anyone ever gotten an 11 on the LNAT') let me just clarify what I was saying before.

The LNAT is a bad exam. It's bad like Charles Manson. It doesn't do what it's supposed to do and it screws a lot of people.

The thing to remember is that the LNAT score is only one of many criteria used to assess you. It won't kill your application necessarily. The average is really low precisely for the reason that it's a poorly written test and that makes it extremely challenging to get the answer they want you to get.

Let me also caution future LNAT takers about one thing. When you practice LNAT, it is fine to start with the practice books, because they are very useful for learning the content and format of an unusual standardised exam; and they're good for learning strategies to tackle the exam, in a broad sense. When you want to really gauge how you're going to do on the actual exam, please, PleasE, PLEASE use official old exams from the LNAT website.

Here is a dirty little secret.

Prep books and prep book writers/publishers want you to think that they have helped you improve your performance on the test. They are always going to end their book by giving you practice tests that are either official but easier than the average exam, or tests that they have written themselves which are easier than the average real exam. I have used 3 or 4 prep books in my LSAT/LNAT career, from various publishers (including Kaplan). They all end by giving you practice exams which are easier than the actual exam. Do yourself a favour and don't get too excited when you get a 25 on your practice test. Go to the LNAT website and get the three official practice tests available there. They will give you a more accurate picture than anything else.

There, I've spoken my piece.

LNAT Freakout

A lot of people seem to be freaking out about their 2010 LNAT scores, which were released just yesterday. I just ran a Google search and there is a lot of panicking going on.

Example.

People are really confused about how they managed to do so well on practice exams (even in prep courses) and ended up with 9's on the actual test. Some people think this has to have been a computer mistake and want to complain and re-sit the test.

People, the LNAT is a terrible exam. The fact that I got a high score is meaningless because this exam is not a reliable predictor of performance in a law course. I wish it meant I was going to be really good, but I think it's just a bad exam and I think law departments are going to catch on soon enough. Cambridge stopped accepting the LNAT last year for precisely that reason.

Good (Slightly Irrelevant) News!

I got my LNAT score today, finally.

I know that in the past I may have expressed some negative feelings about this exam. Hmm... how to backtrack... ? ...

I love this exam. This exam is a perfect indicator of success in law school. Perfect correlation. Standard deviation of 0.000005.

The average score was 16.7. Let's just say I scored significantly higher than that. Exact score by request only, and only for reference.

Sorry, but I deserve to brag a bit.

Wait... I got a very high score but still got rejected from Oxford. What's that about? Humph!

Bits and Pieces

Hey ya'll I just wanted to say thanks for the comments by DA and by Alistair, I appreciate your support on my disappointment about Oxbridge. I still have a second shot but not too hopeful. Anyway, no need to dwell!

DA, to answer your other question. Was I ever serious about applying to King's College London, University College London or the London School of Economics? In truth, no, I wasn't interested when I first applied, but it was a matter of dragging and clicking boxes on a screen, so I did it. I also thought I was testing the waters as a precursor for Oxbridge admissions, but in fact the Oxbridge admissions period is almost over and I have heard next to nothing in the meantime from the other three. They have each confirmed receipt of my application and I have responded to their various requests for transcripts (by the way, transcripts are expensive!). Now that the Oxbridge admissions period is over, and I'm also doing my American applications, I'm beginning to get really nervous that I won't get into my preferred American law school at my Midwest State School alma mater. The application numbers have been massive this year and--looking at the calendar--I am submitting my applications much later than I should have done. These nerves make the potential of getting into the other three British schools much more important to me, as I don't want to delay law school another year. It's a sensitive and difficult thing, the admissions process.

DA, I'm glad to hear you've got through the UCAS and the LNAT. How did the LNAT go?

Anyway, speaking of my Midwest State School. I have had a strangely fateful and luck-driven life so far. I don't believe in fate or luck in my rational mind, but I cannot deny my life has been filled with some strange coincidences and connections, not all of them necessarily good. This requires a bit of background. When I was a child, my family and I did not live in my Midwest State but were driving through it when we were in a car accident in which my father died. As a result of this accident the rest of my family moved to this Midwest State permanently. I then grew up and went to school in this state. I met my husband in high school in this state. My husband brought me to Britain where I refined and clarified my career goals, to be a lawyer.

Now, going back to my Midwest State School's college of law. It has become my first choice, until I hear finally from Cambridge. I began to really worry that I would not qualify as a resident to get in-state tuition anymore, which would change my view of things considerably. As I read the university policy online, I didn't completely understand it so I called the registrar's office to run the situation by them. I grew up in my Midwest State and did my undergrad there, as a resident. However for the last 5 years I have been living out of the state--would I still be considered a resident for tuition purposes? The lady had the strangest attitude about it. She said the only important criteria were:

Did I graduate from a high school in this Midwest State? Yes. And do I have one parent living or buried in the state? At first I panicked because my mom moved out of the state a few years ago. Then I remembered, wait, my father is indeed buried in the state. So, yeah, I guess as a result of this totally random, accidental car accident I get in-state tuition at this Midwest State School.

Okay, now I've totally creeped everyone out. It's cool, people, but like I said my life has been filled with weird, serendipitous coincidences and connections. Honestly, I tentatively hope they don't stop now.

Response to Comment Regarding LSAT and LNAT

How exciting, I got an actual question in the comments section! I will now dutifully answer it.

This comment comes from DA, who I hope will answer my question afterwards. The comment was

hi, I'm in almost the same situation as you...I'm an american, but living in the states trying to get into law school in London. I'm trying to figure out if there is any LSAT/LNAT conversion scoring, I've taken LSAT, but want to try and predict my results on LNAT. Any advice or are they wholly incomparable? Thanks!

Well, DA, you came to the right place.

First, as far as I know there are no set conversion tables and they would probably be pretty useless because the LNAT and the LSAT are two very different exams. In order to learn some of the basic differences between the two, check out this post. Also check out this post to learn why the LNAT is a stupid, stupid, stupid test.

Now as far as predicting your outcome, your guess is as good as mine. I took three practice exams and got one quite low score, one average score and one quite high score, which suggests it's not a very reliable test. The best thing you can do is just take some practice tests yourself.

My advice would be, first, to get a prep book on the LNAT and familiarise yourself with the format and content. Second, I would start reading the British newspapers because most of the excerpts in the LNAT come from there (especially the London Times and the Guardian) and it's always useful to learn their style. Third, I would take as many practice tests as you can and very, very carefully try to dissect the answer explanations, trying to learn what it is they want you to be thinking as you read. There are three practice tests available on the LNAT website and several prep books are available.

Now, I hope DA will answer some of my questions!

First, why are you trying to go to law school in London? I hope that's not impertinent, I'm just curious because it's an unusual choice. What are your career plans? What schools are you applying to? When are you going to be applying?

Yay internet.

My life is a series of shambolic episodes

I took the LNAT, law national admissions test, today. It's the admissions test for studying law in Britain.

Let me tell you something about my life. It is a series of shambolic episodes.

Avid readers will remember the episode of my being almost too late to take the LSAT.

Today I took the bus down to central London at an indecently early hour to take the LNAT. I had my test confirmation ticket, which they said to bring and ID. Now, this is what their website says are valid forms of ID:

A current signed passport (an unsigned passport will be acceptable only if it is of a biometric type that does not allow for a signature)

A current signed photocard driving licence (full or provisional)

A current identity card, issued by the government of the country where the test centre is located, that carries your photograph and signature

Now I'm no lawyer, but it doesn't seem to specify that the driving license has to be issued by the government of the country where the test centre is located, unlike the current identity card option. So I think, 'Great, I don't have to needlessly carry my passport into town, I can just use my valid driver's license from my home State.' NO, NO YOU CAN'T. It doesn't say it has to be British BUT IT DOES. DIDN'T YOU KNOW THAT???

Reader, I did not know this because the LNAT website is a piece of shit. So is the LNAT for that matter.

It wasn't a complete disaster. I just had to go back home and get my passport and come back, which isn't a big deal except that is a 2 hour round trip in London. I did it though and got through the exam.

It's funny all the prep books tell you that just before the exam you should take your mind off it, distract yourself with something else. Well, I was certainly distracted.

Now my complaints about the exam itself.

This exam is ridiculous. First, I took several practice tests and got massively widely differing scores on each one, which shows that it isn't a very reliable measuring tool. Second, for each question you could make a strong argument that a different answer was correct. The exam simultaneously requires you to think less, making intuitive generalisations and to think more--for some questions you have to make several assumptions or logical jumps to get the correct answer. In other words, some questions require a gospel reading, some require further interpretation and you never know which is which. Third, it is an extremely badly written exam. The question stem will ask, 'What are the people in the article arguing?' but their correct answer will answer the question, 'What is the author of the article arguing?'. These are clearly different questions. Fourth, although they claim no outside knowledge is required to answer the questions, sometimes it really is. You would be at a particular disadvantage if you were not British or British-educated. The passages are often about British politics and education and require certain foreknowledge about such things as the European Union or Council of Europe political mechanisms or about British standardised testing. Luckily I have been here long enough that I'm familiar with most of it. How is someone outside of the UK supposed to know what GCSEs are? I don't think I had ever used the word 'accession' before I came to the UK and studied the EU. Fifth, the LNAT makes up its own definitions for words and expects you to know them. Assumption, assertion, opinion, suggestion, fact--you would have to have foreknowledge of how they define these to answer the questions correctly.

I will get my LNAT score in January. By the way, what the hell is that about? You get your LSAT score in 3 weeks and it helps you decide what law schools you can apply to. Here you have to finish your applications before you even have to take the exam. And you don't get your score back until after you've been interviewed? Surely that doesn't make sense.

Sometimes you have to give up questioning why Britons do things the way Britons do them. Thinking about the fact that I spent 4 hours on a bus today makes me really excited about studying law at my Midwest State School where a commute is 20 minutes tops.

This concludes all application activities for British universities. It is entirely out of my hands now.

LNAT Practice; Let me tell you something about the LNAT

I've been doing some practice on the LNAT in preparation for taking the exam on Tuesday. I know, I know--this has been nothing like my LSAT prep. The LNAT and LSAT are very different tests though.

Let me tell you something about the LNAT.

First, the LNAT is only 2 hours long. It is comprised of an 80 minute section of 30 multiple choice questions based on 10 excerpts, followed by a 40 minute essay section. In contrast, the LSAT has 6 sections, 5 of which contain 23-38 multiple choice questions comprising 2 logical reasoning sections, one reading comprehension, one logic games and one experimental section of one of the three types, followed by an essay writing section. The LSAT takes about 4 hours of testing time.

Excluding the writing portion, the LNAT is basically just a longer version of the LSAT reading comprehension section, with 10 passages of shorter length, each with 2-4 questions. The final score is the number correct out of 30. The average score is around 17, which seems rather low.
The writing section, like the LSAT writing section, is unscored. The good news for me is that there is no logic games section on the LNAT. I always score the lowest on Logic Games and the highest on Reading Comprehension.

For this reason and because I have already done 4 months of preparation for the LSAT I have not been sweating the LNAT too much. Which is why I haven't gotten around to any prep for it until 2 days before the test. I took a practice test today and I was happy with my score. Hopefully I can reproduce it at the actual exam.

LSAT Score

We got back our LSAT scores this past weekend. I did achieve the goal I set for myself but didn't see much improvement overall which was disappointing. I guess in the end Ivey was right that it isn't worth it to retake the LSAT. I also think I was right that I simply hit my natural wall. It's a disappointingly low wall.

I was about to go into a rant about standardised testing, but I'll save that for another time!

Anyway, I guess this is pretty much what expected, though not what I hoped for. I hope it will at least be enough to get me into my Midwest State School. I don't know what will happen if I don't get into a law school. I'll probably just curl up into a ball and die. I can't think of any other thing I want to do as much.

One of my British applications was one day late! It was a paper application that I had to mail in. There have been postal strikes all over the UK which have been extremely disruptive. I sent it FedEx to avoid that problem. It was meant to be delivered next day. The day after that I got a call that it hadn't been delivered yet because the envelope covering had been ripped off. So it actually didn't get delivered until the day after the deadline. I have no idea whether the university will take it.

It's like the universe doesn't want me to get into law school.

The LNAT exam is one week from today and I haven't cracked a book for it yet. I figure all that work for LSAT didn't help much, it probably won't help with LNAT, so I'm not going to work too hard on it. Cynical, cynical, cynical and pessimistic.

**************

In happier news, we have our tickets to come home for Christmas. I'm looking forward to blissful peace, cold, warmth, food, family, friends, driving in the snow and some R&R.

British Applications: Mission Accomplished! Almost. (Let me tell you something about... British college applications)

I have submitted my British applications!

Let me tell you something about British college applications. They are SO much easier than American college applications! I know American law school apps go through a clearinghouse called LSDAS where you submit all your transcripts and information and you send a single application electronically to all the schools you want to apply to. In the UK they do that with undergraduate applications too with a system called UCAS. UCAS allows you to submit applications for up to 5 universities. I have mentioned the ones I'm applying to before.

Now that bit is done, there is only one more thing before my British applications are completely done and dusted: I have to take the LNAT. I'm registered and now I have to start preparing a bit. I have about 2 weeks.

And I have to start the American applications. Yikes!

Applications to Oxford and Cambridge

Dear readers, especially the one from Indonesia, I have had a busy few weeks since the LSAT. I have had to move apartments and am still in the process of unpacking and figuring out what goes where. This apartment, by the way, is a veritable comedy of fuck-up-edness. Everything in it is broken or so cheap it will be broken soon.

Anyway, I have also been in the process of submitting applications to Oxford and Cambridge. They both take UCAS applications. UCAS is a sort of clearinghouse, a single application you create online and submit to all the colleges to which you are applying. It is great for convenience, if you are a British high school student about to graduate. If you're a foreign-educated mature student, well it's a hell of a lot more difficult. However, they have a helpline which is extremely useful and has already seen a few calls from me. For Cambridge, you also have to submit a separate overseas student application, which is another hoop to jump. I am almost completely ready to send both applications off before the famous deadline of October 15th.

Now I'm applying to Oxford, I have to take the LNAT, the British equivalent to the LSAT. I have already spent some time preparing for it, and I hope my LSAT practice will aid me.

Also, I should get my LSAT score in a week or so. Stay tuned.