LSAT Deadline for Canadian Law school admission

Ontario Law Schools:

University of Toronto Law School: the last LSAT for admission is the January LSAT for that year of admission

https://www.law.utoronto.ca/jd-admissions-timeline

Osgoode Law School (York University): the last LSAT for admission is the January LSAT for that year of admission

https://www.osgoode.yorku.ca/programs/juris-doctor/jd-admissions/first-year-applicants/eligibility-requirements/

University of Queen’s Law School: the last LSAT for admission is the February LSAT for that year of admission

https://law.queensu.ca/frequently-asked-questions

University of Western Law School: the last LSAT for admission is the February LSAT for that year of admission

https://law.uwo.ca/future_students/jd_admissions/admissions_FAQ/law_school_admission_test.html

University of Windsor Law School:

For the single JD programs: The latest LSAT score accepted is the January test score of the year of application.

For the Dual JD program: The latest LSAT score accepted is the April test score of the year of application. 

https://www.uwindsor.ca/law/1163/windsor-law-admissions-faq

Lakehead University – Bora Laskin Law School: the last LSAT for admission is the January LSAT for that year of admission

https://www.lakeheadu.ca/programs/departments/law/admissions

University of Ottawa Law School: the last LSAT for admission is the January LSAT for that year of admission

https://commonlaw.uottawa.ca/en/admissions/how-to-apply

Ryerson Lincoln Alexander School of Law: the last LSAT for admission is the January LSAT for that year of admission

https://www.ryerson.ca/law/admissions/application-requirements/

Benefits of a Private Tutor over an LSAT Prep Course

There are multiple benefits of a private tutor over using a prep course:

  1. Your study plan is individualized to you: You are not just one of 30+ students in a class. The lessons are geared around your personal strengths and weakness, and can move at a pace that works best for you.
  2. We do questions from all levels of difficulty: In a prep course they often focus on “easier” questions within each question type since it is easier to teach a large group of people the “easier” questions. But, with a private tutor we can teach you the harder strategies and harder questions and find a method of attack that works for you.
  3. You will not get lost or left behind: Sometimes in a prep class they move onto a new topic before you fully understand the last one, because they have to get through certain material in a certain time frame. And once you start to fall behind, you generally get lost completely. With a private tutor we can spend more time on the topics you find more difficult or less time on the topics you pick up quickly. We move at your pace!
  4. We care about your success: With a private tutor you develop a bond/relationship with your tutor and your success is our success. You are not just one of 30 to us – in a prep course they may not even know your name. With a private tutor, you matter. You can always e-mail or text me outside of lessons if you feel stuck on a question and need help, or you just want to ask a question about the LSAT or law school.
  5. We offer comparable prices: Getting a private tutor with Tara’s LSAT Tutoring you pay similar prices to taking a prep course. However, if you want to get a private tutor through Kaplan, Powerscore, etc. you will pay double or triple our rates for tutors that do not have more experience than us (and perhaps less experience).
  6. We do everything a prep course does, just better: We will also teach you everything from the ground up. We run the majority of our lessons like a “course”. We will teach you every question type from every section of the LSAT. However, if you just need help on certain topics or sections – we can do that too!
  7. We offer flexible scheduling: We will find a time to run the lessons that works for you! So you don’t need to take the course at a specific day and time. You can let us know what time/day you prefer and we always find a way to make it work!
  8. We offer all the materials you will need for your studies: We offer outlines, questions organized by type, homework to do after the lessons, and past LSAT tests to practice on. You will have access to all the materials you need to help you on your LSAT journey.
  9. We do not waste lessons just “watching you take a test”: Usually in a 30 hour prep class, you will spend 6+ hours just writing an LSAT. We do not need to proctor you writing an LSAT – that said, we can if you think it is beneficial. But, you can also just as easily set a timer for 35 minutes per section yourself and then just let us know how you are doing/what you score.
  10. We don’t just lecture at you, we do LSAT questions with you: We will explain how to attack a specific question at the beginning of the lesson, but we will spend the majority of the lesson doing past LSAT questions. The best way to learn the LSAT is to see the tricks in action, as the test and tricks are always harder in practice than in theory. So we can show you how the topics change but the logic behind the questions stay the same. How one question’s logic will help you on other questions of that type.

Our rates start at $1200 for 20 hours of tutoring with one of Tara’s LSAT Tutors. At Powerscore, you get 10 hours of tutoring for $1350+ (We offer 10 more hours for less!). At Kaplan 10 hours of tutoring costs $2300 (Almost double our rates for half the hours). Princeton Review costs $1800 USD [$2200+ CAD] for 10 hours of tutoring (which is double our rates for half the hours again). Choose Tara’s LSAT Tutoring. Prep courses cost $1200+ – which is comparable to our tutoring rates but for less value!

Email me at lsat.tutoring88@gmail.com to start your LSAT journey with us today!

LSAT Prep test 83 LR 1 Question 10

The line reference for pt 83 – Logical Reasoning section 1 Q10: One adaptation that enables an animal species to survive despite predation…

Paradox: A paradox or discrepancy exists when an argument contains two or more seemingly inconsistent statements. It’s your job to find the answer choice that “explains the surprising result.”

Fact 1: Effective camouflage helps certain prey species survive despite predation

Fact 2: Some prey species survive a long time with only black-and-white colouration and that seems unlikely to prove effective camouflage and they have few, if any, other means to protect themselves.

Analysis: With a paradox question we have to accept both facts as true. So, the paradox is: how do these animals with the poor ability to hide from predators keep surviving? Keep in mind the stimulus says “unlikely to provide effective camouflage”, it does not say it CANNOT provide ANY camouflage. So, the answer will likely stem around this and maybe show us a way that being black-and-white can actually give these animals camouflage or protection.

A) This would just explain how the species has not gone extinct YET… and also it can actually deepen the mystery as to how they survive. This is almost implying they flourish?
B) This does not help us explain the mystery of how these black-and-white animals survive.
C) CORRECT – This means that maybe animals see in black-and-white, so maybe being black-and-white is actually camouflaging for them.
D) “Avoid encounters with one another” – why would this be relevant at all. This does not say how they avoid predator species…
E) It says ‘it is not as great of a liability at night as in day’ – that still implies it is a liability. So this does not explain how black-and-white colouring helps. Maybe, if it said “these animals only come out at night so being black helps” it could be the right answer. But, that is not what it is saying, saying the colouring is always a liability (as this answer does) would only make the paradox worse.

Upcoming LSAT Test Dates & Test Changes

LSAC has released some tentative upcoming test dates for 2021 – 2022:

April 10 & April 11 2021

June 2021 (week of June 12)

August 2021 (week of August 14)

October 2021 (week of October 9)

November 2021 (week of November 13)

January 2022 (week of January 15)

February 2022 (week of February 12)

March 2022 (week of March 12)

April 2022 (week of April 30)

June 2022 (week of June 11)

LSAC has also announced that they will be keeping the 3 section format for the LSAT until at least June 2022. However, starting August 2021, they will be adding in a 4th experimental section that is ungraded so they can begin testing LSAT questions for future tests again. So they will begin offering a break between section 2 and 3 of the test. (Keep in mind – like before – you won’t know which section is the experimental one while writing the test).

Remember you are always welcome to email me any questions that you may have about the LSAT. And we hope you decide to use one of Tara’s LSAT Tutors to help you on your LSAT journey!

LSAT Pt 83 – LR section 1 Question 23

This question seems to give quite a lot of students trouble. So I am posting a quick solution of how to attack this question from LSAT prep test 83, in section 1 of the Logical Reasoning section of the test.

Question 23:

Line Reference: The traditional view of the Roman Emperor Caligula

Strengthen: Strengthening an argument means to cement the connection between evidence and conclusion. In other words, it means to make the conclusion more likely to follow from the evidence.

Conclusion: Some modern historians do not think that Roman Emperor Caligula was a cruel and insane tyrant

Evidence: There is not a lot of documentation of the alleged cruelty and the histories that we do have were written by his enemies

Analysis: Lack of evidence (documents) does not prove something did not occur. Perhaps the documents of his cruelty were destroyed by the Emperor? However, we are looking to strengthen this argument and help prove this Emperor was not necessarily cruel. So, the right answer could eliminate ideas that would hurt the argument (disprove point I made above). But, they just have to be any piece of evidence that would make it less likely this Emperor was cruel. Often strengtheners can be hard to predict

A) Having less documentation from his era than others does not help our argument. If anything, it would weaken it – it could be pointing out that he destroyed documents! This is likely a weakener

B) We do not know how the people who lived under this Emperor viewed him for sure. So this point would not help or hurt the argument – it is just irrelevant

C) CORRECT – if the cruel acts assigned to this Emperor are almost identical to the acts assigned to other rulers that are labelled a tyrant then it makes it less likely the Emperor actually did these things. It increases the chance that the alleged acts are actually made up, if documents all say the same thing about everyone. This is increasing the chance that all these documents are suspect if they say the same stories about everyone. Feels more like a story than fact. Keep in mind, this is a weak strengthener – it definitely does not prove he definitively was not a tyrant, but that is okay. A strengthener only has to increase the chance the conclusion is true by 1%

D) If the documents believe this Emperor was crueller than most that would weaken the likelihood that he was not a tyrant

E) It does not matter if there are worse tyrants out there today. Just because someone is more cruel than you does not make you nice.

Sample LSAT Flex Conversion Chart

Many people are wondering how they convert their 3 section LSAT test into a percentile. So, instead of the test being out of 100 or 101 it is now out of 75 or 76. So the equivalent percentiles are listed below (this is from the May 2020 LSAT Flex) – so it would likely vary a bit based on your particular LSAT but this will give you a good idea of what percentile you are scoring in on your practice tests:

Reported
Score
Lowest
Raw
Score
Highest
Raw
Score
1807576
1797474
178****
1777373
176****
1757272
1747171
1737070
1726969
1716868
1706767
1696666
1686565
1676464
1666363
1656161
1646060
1635859
1625757
1615556
1605454
1595253
1585151
1574950
1564848
1554647
1544545
1534344
1524242
1514141
1503940
1493838
1483737
1473636
1463435
1453333
1443232
1433131
1423030
1412929
1402828
1392727
1382626
137****
1362525
1352424
1342323
133****
1322222
1312121
130****
1292020
128****
1271919
126****
1251818
124****
1231717
122****
1211616
120015

Upcoming LSAT 2021 Test Dates

LSAC has not released all of their test dates for the coming year as they are trying to determine what tests will be LSAT flex or if they can go back to doing the tests in-person. For now the released test dates are:

January 16/17 2021

February 20/21 2021

April 10/11 2021

I will keep you updated with the current updates with the test! Good luck and send me an email if you would like us to help you with your LSAT journey. lsat.tutoring88@gmail.com

LSAT removing Logic Games?

The LSAT may be undergoing drastic changes in the next four years.

The potential changes are the result of a lawsuit filed by Angelo Binno and Shelesha Taylor in Michigan federal court against the LSAC, claiming violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Michigan Persons with Disabilities Civil Rights Act. Binno and Taylor are both legally blind, and Binno requested that the Analytical Reasoning section be waived for his LSAT administration, which the LSAC denied. Most students solve LSAT logic games by drawing diagrams, something Binno argued he was unable to do, putting him at a disadvantage. While LSAC did approve several accommodations for Binno, it stopped short at waiving the Analytical Reasoning section altogether.

The parties reached an agreement in October 2019, with LSAC announcing that it was going to research and develop alternative ways to assess analytical reasoning skills over the next four years, resulting in a new Analytical Reasoning section.

LSAC has said “Should there be any significant changes to format, extensive research and development, followed by several stages of pilot testing and data analysis would be required to ensure the continued validity, reliability, and fairness of the test. Therefore, it is too early in the process to speculate on how the test will evolve as a result of our ongoing research.”

LSAC has said that it is unlikely there will be any major changes to the logic games before 2023. So it will not be affecting anyone writing the LSAT in the near future.

Also it likely won’t just be simply “eliminated” – LSAC will just come up with a way to test Analytical Reasoning that is fair for everyone.

LSAT-Flex during Covid-19 Pandemic

LSAC is offering an online sitting of the LSAT for May test takers from the comfort of their own homes. You will be virtually proctored and it will be recorded so that it can be reviewed later to ensure the test is secure.

Who can take this test?

“For the first administration of the LSAT-Flex, which will occur during the week of May 18, 2020, anyone who was registered for the April 2020 LSAT as of April 7 — including March registrants who were moved to the April test when March was canceled — was automatically registered for the May LSAT-Flex, unless they chose to receive a coupon to use for a different LSAT date.”

Will there be more LSAT Flex tests?

“Depending on how the COVID-19 pandemic evolves, it is possible we may administer one or more additional LSAT-Flex exams, but it is too soon to tell.”

Read more about it on https://www.lsac.org/update-coronavirus-and-lsat/lsat-flex

April LSAT Update – Covid-19

This is the update from LSAC:

“We are evaluating whether the late April 2020 LSAT administration can go forward. We will continue to monitor updates and guidance from national and local health officials and will communicate a final decision on the April test no later than Friday, April 10, so that April registrants have the ability to plan. Given the uncertainties around the outbreak, we are waiving the test date change fee for April registrants. Candidates who are currently registered for the April LSAT may use the April 2020 LSAT Test Date Change Request form to switch to the June 2020 or July 2020 test by March 31, 2020, 11:59 p.m. (ET), at no additional charge. LSAC will continue to monitor the situation and provide additional updates as necessary.”