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LSAT recent trends in section difficulty

idkeuidkeu Free Trial Member
in General 4 karma
Is it possible for the LSAT to have trends where exams are specifically designed to have harder LR or RC and then easier LG or vice versa at particular times? If that's something that is often done is there a way we can get a sense of what the trend will be like or when they might choose to calibrate it a certain way? I feel like there are definite trends among the different months the exams are released on. I'd imagine they'd have to take into account whether students might be improving on LG for example so they balance it out by giving harder LG while minimizing the other sections.
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  • splitterhopefulsplitterhopeful Alum Member
    edited December 2015 340 karma
    There was a general consensus that the RC got harder through the 50's/60's and the LG a little easier, but I think that has been reversing.

    Honestly, I think JY has made the LG's be created trickier. He's the first google search result for any LG search and I think the test makers have had to make things a little more non-formulaic to counteract people getting a good feel for how to do the standard sequencing/grouping games quickly. I wish his logic games videos weren't free. Just sayin... ;)
  • kennedybjkennedybj Alum Member
    697 karma
    #ilovelg
  • PacificoPacifico Alum Inactive ⭐
    8021 karma
    Within each test there has to be a balance between sections, otherwise there would be tests with -20 curves. So if there is a really hard LG then that difficulty must be balanced out with either an easier RC or LR section.

    Imagine they want each test to have difficulty of 100 plus or minus 2. Well then each section could have a difficulty rating of 25 a piece. Or they could make one section a 30 difficulty rating and another a 20 rating. That way they still get the overall difficulty to be pretty consistent. This is why people will often see consistent overall scores but varying section scores (E.g.- a really awesome LR and RC and a terrible LR and LG on one test and then the opposite on their next one but they still get a 167 on both tests).

    Also, 7Sage has only been around for a few years so they haven't had too much time to adjust to them specifically, but there is definitely an arms race between LSAC and the test prep companies.
  • deleted accountdeleted account Free Trial Member
    393 karma
    IMO:
    LG have gotten harder mechanically, but far easier in terms of figuring out what is going on. For example, Hanna game (PT 2, Game ?) was one of the hardest games to map out, but ludicrously easy to solve. And PT 76 game 3 was easy to figure out what was going on, but hard to solve. Of course it's more standardized, so you don't have any more like the bus games (I think PT 36?) or mauve dinosaurs (PT 57?), but it's definitely harder. Also, I think they have been transitioning slightly more back towards the games being harder to map out (see PT 75, game 4).

    RC, I think, was pretty easy-ish from PT 1-55 or so. Around there it suddenly got much harder. Recently, especially since PT 67 or so I think it has gotten easier. Shorter passages, fewer trick answers, and fewer inferences that are totally WTF. I thought that the Oct test was actually pretty simple RC-wise. Not much harder than I'd expect on an SAT.

    LR I don't think has changed very much. I think it has gradually gotten more abstract and less literal, but other than that, I think it is pretty similar to PT 1. I guess the only way that it has changed a lot is that especially in recent tests it has de-emphasized formal logic, leaving that to the LG section.
  • kennedybjkennedybj Alum Member
    697 karma
    Are the experimental sections used to determine how hard that certain sections is? How would the difficulty of a section be determined by lsac?
  • splitterhopefulsplitterhopeful Alum Member
    340 karma
    Kennedy, that is how it's done, yep. Curve was set before anyone took it unfortunately.
  • PacificoPacifico Alum Inactive ⭐
    8021 karma
    So for example, the performance of all test takers on the four experimental sections from the Dec. test will be analyzed by LSAC. They will further drill down and look at question by question performance for LR and if they find flaws in the question they will toss it out. The rest they will rank according to difficulty and maintain categorization by question type. Then when it comes time to make the June 2021 test they could take any of those sections or questions to make up an entirely new test and not worry that anyone us seen anything before since most of those people would be lawyers by then or have done something else with their lives. This is not an exact representation of how it is done but it captures the general gist of it. Does that clear it up for you?
  • kennedybjkennedybj Alum Member
    697 karma
    @Pacifico thanks! Definitely clears it up.
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