Lessons · Law foundations · The admission test: what it measures
A test of one skill, not of what you know about law
The admission test carries no law on it at all. It measures how carefully you read a piece of argument and how reliably you can say what follows from it, which is the thing law school will ask of you every day. A score sits on a fixed band, and the same raw performance gives the same place on that band whichever sitting you take.
Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
In beta. This lesson was written for Hone and has not yet been checked by an attorney. Practice material, not professional advice. What that means.
What it is for
A candidate spent four months reading about contracts before booking the test, and scored where she started. Not one question on the paper was about contracts. She had prepared for the subject of the degree rather than for the skill the test measures, which is the single most common way to waste a spring.
How to think about it
Treat it as a reading test with a stopwatch. For every question ask what job it is giving you -- find the assumption, find the flaw, find what must be true -- before reading the options, because the options are written to be attractive to somebody who has not decided what the job is.
Worked example
The paper is argument questions and long-passage reading, timed.There is no memorised body of knowledge to bring.
A separate written sample is produced and sent on with the score.It is not scored like the rest; schools read it.
The score is placed on a fixed band, so it is comparable across sittings.A number from two years ago means what it meant then.
Preparation is repetition against real released papers, under the clock.The skill improves with practice at speed; reading about it does not.
Your turn
Name the one thing the admission test actually measures.
The test measures careful of argument, not knowledge of law
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Studying law for it. Nothing on the paper rewards knowing a rule of law, and every hour spent learning one is an hour not spent on the timed reading that the paper does reward.