Disclaimer I:
Apparently, LSAC regulations dictate that I refrain from dispensing any details regarding Saturday’s hateful exam (crazy, right?), so I am limiting my discussion to generalities and I would advise those who post, if and when you do, to follow suit and do the same.

The Morning Before

For me, getting through the morning before the LSAT was the worst part of the exam. For those taking the LSAT in Pasadena, CA the weather decided to match the excitement and so it rained cats and dogs. Seriously, I could barely see the car in front of me swerving through the 110 freeway. And of course, since it was the day of the LSAT—the exam that made you give up dieting, facebooking, quitting smoking, The Big Bang Theory (or whatever inferior show it is that you watch); the exam that determines the rest of your life—everything felt personal, and a small part of me (maybe a big part of me) wanted to accidentally intentionally ram my Toyota into the side of the road and have an awesome excuse for missing the LSAT that I’d describe as a great tragedy in my addendum. Though I managed to squish the urge and arrive at the test center safe and sound, the raindrops felt uncannily like hail as I walked in, and everyone I saw looked infinitely smarter and taller, better looking and better prepared than me. By this time, I had to face the fact that I was nervous as hell and tell myself to get an effing grip.

I found my seat smack-dab in the middle of the back row. Our proctor announced that we wouldn’t be starting until 9 and then began reading the droll instructions—write your name in the…(you know how it goes so I won’t bore you with a play-by-play). Finally, after a wait that was all too long but over all too soon, the test began.

The LSAT

Section 1: LR

After the test, all of the logical reasoning sections meshed into a blur. From what I can remember, there were a few more Resolve questions than I’m used to and a few more necessary questions toward the beginning rather than the end, but all in all, I don’t remember finding anything in this section too out of the ordinary. With a no-surprises section under my belt, things were looking up.

Section 2: LG

But then, I met this exam’s logic games. This section killed me.

It started out innocently enough: a grouping game where classes went in either first or second semester, an unstable in and out with, I think, types of trees, and then a tiered ordering that undermined my existence.

Two people, Taylor and someone else whose name I think started with a Z, were paired with activities. There were your standard rules about ordering but some weird rules about Taylor and Z. I tried to retain Matt’s advice on tiered ordering (look for big deductions!) in my head but I couldn’t sense anything but the infinite number of profanities going off in my head and my heart, that felt like it was about to leap out of my throat. For the life of me, I couldn’t find the deduction. When maybe 10 minutes had past, I found out why. I had misread an ordering rule. NOOOOOOOOO.

After this little discovery, I probably should have just skipped this game and moved on to the 1:1 ordering at the end. But did I? Not so much. The result? Not so good. Because of this game, I am now one of the many people seriously considering cancelling their score. Fortunately though, I hear that I wasn’t the only one who felt destroyed by this game. So for others out there considering cancelling because of this game, keep that in mind.

Section 3: LR

Still recovering from the terribleness that was Section 2, I must have read the first question at least three times, but Section 3 in and of itself was not so bad. There was a principle/application stimulus I don’t see very often. (I think it was this section. And I want to say I saw more than one.) But apart from that, nothing that struck me as odd or difficult.

Section 4: RC

Finally! Sanity. There’s nothing like an interesting passage about Charles Darwin in the context of the scientific community or a passage about a feminist writer and the framework of her written word that gets you as submerged in the LSAT.

Section 5: LR

For the last and final section with only 35 minutes of real thinking left to go, I reached deep down into the depths of my inner Yoda and pulled it out of me. I heard that some people found this section to be more difficult than the other LR section. I personally didn’t find that to be the case, but there was a weird flower/dinosaur extinction problem that threw me off for a second. That there was another problem about the extinction of dinosaurs wasn’t so weird as the question prompt. Seeing the word “explain” in the question made me immediately label the question as an Explain question, read the stimulus, and hit the answer choices, but I couldn’t find anything I liked. After re-reading the prompt, I discovered that it was a weakening question (note to all – know what you’re looking for in the answer choices!). Again, I think this problem was in this section but could be mistaken.

Well, that’s all folks! I hope you all did well. For those of you who didn’t and ultimately end up cancelling within the next few calendar days, who knows, I may see you on the 110…