As a sports junkie, this is my favorite time of year. The Super Bowl has become little more than a commercial for Bud Light and Doritos. The NBA playoffs will begin soon and a champion will be crowned some time in mid-November. In college football, the bowl season is plagued by the whole “debate” over the BCS versus a playoff system (one plus: at least Tim Tebow is gone). The World Series is, well, baseball. But then there is college basketball and… March Madness!

(You can tell that I really enjoy the tourney because I generally reserve the use of exclamation points for fires and intimate moments.)

The march to the Final Four has it all. Upsets galore, Tyus Edney, players actually caring whether they win or lose, Bryce Drew, tons of games so there is always a close one to watch, players you have never seen before and will likely never see again, and some truly entertaining tears from Adam Morrison (at the hands of the once mighty Bruins).

So I thought it would only be appropriate for me to craft a tourney-inspired Logic Game. As every good fan should, I like to pull for the underdogs. Thus, this game will not feature Duke or Kentucky or Syracuse, but rather some of the schools that you might not have heard as much about.

Good luck…

East Tenn. St., Lehigh, Murray St., Northern Iowa, Oakland, Robert Morris, and UTEP are some of the powerhouse teams involved in the 2010 NCAA tournament. Teams that win two games on the first weekend make the Sweet Sixteen and teams that win four games over the first two weekends make the Final Four. Only teams that make the Sweet Sixteen will make the Final Four. The tournament must meet the following constraints:

If Lehigh makes the Sweet Sixteen, then Murray St. makes the Sweet Sixteen.
If Murray St. makes the Sweet Sixteen, then Oakland makes the Sweet Sixteen.
East Tenn. St. makes the Sweet Sixteen.
Unless Northern Iowa makes the Sweet Sixteen, East Tenn. St. cannot make the Final Four.
Northern Iowa does not make the Final Four, unless Robert Morris makes the Sweet Sixteen.
If Robert Morris makes the Final Four and Oakland makes the Sweet Sixteen, then UTEP makes the Final Four.

1. Which one of the following could be a complete and accurate list of the applicants that make the Sweet Sixteen?

(A) East Tenn. St., Lehigh
(B) East Tenn. St., Murray St.
(C) East Tenn. St., Oakland
(D) East Tenn. St., Lehigh, Oakland
(E) East Tenn. St., Lehigh, Murray St.

2. Which one of the following could be true?

(A) Lehigh and Robert Morris are the only schools that make the Sweet Sixteen.
(B) East Tenn. St., Murray St., and Northern Iowa are the only schools that make the Sweet Sixteen.
(C) Lehigh and one other school are the only schools that make the Sweet Sixteen.
(D) Lehigh and two other schools are the only schools that make the Sweet Sixteen.
(E) Lehigh and three other schools are the only schools that make the Sweet Sixteen.

3. If Robert Morris does not make the Sweet Sixteen, which one of the following must be true?

(A) Northern Iowa does not make the Sweet Sixteen.
(B) Northern Iowa makes the Sweet Sixteen but not the Final Four.
(C) East Tenn. St. does not make the Final Four.
(D) East Tenn. St. makes the Final Four but Northern Iowa does not.
(E) East Tenn. St. makes the Sweet Sixteen but Northern Iowa does not make the Final Four.

4. If Lehigh and five other schools are the only schools that make the Sweet Sixteen, and if exactly thee schools make the Final Four, then which one of the following could be an accurate list of the schools that make the Final Four?

(A) East Tenn. St., Oakland, Robert Morris
(B) East Tenn. St., Northern Iowa, Robert Morris
(C) Northern Iowa, Oakland, UTEP
(D) Lehigh, Murray St., Robert Morris
(E) Lehigh, Murray St., Oakland

5. If every school that makes the Sweet Sixteen makes the Final Four, and if Oakland makes the Final Four, then each of the following schools must make the Sweet Sixteen EXCEPT:

(A) East Tenn. St.
(B) Murray St.
(C) Northern Iowa
(D) Robert Morris
(E) UTEP

6. If UTEP does not make the Sweet Sixteen, and if exactly four schools make the Final Four, then which one of the following must be false?

(A) Oakland makes the Final Four.
(B) Robert Morris makes the Final Four.
(C) Murray St. makes the Sweet Sixteen.
(D) Northern Iowa makes the Sweet Sixteen.
(E) Lehigh makes the Sweet Sixteen.

Click here for the answers.

Hope you enjoyed that as much I enjoy the tournament. If that were a game on the actual LSAT, it would most likely be the most difficult game in the section. But you have to practice against the best to improve your skills. (Hopefully Arkansas-Pine Bluff remembers that this week when they take on the Blue Devils.)

And now…my predictions.

Final Four: Ohio State, Syracuse, West Virginia, Duke

Championship Game: Ohio State vs. West Virginia

And the winner is… Ohio State

Say hello to the final game from the September 2009 LSAT. In order to get through this game in less than an hour (and not slice your wrists in the process), some crucial deductions were needed.

Let’s take a look (the subject of the game has been slightly altered):

A young princess (not literally) is selecting friends to invite to her big Sweet 16 bash. She must invite at least three friends from among the following seven: Harriett, Liza, Margaret, Penelope, Sigourney, Tabitha, and Wilma. The birthday girl’s parents have placed the following restrictions on the invitations that can go out:

Doesn’t sound too bad, right? This is one of the basic and very common type of games on the LSAT. It involves selecting one group from a larger group. Feeling good, feeling strong, here comes the rules:

If Harriett, is invited, then neither Sigourney nor Margaret can be invited.
If Margaret is invited, then neither Penelope nor Tabitha can be invited.
If Wilma is invited, then neither Penelope nor Sigourney can be invited.

Again, nothing is screaming, “I am a terrible, bloody game that is going to bend you over and ruin your LSAT score.” However, the worst games don’t always have to scream; a whisper can be even more dangerous.

The rules here essentially rule out certain combinations of girls from being invited. This should sound familiar, we all have to follow similar rules in our everyday life. If I invite my cop friend, then I can’t invite my drug dealer friend. If the new girl that I am dating is going to show up, then the ex should be left off the invite list. Seems straightforward enough.

Trust me, if you dove into the questions on this game without doing some work, the road was similar to a quick trip through Assault on American Gladiators. Not the lame new version, the old school ass-kicking version against Sky and Nitro.

There are actually two elements that are working together on this game to create a scary combination: there are a bunch of combinations that do not work, and yet you still must meet a minimum requirement of invitees. This leads to a situation where certain combinations will not work because you will not be able to meet the minimum number of girls that must be invited. Here is the breakdown:

Harriett: Boots out 2 girls (Sigourney and Margaret)
Liza: Totally random
Margaret: Boots out 3 girls (Harriett, Penelope, and Tabitha)
Penelope: Boots out 2 girls (Margaret and Wilma)
Sigourney: Boots out 2 girls (Harriett and Wilma)
Tabatha: Boots out 1 girl (Margaret)
Wilma: Boots out 2 girls (Penelope and Sigourney)

The first thing that you should notice I already highlighted. Since there must be at least three girls that are invited, at most four girls can be left off the lucky list. If Margaret is invited, at least three girls are definitely gone.

Party time: M

Not so much: H P T

But wait, there’s more. Since both Wilma and Sigourney cannot be invited, and there is only one spot left in the un-cool group, one or the other would have to be invited and Liza would have to take the final spot.

Party time: M S/W L

Not so much: H P T W/S

This leads to the huge deduction that Margaret can only be invited if Liza is invited. And if Liza is not invited, then Margaret cannot be invited.

Armed with this deduction and the list of how many girls hate each other (who ever said that Logic Games were not like real life?), the questions were smooth sailing.

Happy studying…

Just look at the Olympics currently taking place north of the border. Seth Wescott became a star with a valiant comeback in snowboard cross. Bode Miller, the incredible disappointment from 2006, came back to win bronze in the men’s downhill. Lindsey Vonn bounces back from a leg injury (and some questionable bikini photos) to capture gold in the downhill. Shoot, even Shaun White came back (down to Earth) after spinning around what seemed to be 18 times in the halfpipe.

However, there is a comeback of another sort that also seems to be taking place. The return of… Logic Games. (Cue the sounds of screaming children.)

You see, these little beasts of the LSAT have been laying low for a number of years. I am generally not one to buy into rumors about the LSAT, but…

Ever since 2008, some very interesting Logic Games have been terrorizing pre-law students across the country. And by “interesting”, I mean incredibly fu*king hard.

Here are some highlights:

Note: Names have been altered to protect the identity of the actual participants of the games (and because LSAC doesn’t like that).

October 2008: Super Shuttle to Hell

The last game on this test involved a number of passengers who exit a shuttle at different stops. Doesn’t sound too bad, right? We have all taken a shuttle from LAX or JFK with a stop in mind. Not so fast… check out this rule: If Jezzabelle is still on board when the shuttle reaches Fifetown, then Greta is still on board when the shuttle reaches Satanville; otherwise, Greta is not still on board when the shuttle reaches Satanville. Yeah, that looks like about as much fun as a game of Trivial Pursuit with the Kardashians.

This one was ugly because it combined a type of game (tiered ordering) with rules that are normally reserved for another type of game (basic ordering). This is going to be the start of a trend.

December 2008: Manufacturing Plant of Death

Everything was going fine on this fateful day until students ran into this gem. So here’s the story. Some big-time executives have planned to visit the normal folks; they have planned tours down to the company’s manufacturing plants (likely accompanied by security guards and body armor). The task was to determine which executives visited which sites on which days. Not too bad, except that there were three days, three sites, and five executives. Wanna try to do the math on the number of possibilities in that one?

Once again, this game involved a combination of two elements. Executives and sites had to be ordered, sure, but there were also groups of executives. Harmless apart but very scary when thrown together.

June 2009: Mauve Dinos Attack

First, this game was about dinosaurs, which is always scary. Second, this game included the color mauve, which is inherently confusing. As of today, here are the stats:

Top alternate careers chosen due to getting fuc*ed by the mauve dino game:

1. 792 Beautician (includes hair, nails, and skin workers)
2. 451 Stripper (excuse me, “dancer”)
3. 216 Pez factory assembly line worker
4. 173 Off-ramp florist
5. 89 Personal assistant to D-list actor, actress, model, or someone who claims to be a “producer”

With the mauve dinos, the trend continued. The basic process here was to select five of seven types of dinosaurs. In addition, students had to discern the color of each dinosaur. Each of these tasks is very common in games, but they are normally kept apart. And for good reason. Dealing with them in the same game had disastrous effects (see above table).

December 2009: Summer School Sucks

After this game reared its ugly head, many students reported that they promptly went home and de-friended anyone named Alicia from their Facebook. This game begged you to select courses for little Alicia to take during a certain semester. That seems easy enough, but there was both a tricky “but not both” rules and there were two statistics classes that were offered at different times. Ouch.

Again, this game was combining a type of game (in and out grouping) with rules that normally only occur in a different type of game (ordering).

February 2010: The Great Mystery

The February test has not been released and it will not be released at any time in the near future. However, students across the board reported that the games on this one could be described by a word that rhymes with Blagojevich.

My interest was piqued because, once again, the hardest game allegedly combined some elements not generally found together. The third game was a tiered ordering game with conditional rules that are normally reserved for grouping games.

So… what does this all mean? Two things:

First, ugly games are popping up again. In the early 2000s, I often argued that the games were not getting easier, but they were changing. Rather than having one really easy game and one impossibly difficult game (as was common in the 90s along with bright and baggy attire), the games section frequently featured a mix of games of average difficulty. But it now appears that the big dogs are back, and you better be ready.

Second, they are creating “new” games. To clarify, there is actually nothing new about these games. But your friends over at LSAC seem to be combining elements of games that are not generally found together to create some new challenges.

Good times…

For some students, this decision brings sleepless nights and lots of overeating. A bad LSAT score is not a great thing to have on your record. Not as bad as a conviction for international espionage or anything, but not great.

Let me first take a moment to sympathize with the difficult predicament that is the decision about whether to cancel your score.

You have to decide whether you like your score or not before you ever see it.

The analogies abound to illustrate why this is a tough call to make. It would be very dangerous if the coach of a team had to pick his players before he ever sees the tryouts. You could end up drafting a fine physical specimen like this. Can you imagine if you had to make decisions about your dating life before you actually met the suspects in question? You could end up spending your tender years with this guy. Yikes.

And the LSAT tends to be accompanied by slightly more stress than most other decisions that one needs to make.

If you are still trying to make a decision, we do have some resources to help you. First is a video with an exercise designed to help you predict your final score and Trent wrote a post about how schools view multiple scores and cancellations.

I generally tell my students that there are three major factors to weigh:

1. When do you want to go to law school?

As you are probably aware, law schools admit students on a rolling basis. That means that students start to hear back from schools as early as the fall. If you cancel your February score and retake the LSAT in June, you will be delaying entering law school for an academic year.

If you are not planning to apply this year, then you have plenty of time to take the LSAT again.

2. Have you taken it before?

Law schools give everybody a mulligan. But you really only get one. If you have cancelled before, then you should be a little more reticent to cancel again. But it is still probably better than having a low score on your record. If you do have more than one cancellation, a good explanation for them, and a higher LSAT score, then that’s probably not going to hurt you in your applications.

3. What is going to change?

If you want to perform better on a later LSAT, something has to change. Maybe you will have more time to study? That could help. Maybe you think you will be better able to handle the stress of the test? Also a good thing.

But if you don’t have the time or energy to do anything different, then it might be good to just keep your February score.

So I just wanted to give you a reminder that the date is here. Missing the deadline is never a good feeling.

Good luck with the decision. We hope everyone who took the February LSAT is enjoying the return to sanity now that the test is over.

Originally posted December 10th, 2009

But they don’t talk about sports. Well, not much, at least.

And I think I might know why. There are certain issues in sports that I believe can poke holes in the reasoning used on the LSAT.

For example, let’s discuss the NFL playoffs. There are four more games coming up this weekend. On Saturday, the Cardinals go to New Orleans to try to upset the Saints (-7) and the Ravens will try to injure Peyton Manning before he inevitably mounts a comeback to beat them in the 4th quarter (-6½). On Sunday, the Cowboys travel to Minnesota to deal with the ageless Favre (-2½) and the Jets bring their impressive defense and fat coach to sunny San Diego to deal with the Chargers (-7) and LT (who has apparently lost his mind and his rhythm).

As I was reading through the various articles on the upcoming games, I couldn’t help but pick up on a trend in every report. Sports commentators base their arguments on a method of reasoning that is clearly fallacious on the LSAT. They commit temporal fallacies like they are going out of style.

• “History says one or two road ‘dogs will pull off divisional-round upsets.” (Sportsline)
• “This is Ken Whisenhunt’s time of the season, with the Cards’ head coach 4-0 in the NFC playoffs.” (Clark Judge)
• “(The Cardinals) hammered a 12-4 Panthers team on the road in the divisional round last season.” (ESPN)
• “The Jets seem to be H-O-T, H-O-T, H-O-T. They just blew out the Bengals…” (Bill Simmons)

If you have lived in our sports-crazed nation for more than a couple hours, you have undoubtedly heard statements like the above. Granted, these claims are at least attempting to base a conclusion on some body of evidence. This naturally makes them more convincing than some other platitudes that are thrown around in sports (“I was just feeling it,” “we just take it one game at a time,” “we played with a lot of heart,” “he has great intangibles”).

However, the LSAT constantly warns against the use of such temporal arguments. In the legal world, evidence of prior acts is commonly excluded from trials because it is deemed to be irrelevant to the issues at hand.

But where is the line? If Kurt Warner went 29-of-33 with 5 touchdowns last week, is that a reasonable basis for concluding that the Cardinals are more likely to beat the Saints this week? If Brett Favre started to look his age (72, I believe) down the stretch of the regular season, does that imply that the Cowboys have a better chance for an upset?

Here is an LSAT question that can be used for comparison:

Executive: Our next environmental proposal will likely be approved, because normally about half of the environmental proposals that the prime minister reviews are approved, and our last five environmental proposals have all been rejected.

The argument’s reasoning is flawed because

So the basic argument here is that we are going to win on this proposal because we lost on the last five. This is a Flaw question. The LSAT (and, by extension, the legal profession) clearly must believe that this is an invalid argument. The answer choice states that this argument makes the unsupported assumption that having the last five proposals turned down affects the chances for the current proposal.

It is notable that the answer choice does not say that the argument draws too strong of a conclusion, but rather the answer states that it is a mistake to conclude that the past has any effect at all on the current proposal.

Now, if this were the wide world of sports, the argument should conclude that the current proposal will have the same fate as the earlier proposals (continue the hot streak). Many commentators are concluding that the Colts are going to win this weekend because they have won in the past and Peyton was the league MVP this season. But the point remains the same. The evidence about the past is supposed to be irrelevant to the present circumstances.

But where is the line?

Anyone who has played sports will agree that there is some relationship between the past and the present. It sounds like crazy-talk, but many of us have entered the proverbial “zone” in which we feel unstoppable. The baseball moves slower, the hoop appears to be the size of a small lake, and the ducks seem to be flying much slower (for all of you in the red states).

But it would seem that you have to be very careful about what type of evidence can be used to forecast into the future. It occurs to me that there are two requirements that must be in order to use the past to make predictions about the future:

1. The situations need to be similar in form and time.
2. The issue in question must be something that translates in time from one event to the next.

First, you have to make reasonable comparisons. This is where sports really sways off course. If I have to hear one more time about stats dating back to 1960, I am going to hurt myself. Did you know that the Cowboys are only 2-7 against the Vikings in the playoffs? Of course this stat is all-time. Most of the players on the two teams were not even born when these games were played. And I am supposed to believe that this has some effect on their performance this weekend?

Decades ago definitely doesn’t matter, last year doesn’t even really matter.

The second issue is equally important. If you flipped a coin and it ended up heads five times in a row, does that mean the next one will be heads? No, because those occurrences are not related. We have all been burned by this fallacy in Vegas and the damned game of roulette. Five blacks in a row? Bet big on red; lose big on red.

However, if a concert pianist plays four flawless performances in a row, does that mean that she is more likely to play well in performance number five? I would say yes. It surely does not guarantee it, but that evidence seems highly relevant.

The pianist seems to be a much better analogy to sports than flipping a coin. So there would seem to be some situations in sports that violate the temporal fallacies that abound on the LSAT. But as long as you follow the two rules outlined above, you should be just fine.

While I am on the topic, here are my picks for the weekend. The Saints will beat the Cardinals 134 – 96 in the highest scoring game ever. Peyton will lead a fouth-quarter comeback, win, and then film 18 commercials simultaneously. The Chargers will finally make it so that I don’t have to watch the Jets and Dirty Sanchez anymore.

And my upset pick: Cowboys over Vikings. I mean, come on, Tony Romo has been so hot lately.

The United States swore in our first black President. The King of Pop kicked the can. We finally achieved health care reform… sorta. We started to bounce back from the recession… kinda. A Tiger became a cheetah. And the Yankees won another World Series.

Well, all of that is well and good, but it has been an equally eventful year for those of us in the LSAT world. And I would like to take this opportunity to take a stroll down memory lane. Some highlights…

February

The February LSAT was held on the seventh day of the month. February tests aren’t released so it’s difficult to say much about them as a person’s memories of the test without written assistance are about as good as Tiger’s chance of reconciliation with Elin. There was a reason man invented paper and that the oral tradition only exists in reading comprehension passages.

March

Thousands of prospective students begin to study for the June LSAT. Little did they know what was awaiting them on game day. I won’t give it away, but it was big, it was extinct, and it was mauve.

June

The June LSAT was administered on June 8, 2009. That day will live in infamy.

On this day, the mauve dinosaur game came to life and LSAT students have been horrified ever since. For weeks, mauve dinosaurs were all that people could talk about, although the game normally went by a more informal name: that fu*@ing piece of sh#% crap game about the fu*%ing mauve dinosaurs.

The Logic Games on the June LSAT was the hardest section of games that has popped up in quite a while. Many predicted that this would start a trend for the test, but the games since then have not quite lived up to the reddish/purpleish dinos.

August

Despite the success of such notable programs as Cash for Clunkers, the job market continued to slide over the summer, and the legal profession was not immune to the effects of the economy.

Lots of rumors started circulating about the demise of big law. What are LSAT students to do if they cannot get their cushy six-figure job at the end of the rainbow that is law school?

Law firms started deferring entering associates and offering ridiculously awesome packages if you did not want to actually work for a year. I was very confused about the ensuing uproar. I’m not going to complain if anyone out there wants to pay me $80,000 to take a yearlong vacation. Any takers? Anyone?

Nowadays, law firms seem to be making a recovery and lawyers are back to making the big bucks and driving fancy German automobiles, so there is hope for us yet.

September

September was big. Really big. On September 26, more people took the LSAT than had ever before taken the LSAT. Ever.

As anyone who has actually sat through an LSAT can attest, it is unlikely that many of these people were taking it for fun. There are many more pleasurable activities that one can use to fill a Saturday morning. Like counting the blades of grass on your lawn. Or having knives hurled at your face.

There seems to be a confluence of factors that have led to the increasing LSAT numbers. There is the economy. There is the change in rules regarding postponing. There is the competitiveness in admissions. There is Jersey Shore. Okay, that last one probably has not played much of a role, but that shows deserves mention in at least every other post.

The test itself was rather unremarkable. I happened to take it and get a 178, as did my colleague, Colin. Everyone was frightened that there was going to be a mauve dinosaur-esque game, but there was not. No aqua hippos or fuchsia gorillas to be found.

October

The scores from the September LSAT were released. Screams were heard from across the country. In a totally unrelated story, test centers for the December LSAT were flooded with new test takers.

December

And here we are. The December LSAT passed without too much fanfare, (although there was something about an RC sculpting passage), but the big news came out recently. The curve for the December test was the easiest curve in a long time. You could practically just bubble (D) for the whole test and come out of there with a 152.

It is debatable whether this trend will continue into the future, but it appears that the increasing numbers of test takers are finally having an effect. Less studying by them means a better curve for you. Thank you very much.

So there it was; 2009 in all its glory. Here’s wishing all of you MSS readers a great 2010 and a Happy New Year.

Thousands of anxious LSAT students awoke this morning with a frightening email in their Inbox. Subject: Your December 2009 LSAT Score. After a brief panic attack and some inspirational videos, many students have not yet summoned the courage to actually open said email.

But once you have, you can join the big topic of conversation… the curve.

The curve for the December LSAT is the most lenient in recent LSAT history. I had predicted that the curve would be forgiving, but this curve is easier than a sorority girl/boy on Halloween. Take a look:

Normally a student can miss 10 questions to get a 170. In December, missing 14 questions earned you that honor. Typically you can miss about 24 questions to get a 160, but the test allowed you to bubble incorrectly on 28 questions in December and still receive a 160.

It is important to understand that this is a curve. These numbers do not mean that a higher percentage of test takers got those lovely scores this time around. The numbers simply mean that you had a little more wiggle room to get those top scores. There are various theories about why the curve has lightened up this year, but I am sticking to my original theory.

The initial report is that the Logical Reasoning was abnormally difficult and this also could have had a significant effect on the curve.

We hope that everyone is getting great news in that Inbox and would love to hear your thoughts about the curve and your LSAT score.

In the land of LSAT students and law school applicants, the holidays can be a very busy time of year.

First, LSAT scores are coming. Soon. As always, LSAC has estimated that scores will be released sometime in mid-2012, but they will inevitably beat those time estimates. This year is a little hard to predict because Christmas falls on the day that scores would normally be released. As much as you may be convinced that the people at LSAC live in dark holes and do nothing but discuss various theories related to the extinction of the dinosaurs, they probably do have some version of a family and this will prevent them from unveiling scores on Christmas. (Also, sending scores out on Christmas would only add to the legends of the torture that LSAC inflicts on LSAT takers. I mean, can you imagine the terror of getting that email within hours of Santa dropping off the presents? Not cool.) My best guess is that scores will surface on Thursday or next Monday. If you are waiting for your score, this will clearly have a strong effect on your holiday spirit. A good score could be better than the puppy that you got when you were nine. A 132 might have you cursing Santa.

Second, application season is in full swing. Personal statements are being agonized over, letters of recommendation are being begged for, and excuses for that freshman year GPA are being invented. Between the holidays and applications, it’s easy for LSAT study to get lost in the shuffle. But now is not the time to lose focus.

A while back, I wrote a post about how to study over the Thanksgiving break.

Well, now it is winter break. And it clearly deserves some LSAT exercises of its own. So here are some quick drills that I came up with to keep your brain sharp in between the eggnog and mind-numbing carols.

1. Nothing Says Chrismakwanzukkah like… illegitimate children

Okay, this has very little to do with the holidays. One could actually argue that this is the antithesis of the holiday spirit. But it is kinda hilarious.

Check out this list. Shawn Kemp… sure, that is common knowledge. But Scott Skiles? Randy Johnson?

This list can make the basis for one hell of an Ordering game. Here are the constraints. Try to order these athletes according to their monthly paternity payments. But this is not as simple as it may seem. This must take into account not just number of illegitimate children fathered, but also be a measure of their current and past income. For instance, Dwight Howard might only have one illegitimate child but he is making big bucks these days, whereas the infamous Shawn Kemp (somewhere between 9 and 11 children from somewhere between 8 and 9 women) is most likely broke these days.

As you can quickly tell, this is way more complicated than any Logic Game. Good luck.

2. Anticipation is key

In Logical Reasoning (and other sections), anticipation is critical. Well, you can challenge yourself to use the same skills around gift opening time.

You know what your aunt got for your sister, or what your brother bought for your mom. So now it is time to use those keen skills of anticipation to predict the reactions of the giftees.

Older sister has a hideous sweater coming from grandma. Here is an educated guess as to her reactions, in order. Awkward smile. Show the sweater to the crowd. Stand and hug. Joke about really needing a new sweater. Uncomfortable laugh. Return to seat. Three heavy swigs of eggnog to dull the pain. If you can ace this, Strengthen questions are going to be a breeze.

On an actual note, make sure to get some studying in over the winter break. Don’t stress yourself out but some Logical Reasoning mixed in with that fruitcake will make for a really satisfying combo.

Oh, and…. Happy Holidays!

For some students, this decision brings sleepless nights and lots of overeating. A bad LSAT score is not a great thing to have on your record. Not as bad as a conviction for international espionage or anything, but not great.

Let me first take a moment to sympathize with the difficult predicament that is the decision about whether to cancel your score.

You have to decide whether you like your score or not before you ever see it.

The analogies abound to illustrate why this is a tough call to make. It would be very dangerous if the coach of a team had to pick his players before he ever sees the tryouts. You could end up drafting a fine physical specimen like this. Can you imagine if you had to make decisions about your dating life before you actually met the suspects in question? You could end up spending your tender years with this guy. Yikes.

And the LSAT tends to be accompanied by slightly more stress than most other decisions that one needs to make.

If you are still trying to make a decision, we do have some resources to help you. First is a video with an exercise designed to help you predict your final score and Trent recently wrote a post about how schools view multiple scores and cancellations.

I generally tell my students that there are three major factors to weigh:

1. When do you want to go to law school?

As you are probably aware, law schools admit students on a rolling basis. That means that students are already starting to hear back from schools. If you cancel your December score and retake the LSAT in February, this will necessitate a delay in your applications.

If you are not planning to apply this year, then you have plenty of time to take the LSAT again.

2. Have you taken it before?

Law schools give everybody a mulligan. But you really only get one. If you have cancelled before, then you should be a little more reticent to cancel again. But it is still probably better than having a low score on your record. If you do have more than one cancellation, a good explanation for them, and a higher LSAT score, then that’s probably not going to hurt you in your applications.

3. What is going to change?

If you want to perform better on a later LSAT, something has to change. Maybe you will have more time to study? That could help. Maybe you think you will be better able to handle the stress of the test? Also a good thing.

But if you don’t have the time or energy to do anything different, then it might be good to just keep your December score.

So I just wanted to give you a reminder that the date is here. Missing the deadline is never a good feeling.

Good luck with the decision. We hope everyone who took the December LSAT is enjoying the return to sanity now that the test is over.

But screw it, I say we amp it up a notch. Let’s bring the LSAT to Thanksgiving.

Actual course books might not be acceptable at the dinner table, but that does not mean that you can’t get in a little practice while you are consuming your 8,000 or so calories. So I have designed the following exercises to help you use this wonderful feast to aid you in your studies.

1.      Logic Games

If your family is like mine, Thanksgiving will be filled with lots of turkey, stuffing, conversation, and, most importantly, drinking. Lots of drinking. Mimosas to start the day off right, wine will start to appear around 10:30 (AM, that is), and we will be hitting the hard stuff before kickoff.

What some may see as alcoholism I see as a perfect opportunity. You can use these libatious festivities to create a Logic Game. I am visualizing an Ordering game in which you have to rank your family members according to whom will be the most shit-faced by the end of the night.

    •    Grandpa Joe will be more intoxicated than cousin Ed.
    •     Aunt Peggy is driving home, so she will not be among the three most intoxicated family members.
    •     Uncle Bob and Grandma Fran are going shot-for-shot, so they will finish the evening ranked consecutively.

At the end of the night, give yourself points based on how many of the family members you were able to accurately predict based on all of the rules that you outlined.

The next exercise is centered solely on the dinner table. We have all been through a number of turkey day feasts and you should know that the eating part of the day takes a good amount of planning. Your plate is only so big and there are many tasty options from which to choose. If you go big on the turkey early, you might miss out on the candied yams by the time some empty real estate reappears on your plate. And you always have to remember to save some room for pumpkin pie. Call me an LSAT-crazed lunatic, but this sounds like a Grouping game to me. Pick a couple relatives that are sitting in your vicinity and attempt to diagram their eating choices as though they are rules in an In and Out Grouping game.

    •     If stuffing hits the plate, then gravy is sure to follow (hence, no gravy implies no stuffing).
    •     Turkey is eaten if, but only if, cranberry sauce is still available.
    •     If one more serving of mashed potatoes is taken, then there will be no apple pie (thus apple pie requires no more spuds).

Who knew this holiday could be so complicated?

2.     Logical Reasoning

Getting the family together can also be a great chance to work on your argument evaluation skills. As the wine flows, so will the fallacies. You should challenge yourself to spot as many flaws as you can during the course of the day.

    •    Cousin Cleetus: “Man, that Obama dude is in a heap of trouble. Can’t nobody find his birth certificate, so he musta been born somewhere else.” (flaw: absence of evidence)
    •     Sister: “You should really buy me a nice Christmas present this year because I just broke up with my boyfriend.” (flaw: appealing to emotion)
    •     Uncle Dwayne: “The Cowboys never lose on Thanksgiving, so they are obviously gonna win today.” (flaw: temporal; past vs. future)
    •     Aunt Doris: “Hoo-wee, my tummy got a little tipsy turvy right after I ate that cranberry sauce, so everyone else should stay away.” (flaw: correlation vs. causation)
    •     Grandpa Bob: “Don’t listen to that damn dirty hubby of yours. He is a bum.” (flaw: ad hominem)

And you always thought your family was so smart…

3.      Reading Comprehension

You are going to hear a lot of stories on Thursday. Some of them will be true, others not so much. Some of them will be interesting, others not so much. Thus, these stories bear a strong resemblance to the Reading Comprehension section of the LSAT.

In order to get a little practice in this critical area of the test, you should pretend that each story that you hear is a different RC passage. Listen intently as you know there will be a number of questions to follow. Then, when the story wraps up, summarize the important parts of the story so you can anticipate the questions that would likely follow.

For example, when Grandpa Ralph begins his tale about saving the family dog, Rex, from a bear during a camping trip, here is what should be going through your finely-tuned LSAT brain:

    •     Main point: Grandpa Ralph is a hero for wrestling the bear with his bare hands and saving Rex from certain death.
    •     Primary Purpose: It would seem that Grandpa is attempting to entertain the family while also teaching the children an important (though dangerous to emulate) story about courage.
    •     Author’s Attitude: Enthusiastic about the tale, although definitely slightly confused over some of the details (that could be the booze).
    •     Other Viewpoints: Grandma is shaking her head in frustration (a likely sign that this story has been embellished over the years); the other family members range from intellectual interest to semi-conscious boredom (again, alcohol is likely a contributing factor).

If you are able to break down and comprehend the drunken ramblings of family members after engorging enough turkey to feed a small tribe, then reading your next passage about advances in the biotech industry will be a breeze.

And of course, don’t forget to have a Happy Thanksgiving.