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Studying for the Digital LSAT: Obstacles and Opportunities
Cant Get Right
Yearly + Live Member Sage ⭐ 🍌 7Sage Tutor
So with the LSAT going digital soon, we are entering into a whole new era in a major way. Though I am personally glad to have done my LSAT on paper, this change is long overdue and will ultimately be beneficial for everyone. Inevitably though, it will impact the way we study, and as an LSAT tutor, this is something I've been thinking a lot about. Here's a few things I've come up with, and I'm really interested to know what everyone else thinks!
Opportunities:
Extra time: You won't actually have time added on to your section, but just as good. Added all up, bubbling takes about two minutes for most of us. Not having to bubble, we can bank those couple of minutes to put towards an extra question or two. Major win. Also, no anxiety over bubbling errors! (Also, no actual bubbling errors!)
PT Reports: So this one will take some time and programming, but it's the thing I'm most excited about. Taking your PT's on a screen offers an enormous return in data. I'm imaging a PTing program which accounts not just for your answer choices but for your time management. This will paint a much better picture of your test than just right/wrong answers. If you spend four minutes on a question, it doesn't matter if you get it right or wrong: It's an error. Computer PTing can generate reports with this kind of consideration, and once it's available it's going to be an enormously powerful tool for empirical analysis.
Instant Scoring: No more agonizing wait for scores. Future LSAT testers will correctly look at this as inhumane. The concept of "grey day" will melt into obscurity, an odd terminology no one will understand the meaning of when pulling up old threads. Also, you'll know right away if you need to get back to studying for a retake.
No more "Test Dates": I think this won't be happening until later, but eventually the LSAT will be administered more like the GRE where you just sign up to test pretty much whenever you want. This will make discussions of "aim for your score not your test date" somewhat different, though people will still set personal deadlines that won't be realistic for target scores. Hopefully the added flexibility will be beneficial for this. Also, I think certain test day anxieties will be alleviated. "Test Day" just won't be quite as big an event.
Gamification Potential: This will take some development, but I can't help but think a digital LSAT will be highly gamifiable. I'm imaging PT/drilling software with different options for developing specific skills. Working on time management? Maybe there's a feature for that where the screen changes from white to green to yellow to red as you spend more and more time on a question. Working on more effective POE strategies? Maybe a PT plug-in can show your odds improving from 20% to 25% to 33% to 50% as you eliminate AC's; then as a part of the report we can track your outcomes over time just for 50/50 situations. I could sit here and come up with these all day, but y'all get the idea and Alan would probably prefer I stop!
Speaking of gamification, how about Sage PTs via Twitch?: This could be a cool feature. Watch a Sage take the latest PT live! This could be really cool if anyone has the courage to do it!
Obstacles:
Instant Scoring: This one is maybe a double edged sword. While the instant score return will save a lot of agonizing, it will also rush the decision to cancel or not. This will make for a higher pressure decision without the benefit of reflection and advising.
Transitioning: This will be a short lived con for those of us that came up on paper, but we'll have to reimagine certain procedural things about how we take the test, and this will take time and energy that we'd prefer to invest elsewhere.
New testing issues: Software crashes, screen malfunctions: Hopefully tech issues won't affect many of us, but certain problems feel inevitable, and I'm not sure what kind of solutions are going to be available.
No paper: Okay, this one is a bit observational, but I think it's important. I like being able to feel the test and to mark it and interact with it directly. I think you get scratch paper which is good, but there's something about working via screen that feels detached to me, and I know this will be a factor for many others as well.
No pencils: Again, not all that insightful, but a sad passing for many old school testers. While the pencil isn't really that important, I had enormous fun trying out tons of pencils to find the perfect one (Staedtler Noricas, obviously). The pencil thread will sink into oblivion and only maybe resurface with a chuckle as a relic of the past when things were quaint and simple.
Well, these are a few of the things I've been thinking about. What do you guys think? What have I missed? Overall, I think the opportunities far outweigh the obstacles.
Comments
You’ve made some interesting points. I agree that digital “bubbling” will be quicker, but I feel like taking digital notes will be slower and working with scratch paper will be difficult as you don’t benefit from having work space in close proximity to the question. Everyone will adapt but I’m not sure if the tuning will really give digital test takers a time advantage. Twitch would be cool but probably difficult to navigate because of copyright issues with LSAC.
The development of software to simulate test conditions and track certain performance metrics is going to be huge. Really looking forward to seeing how prep companies approach this and I think you are right that it would help people with timing errors and pacing issues. I think you are right that the opportunities outweigh the obstacles.
Thanks for initiating this conversation! I agree with pretty much everything you mentioned but I will be honest: while getting your score automatically is super convenient, HOLY CRAP that made my heart jump thinking about it lol. Like you don't get a chance to sink in everything that just occurred the last five hours and you aren't given the opportunity to sort of detach yourself from the exam for just a moment haha. Maybe that's just me though. But yeah, I would hope LSAC releases a mock version of the digital LSAT at least a few months from June so test takers can get a glimpse of it all. I would think for anyone who will be taking the LSAT once it's digital to maybe invest in a tablet to imitate test conditions as accurate as possible. You're right, nothing will properly replace the feeling of a pen(cil) and paper (at least not now) so that sort of sucks but I do think the pros outweigh the cons when it comes to it being digital. It's simply a learning curve.
If this were to happen, I think it would mean that the tests would not be disclosed and LSAC wouldn't release PrepTests (as ETS doesn't). GRE can have administrations almost every day because the test is not disclosed (so they can reuse questions very frequently) and there are very few real tests released. I think that may be a huge con.
Interesting Discussion! I'm worried about the cost of access for students. Since the paper tests are likely to become sub optimal method of study as opposed to the digital, they need to substantially reduce the price of digital LSAT tests, right now you can get all the tests for around $240 ($3-$4 per test) in paper so you should be able to get every test digitally for the same price or less, currently thats not the case.
Yeah, excellent point. Major con if it plays out that way.
I also hope LSAC gives students the option to send only the best LSAT score to schools in that case because I think that's what ETS does for GRE. But I think that would lead to higher median LSAT scores, and that might make schools to value GPAs more. Hmmmm
That would certainly do away with test day anxiety. Medians would rise a bit, but I’m not actually sure it would inflate them too much. More people would end up with a score at the top of their range, but earning the range is the hard part and will always present the most significant barrier to a higher score. I’m going to call that a plus.
Has anyone heard anything on when LSAC means to provide more info on the type of software they'll be using? I'm looking forward to playing around with it to get used to it (not looking forward having to buy a tablet for it though).
i really hope they don't do this, assuming there is variance in every test it just becomes correct to write like five or ten times which is a massive drag. They should continue with multiple "test days" each year, and fresh questions in each, to avoid this and not allow students to just jam the test over and over again. You can do this now, but you need to wait a few months between administrations and all your scores are sent to the schools.
Actually i just remembered i probably never need to write this stupid test anymore! i guess actually i don't really care! but for future generations
@"Cant Get Right" The Tablets provided by the LSAT also have an embedded count down timer!
Some studies show people read better and faster on paper than digitally (about 20-30% faster on paper). Will this be significant in the LR and RC sections?
https://insights.uksg.org/articles/10.1629/uksg.236/
https://www.paperbecause.com/PIOP/files/f7/f7bb6bc5-2c4a-466f-9ae7-b483a2c0dca4.pdf
Someone who has taken the digital LSAT (got paid by LSAC to test it). I can say, its not scary at all. The best way to prep for taking it is to do the Khan Academy questions online as drills. If you have any specific questions regarding sections and stuff. Please feel free to ask.
For game section you do get paper and pencil. You do the game on paper, choose the answer and thats it. The paper you worked on is usually taken away before leaving and trashed.
Its a microsoft windows software, nothing special or specific. Just like a kindle table where you can read, choose and move the next question. Anything you don't answer is a different color and is listed as number bubbles so you can always go back.
LSAC gave a link to show exactly what it looks like: https://familiar.lsac.org/
I would suggest buying one from amazon if you don't want to spend a lot of money. I have both an iPad and the amazon fire and I love my fire! I also got it during one of their sales for only around $90 I think.
Are you able to cross of answers or anything like that with a stylus? I've been doing a lot of drilling/PTs via PDF's without printing them off so I'm not too worried but I do like crossing out the wrong answers or making marks on my page.
For LR are we given paper/pencil?
No.
Nope.
Wow. No paper and pencil for LR? Frick.
It seems like the biggest advantage will be being able to see which questions were skipped and being able to go back to them easily. Definitely requires a different strategy for marking questions that you want to take a second look at though, and for keeping track of which answers you’ve already eliminated. Does anybody have suggestions for how to go about that?
I've been worried that scores are going to be lower initially during the transition period while we're all figuring out how to study for the new format, and that we'll be competing against the old paper-and-pencil scores next cycle. But the curve should save our bacon on that front, right? I probably should have remembered that sooner, but I'm a little freaked out, man! What do you folks think?
You get a scrap booklet that you can use throughout the entire test. You will get a pen (not pencil).
"LSAC will provide scratch paper and a pen for test takers to use during the test. We will provide a stylus that can be used to underline and highlight text on the tablet."
https://www.lsac.org/lsat/taking-lsat/about-digital-lsat
The tests will be administered on Microsoft Surface Go tablets, specifically.
https://www.lsac.org/about/news/lsac-announces-technology-collaboration-microsoft
I also read in another post (someone who had taken an experimental digital LSAT via LSAC) that the pen that they provide is actually the stylus itself (stylus one end, pen the other) - so it will be a very different "feel" than what ordinary pen fans are used to - to say nothing of the experience for pencil users.