As you are probably aware, the LSAT is an extremely difficult test. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if one could get a better LSAT score simply by taking the test at a specific time? Many people think so, and you may have heard rumors about certain LSAT administrations being easier than others. Sadly for you and your gaming-the-system plans, there isn’t any such thing as an “easy” LSAT. And even if you could take a mythical "easy" LSAT, you really wouldn't want to do so. That might sound crazy, but read on.
Why the “Easy LSAT” Doesn’t Exist
LSAT scores have to be reliable and useful, and when looking at different scores from different LSATs, admissions officers need them to be comparable. Making this a reality does take some serious work, but the fine folks at the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC), the organization that writes the LSAT, put the standardized in standardized test. They manage to make individual and unique administrations of the LSAT comparable by doing two things: pre-screening questions and using the equivalent of a curve.
When you take your LSAT you’ll have four real scored sections, but also one that’s “experimental.” It’s an un-scored section where you are forced to be their guinea pigs. Based on how everyone does on the questions therein, LSAC can determine just how hard these questions are. They then use these experimental questions to construct tests that are all roughly equal in difficulty level.
In spite of the best efforts of LSAC, however, there will still be cases where certain tests have a higher or lower concentration of difficult questions, and people will then either get more or fewer questions right than they would have on a “normal” test. This is why the total number of questions you get right (your “raw score”) is more or less irrelevant as an arbiter of how well you did on the test.
Let’s say that one December LSAT has harder questions than the following February LSAT. Raskolnikov takes the December test and gets 80 questions right. Sonechka takes the February LSAT and gets 80 right as well. Who did better? Well, if the December test really did have harder questions, then Raskolnikov is the victor. Using only the raw score, though, he would appear to be on even footing with Sonechka. To keep this terrible kind of injustice from occurring, LSAT scores are scaled, and it’s those scaled scores that get you into law school.
One’s scaled score is based not on how many questions were answered correctly, but rather how many questions were answered correctly compared to everyone else taking that administration of the LSAT. Raskolnikov’s test was harder, so let’s say that getting 80 right means that he’s doing better than 91% of all test-takers. Sonechka’s test was easier, so on that one getting 80 right means she’s better off than 84% of all people who took that February administration of the LSAT.
In case you hadn’t already guessed, it’s these percentile rankings that matter. So even though they got the same raw score, Raskolnikov’s 91% lands him a sweet 164, while Sonechka’s 84% translates to an also-sweet-but-slightly-less-so 160. Which is only fair. If scores were based on raw score only, then getting a hard test would put you at an unfair disadvantage, and a considerable amount of luck would be thrown in the equation. LSAC hates luck.
If the test were scored simply as a function of the number of correct answers given, applicants who took a more difficult LSAT would be at a disadvantage.
It Doesn’t Exist, and You Don’t Want it Anyway
As we’ve seen, there’s really no reason to hope for an easy LSAT. If it really was easier, then everyone would do better, resulting in one having to get more questions right. Likewise there’s no reason to fear a hard LSAT; if it’s harder, then everyone does poorer, and you can miss more actual questions to attain the same score. There’s no reason to believe that either of these scenarios happen more in one month than another.
Still, some people hypothesize that certain test-dates have populations with higher concentrations of poor test takers. As the thinking goes, if one can take the test when a bunch of morons are taking it then it would be easier to do better than X% of them. But there are a couple faulty assumptions here. First of all, there are tens of thousands of people taking each administration, and with such overwhelming numbers the chances of all the non-prepared taking it at one time are extremely small. The data support this, as the curves from test to test are always of fairly equal difficulty. Furthermore, LSAC doesn’t have to use a forced curve; if they feel that a certain testing population is indeed doing better or worse than normal, they’re allowed to tinker with the results (technically LSAC “equates” the test rather than “curves” it, but for all intents and purposes it ends up generally being the same).
Thus, there is no reason to stay up at night praying to your deity of choice for a test with easy questions (this wouldn’t help you at all) or a testing population full of morons (this is both unlikely and irrelevant). Rather than hoping for an easy life, you should become a strong person. The ticket here is to be more prepared than your compatriots. How much you prepare is the only real thing over which you have control. So study like the devil and get a fantastic LSAT score, but don’t worry about which LSAT is the easiest. The best time to take the LSAT is when you’re the most prepared for it.
