The LSAT, or the Law School Admission Test, is a required exam for those who are aspiring lawyers and are entering law school. This exam tests law school candidates on their critical reading and analytical thinking skills; skills that are crucial to being successful in law school.
You probably know that having a good LSAT exam score in an important part of getting into the law school of your choice, so it’s important to understand how the LSAT is scored.
How is the LSAT Scored?
There are three sections on the LSAT exam:
• Reading Comprehension: Tests your understanding of a passage that is 3 to 5 paragraphs long
• Logical Reasoning: Tests how well you understand logical errors
• Analytical Reasoning: Tests your ability to solve logic games
You will receive your scores in three ways:
Raw Score
Each section contains a different amount of questions. However, each section is weighted exactly the same when it comes to your score. This means that the harder questions are worth just as much as the easier ones. You will receive a raw score from each section based on the number of questions that you answer correctly; there is no deduction for any incorrect answers. The LSAT exam typically has 94 to 106 questions which will give you a raw score that ranges between 0 to a maximum of 94 to 106.
Scaled Score
The raw score that you receive is converted into a scaled score which ranges from 120 to 180. If you have a raw score of 67, meaning that you got 67 answers correct, that score is converted into a scaled score of 156. The conversion of the raw to scaled scores is done because each LSAT test differs in overall difficulty; one LSAT test is more difficult than the next.
LSAT Percentiles
Your scaled score is converted into a percentile score. This score shows how well you did on the test compared to other test-takers over a three year period.
What is Considered a Good LSAT Score?
A good score for the LSAT exam is the same as any other exam: it depends on your own expectations and goals. A good score also depends on which law school you want to get into. The national average for the LSAT exam is 150. If you’ve chosen a law school that you want to attend, the best thing to do is to contact the school directly to see what kind of LSAT scores they are looking for. However, keep in mind that many law schools do not just look at your LSAT score; they also look at things such as your GPA, recommendations and personal statements to decide if they want to accept you.
Average LSAT Score
LSAT scores range from 120 to 180. The median average score is roughly 152. To get this average score, you’ll need to get about 60 questions correct, out of 99 to 102 total questions. The lowest score you can get on the LSAT is 120, but it’s almost impossible because that means that you’ll need to flop the entire exam. It’s also almost impossible to get the highest score of 180 simply because of how difficult the test is.
Remember that your final LSAT score is your scaled score which corresponds to a percentile score. This percentile score shows you how well you did compared to other test takers. With the average LSAT score being 152, this means that you got about half of the questions correct and this is the score that you should strive for. However, getting a 152 does not necessarily mean that you’ll be accepted into a good law school. Having a score of 152 means that you ranked in the 50th percentile and that you did better than 50 percent of all test-takers. If your goal is to get into one of the top 25 law schools in the country, you’ll need to achieve a score of 160 or better.
LSAT Scores for the Top 10 Law Schools
