Deep Space LC-170

I heard a rumor the other day (which I have made no effort at all to substantiate): our “extra” section, which is taking all of its classes over in our satellite classroom, LC-170, has taken to calling itself the “experimental section”. If this refers to what I think it refers, it’s pretty damn clever.

What makes an LSAT so precise is that every question on it has been tested by thousands and thousands of students before making it onto an actual exam. LSAC achieves this by forcing students taking an LSAT to answer a bunch of questions that won’t count toward their score but not telling them which ones those are:

The test consists of five 35-minute sections of multiple-choice questions. Four of the five sections contribute to the test taker’s score. The unscored section, commonly referred to as the variable section, typically is used to pretest new test questions or to preequate new test forms. The placement of this section will vary.

Only LSAC calls it the “variable section”. Aspiring law students have forever called it the “experimental section”. And everyone knew that if you found yourself answering a series of questions that didn’t quite make sense or were ambiguous or had two logically correct answers or no correct answers, that you should get ahold of yourself and not freak out because that probably was the experimental section.

So, I think the students relegated to LC-170 are feeling a little isolated. It’s interesting that, even though I’m sure that group was picked randomly, they may be self-identifying as the overflow group. We should do some cross-disciplinary work by getting some psychology students over there to write this up. Anyway, buck up, Experimental Section. You’re scheduled for integration next semester when LC-170 will no longer belong to any one section. And kudos on the name. You should have T-shirts printed up.