Seven Oaks Magazine.

Taking the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) – the scores from which greatly define your chances of being accepted to top North American Law Schools – feels a lot like embarking on a blind date. Like a blind date, you find yourself double and triple-checking the time and location; you feel nervous and uncertain of yourself; and you really feel the need to perform, to impress, and live up to a whole set of expectations. The date itself also seems to drag on and on, is quite uncomfortable and not at all enjoyable, and, you realise with horror, its outcome really could affect your entire future life’s happiness. Come to think of it, the LSAT is more like a pap smear (gentlemen: think rectal prostate exam).

I found myself inside a small lecture room at McGill University, listening as the test matron patiently told each LSAT test-taker: “lighter is better,” “make sure you get it all in,” and “it should just wipe off after.” Not a script in some finicky menstrual sex-education film, these instructions were all part of an elaborate finger-printing ritual that made me sigh in resignation as I added my identity to the F.B.I. registry.

Disconcerting, yes, that the LSAT test givers may be doing a side-business in fingerprint information trading in the U.S. (though I suppose lawyers-to-be really ought to be watched closely), I was only deeply disturbed when I learned that a good number of my fellow examinees had been shelling out anywhere from $1,000 to $3,000 CDN for LSAT training courses. I was able to commandeer the same books and practice tests, free of charge, from my local library in Burnaby.

Happily though, the LSAT requires no formalised or specific knowledge from a high-scorer. All that is required of you is that you a) can sit through three intense thirty-question, 35-minute tests, b) can identify strengths and inconsistencies in logical arguments, c) score well on reading comprehension (i.e. read super-turbo-fast), d) are able to organise information into categories for process-of-elimination problem-solving, e) work at a fairly high fluency in English, and f) not get pissed off at having to write an additional 35-minute test segment for the society’s own ‘experimental’ purposes, not knowing whether it is a ‘real’ section or the ‘fake’ one.

And although I take great personal risk in divulging details about my own LSAT experience – after all, the first task in the session is to copy-out and sign a statement to the effect that: “I confirm that my sole purpose in taking the LSAT today is for the purposes of applying to law school. I agree not to divulge any test details”, etc. – I feel I must entreat to share the damning revelations the LSAT taught me.

Despite my having learned a great deal through the test material about nerve cell experiments with mouse tumours and egg embryos, activated yeast, modern architecture, and how to arrange a schedule for exhibiting pooches at a dog show; and although I successfully worked through a set of questions where the premise given is that it is immoral to even think about doing immoral things (bah!), the most important life lesson I took away from the LSAT is that it is important to fit in – at all costs.

The overabundance of rules and the great stress put upon avoiding “irregularities” during the test coupled with the suffocating sameness of the forty people gathered in that room reminded me that it’s not who you know, it’s who you don’t.

In the lecture hall, sharpening pencils and testing out timing devices, I noticed that out of my fellow 40 examinees, no one was visibly overweight, old, or “poor-looking.” Fifteen of the people were women, two were of African descent, a handful were Arabic, Jewish, or Asian, but the room was mostly white. Only about five people had obvious visual aids (glasses) and everyone was just so darn healthy-looking. Such a stable-looking, well-fed, well-adjusted group, and not-a-one blemished by piercings, tattoos, dyed hair, or demarcation-less clothes. I felt overwhelmed by their overall appearance of even-temperedness and emotional stability. This is a certain kind of person who wants to be a lawyer, I concluded.

Most people write the LSAT ostensibly because they want to attend law school and, in North America at least, this exam is merely the most important hoop you need to jump through on your path to becoming a lawyer. But why would you want to attend law school or become a lawyer? Ask this question to most prospective law students, and they’ll be a little stumped. Although some applicants are truly interested in making a difference in society and they believe the best way for them to do so is through charity legal work or law reform, I would wager that most young people are aiming for law professions because they find themselves of a certain class, are inclined to maintain or improve their positions, and frankly, they admire the lifestyle and the other supposedly well-bred people they will meet through that lifestyle. It’s a social club, really.

That lovely test with that fresh-wrapped, cheap-papered, old-library, sealed-in ink smell showed me just how much we ask each other to conform. No matter your endeavour, if you “comply” with the rules, the instructions – the institution – you will succeed and be rewarded. Thank goodness for the LSAT, and all the values it holds dear.

Editor’s note: even though the author sounds bitter, she did in fact score a 168 (97 th percentile) last October.