Boycotting the LSAT

Funny thing happened on the way to law school. I went online to register for the LSAT today, and their registration form put a crimp in my plans. As somebody who was once contacted by the Manhattan District Attorney's office to tell me they'd caught a guy with my name and social security number on a list as he was trying to pass a bad credit card, I've gotten a little sensitive about handing out all my personal information. The LSAC isn't happy with your name and address, not even the social security number is enough. They want your mother's maiden name, your date of birth, every scrap of information that somebody hacking their database would need to commit identity fraud.

I'm sure they take their duty to prevent potential law school candidates from employing ringers or using false ID's seriously, but this is over the top for signing up to take a test just to see how I do. As much as I've come to enjoy the sample test problems, I know myself well enough to recognize when my heart isn't in something. My basic formula for figuring out how determined I am about going somewhere is how big an obstacle I'm willing to overcome to get there. In this instance, I'm not willing to fill out an online form, which I'll have to admit isn't that big an obstacle.

So that brings this blogging chapter to an end. I'll be boycotting the LSAT in June, and probably every subsequent test date as well. As my cousin Ernie once famously advised me, "You shouldn't go to grad school to run away from life," and if I didn't take his advice then, I'll pretend I'm taking it now. Law School for me was a fallback plan for if my income holds up and I can't come up with anything better to do with my time, but that application form reminded me that it's just an opportunity to follow somebody else's rules and routine for three years, something that I've never been good at. I think I'll spend the entrance fee I saved on a good bottle of Scotch and offer myself a toast to finding something more constructive to do with my time. It beats toasting to business failure:-)

Raising LSAT Scores Is Almost Impossible:-)

Ok, I may have overstated the case in the headline, obviously raising LSAT scores is possible, but it ain't easy. The problem is that the LSAT scores are normalized or force fit to a bell curve, and very few test takers get nearly all of the questions right or wrong. By the time you get up to around 90% correct (90 out of 100) each additional correct answer can raise your score by a full point. Below 90%, through the fat (ie, dummies like me) part of the bell curve, it takes a couple correct answers to raise the LSAT score by one. Apparently, most people get at least 16 questions right, because raising your percentage correct from zero to fifteen percent only raises your LSAT score by 1, from 120 to 121.

I wouldn't have noticed this but I retook just the analytical section of the second practice test under timed conditions to see if I'd do any better graphing and how it would affect my score. Results were mixed, as I failed to develop a graph for one of the problem, and had to guess several of the answers, going 3 for 6 on that problem. I did fine on the rest of the section, raising my overall score from 14 for 23 to 19 for 23, which amounts to 5% more correct answers for the overall LSAT. Unfortunately, those five extra correct answers only raised my overall score from 164 to 167. It's hard to excel at something when you're only average, but it beats being one of the shmucks who got 100 or 99, when 98 translated into a perfect score for this test:-)

I'll have to sit down and figure out my failure to graph the third question, which was all about people with funky names at a car wash getting different grades of a wash job in different orders. I think the part that threw me was that the rules section was split into rules about the people and rules about the cars, but it will all come out in the wash. The one other answer I got wrong was due to a very specific graphing error that made me assume I had the correct answer before I reached the only answer that could have been correct. I failed to count the total number of options, which created an unstated condition to the rules themselves. A good trick to remember.

How to Diagram LSAT Questions

Well, I finally sat down and did a couple of these crazy analytical problems that I keep running out of time on. I kept running out of time because I'd get brain-locked when I was unable to solve the things in my head after drawing useless logic diagrams. My background in computers had me trying to use Boolean logic to solve the things, AND, OR, NAND, NOR - didn't get me anywhere. I'm proud to report that on going back and doing two problems from the first test that I couldn't get through my first time around, I went 11 for 11 on the answers, 100% correct. The best part is that it was obvious the answers were right as I chose them, because these problem types only have one correct answer.

My previous failures have me a pretty good idea of how not to diagram an LSAT problem, and one of the things I learned is that abbreviations don't work real well for me. I'm sure that everybody else taking the test uses "B" for "Bob" and "N" for "Natasha", and the LSAT authors seem to play along by uses names with unique first letters. The problem is, I don't associate "B" with "Bob", I associate "B" with "B". So this time, I wrote out all the proper names. Next, I tried to combine the visual aspect with an operator. I used "/" between proper names to say, "these to things have to be next to each other. For things that get put into order, I simply write the thing that comes first over the thing that comes next.

The important thing is to diagram the "must" relationships first, the laws. If Arthur must follow Bob, then I write Bob over Arthur. If Bob must be with Catherine, I add Catherine to the line with Bob, over Arthur. These rules are always presented under the little story paragraph, which has nothing to do with solving or diagramming the problem, unless it gives you a count of how many spots in the order there will be, or some general rule about crowding those spots. The rules deal with the proper names of the things or people getting put in order, the story just gives you a framework.

It's also critical to make a list or diagram of any "free agents", proper names that don't have to be in a certain order, because just knowing who can go anywhere can answer a question. For the time being, another approach I'm using is if you have a "must" relationship that can work two ways, diagram it both ways with OR in between.

Once the rules are properly diagramed, I find I can answer some of the questions without resorting to creating a list. However, if I need a list, I find I can now get away with using initials rather than the whole proper name. I also learned that when you get to the right answer, you better stop. If the right answer is (A), don't waste time reading (and solving for) (B) through (E) just for the sake of feeling confident.

I timed myself on the second LSAT question, it took me six minutes to do the diagram and another six minutes to answer the five questions. I think I should be able to cut this in half with a little practice, because the process was starting to feel familiar the second time around. I'm going to go back and do the rest of the analytical problems, and then maybe I'll pick a couple off the web or out of the back of the book before I start practicing on whole tests. I hate to admit it, but getting the right answers was kind of fun, just a time challenge now.

LSAT Results, GPA and Law School Options

Computed my results for the second LSAT practice test, went 78 for 100, which translated into a score of 164. A little fishing around the web indicates that a 164 is around the 90th percentile, or top 10%, but it feels pretty shabby. I did finish the last section in under 30 minutes this time, with 25 minutes being the time limit, but had the same disagreements as usual with the official answer guide in "The Next 10, Actual Official LSAT PrepTests(TM). I have particular trouble with the question of the type "based on the above, which of the following statements do they (dis)agree the most about?"

In all fairness, I can see where this would be a critical for a lawyer engaged in negotiations. If you can figure out the primary points of contention and agreement, you're going to waste a lot of time going about in circles. That said, I simply don't agree with the LSAT answers in some of these cases, even if I choose the result they declare correct through luck or empathy.

Armed with the LSAT score, I popped into the most popular site Googled turned up for what to do with it. What immediately became apparent is that my LSAT results are out of sync with my GPA, which I believe was around a 2.9 as an undergraduate in Electrical Engineering, and maybe a 3.2 in graduate school. I don't really recall because I'm old now, but I'm pretty sure you had to maintain at least a 3.0 in grad school or they kicked you out, which often happened. Obviously, this was in the days before grade inflation. Reminds me of the troubleshooting chart I drew up for student problems a few months ago.

If law schools really do base admissions on an undergraduate or graduate record from 20 years ago, I may as well punt now, because my GPA isn't going to allow me into any interesting schools. While it strikes me as kind of silly, I can't say it's unfair, I didn't give a damn about grades when I was young and I give even less of a damn now. Finding out just how much my options for a law school have been limited by my youthful academic crimes will probably have to wait until I have LSAT results in hand, which if good enough, would at least be a conversation opener.

In the meantime, I'm going to put more time into looking for a house in New Hampshire before Massachusetts passes legislation making it illegal for long time residents to leave the state:-)

My First DMCA Filing

I'm getting really fed-up with people who infringe on my copyrights by stealing pages from my website. Most infringers don't even bother removing my copyright notification and appear to be happily ignorant of copyright law. Some figure that copying is an easy way to generate traffic for their site, without taking the possible consequences to my site into account. In other cases, the theft (and it really is theft) is a blatant move to profit through Internet advertising.

In the past, I've e-mailed search engine support staff asking for them to remove infringing pages from their directory, sometimes with success, sometimes without. In this instance, when I wrote directly to Google Adsense since an infringing site was also monetizing the theft with ads, the support team responded with a point-by-point list for how to file a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) complaint with them. I figure since I'm studying for the LSAT I may as well see what it's like to do a little simple lawyering for myself.

What I liked about the Google DMCA filing is they provided a nice boilerplate form, eight easy steps. The first step was to identify the copyrighted work being infringed upon, which was easy since it's a web page on my site with a registered copyright. The second step was to identify the infringing pages and material, which is just a URL and a brief description. Third, I gave my contact info, and fourth, I looked up the infringers contact info on whois.sc

Fifth, they asked for a verbatim reproduction of the statement "I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described on the allegedly infringing web pages is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law." This appears to be universal boilerplate for a DMCA complaint. Sixth, the verbatim statement, "I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed." Now we're talking lawyer-like!

Seventh, you sign the complaint (I added a date as well, hope that doesn't invalidate it:-) and last, you mail or fax it in. I'm going with the fax.

Stated or Implied on LSAT

Took the third section of my second practice test, went 23 for 27, which seems to be about my upper limit on these things. On the bright side, I finished with enough time leftover to go back and look at a couple answers I didn't have much confidence in. I changed one from correct to incorrect, and the other from incorrect to correct, so I guess finishing early doesn't get me anywhere.

I'm not real crazy about these LSAT story problems with questions based on what's "stated or implied" in the reading. I thought the whole point of contract law was to get away from implied obligations and get it all down in black and white, but that's probably another misconception on my part. The easiest type of questions in this type of section for me are the ones that ask something specific about line X. The ones that give me the most trouble are the ones that ask the best expression of one of the players views about another player, or what view a player would be likely to hold about a subject. At least when I sat down and checked my answers I could accept that the wrong ones were in fact wrong, unlike the previous section. Still, I think the grading mechanism should take my implied score into account when stating my actual score. I'm willing to supply plenty of hints.

The formulation of the questions about what X thinks about Y's opinion of Z remind me of the old comedy skit (or maybe it was serious) with: "The party of the first party alleges that the party of the second party did party with the party of the third party at the expense of the party of the first party without making the party of the first party party to the party...

What Happens in Law School

Note to self - find out what happens in law school. I was trying to remember scenes from "The Paper Chase" today and all I could come up with was a bunch of geeks arguing over their notes. Does the faculty in law school really drone on at length in an attempt to put you to sleep, and then pick students off the seating chart to torture with obscure questions? Sounds like something only a kid could love.

I have a friend who has been institutionalized a few times, but who insists that the mental health professionals are "working for him." It's hard for me to understand how he holds onto that thought when the orderlies hold him down and administer drugs. I'm not interested in an education that resembles that sort of experience in any way. After 15 years of being in business for myself, I don't need to be treated like some kid going through hazing to get in with the right crowd.

So, what really happens in law school? How many hours a day are spent in lectures, how many hours working in groups, and is the main "product" written papers or multiple guess tests on Latin comprehension. Do students give presentations in every class, are there staged confrontations, is the whole thing one long exercise in memorization?

I wonder if young law students know the answers to all these questions. Maybe it's in their DNA, or their lawyer parents tell them the score. Good thing I have studying for the LSAT's to keep me busy, or I'd have talked myself out of law school already:-)