Does the LSAT Make You Smarter?
According to colleagues of mine at UC Berkeley, studying for the LSAT increases test-takers' IQs. The investigators try to use this to claim that IQ is somewhat plastic. But a few other thoughts occurred to me.
1. Is it really surprising that studying for an intelligence test makes your IQ go up? The dirty little secret of the LSAT is that it has little to do with the law; it seems to me to be a general test of intelligence. Some factors, like reading comprehension, will improve with better schooling. But some, like logic games, are really about intelligence alone. I've always thought the brain is like a muscle - you can be born with a great one, but you have to exercise it to reach its full potential.
2. Let's make everyone study for the LSAT. It would be much better for inner-city kids than their failing schools. I would feel more confident in Kaplan or Princeton Review running a school than the San Francisco School District. It might also help the Yale students who seem to graduate with less knowledge of American history than when they entered as freshmen.
3. I wonder what happens to people who go to law school. Do their IQs go up too? They might go down. On the one hand, they face more rigorous demands on their brain muscle. On the other, it's three more years of liberal academic indoctrination.
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Re: Does the LSAT Make You Smarter?
Studying for the bar exam, on the other hand, kills brain cells. At least according to all my attorney friends who spent summers home alone with BarBri.
Re: Does the LSAT Make You Smarter?
3. I wonder what happens to people who go to law school. Do their IQs go up too?
Considering that Joe Biden went to law school, I shudder to imagine how he would have turned out without that experience.
Aug '10
Re: Does the LSAT Make You Smarter?
Professor ! Please stop it ! You're killin' me.
" ...Yale students who seem to graduate with less knowledge...than when they entered.."
Comedy with surgical precision.
Jan '12
Re: Does the LSAT Make You Smarter?
3. First year strips away the ego. Second year strips away the conscience. Third year returns a larger ego. Then comes graduation.
Jul '10
Re: Does the LSAT Make You Smarter?
On the Gripping Hand, no one today seems to start with much of an education anyway. Any study should improve them - even the table of multiplication.
Jun '12
Re: Does the LSAT Make You Smarter?
It does boost IQ, but unfortunately it also turns you into a masochist. I speak from experience.
May '11
Re: Does the LSAT Make You Smarter?
I studied for the LSAT by taking 3 practice tests under test conditions (well, in a library, but timed). Scored roughly 2 or 3 points better each time, and then scored 2 points below my lowest practice when I took the actual test. Still did well, but I always wondered what to make of that.
May '10
Re: Does the LSAT Make You Smarter?
I took the LSAT. But I didn't study for it because I was in the military overseas. They had a test center but no prep courses. But maybe just taking the test is helpful. My LSAT score qualified me to be a member of Mensa without having to take their test. But I never did go to law school. The ones I wanted didn't want me and vice versa. Although I've sometimes wondered, What if?, I've never had any regrets.
Aug '10
Re: Does the LSAT Make You Smarter?
IQ tests seem to pick up both intelligence per se and familiarity with an abstract style of thinking (basically, syllogisms rather than common sense). Hence the main explanation for the Flynn effect is that our culture promotes this style of reasoning. (If you don't believe this interpretation you're forced to assume our grandparents were all imbeciles, which seems implausible).That you can improve your IQ score by studying for the LSAT thus isn't surprising sice it's just a microcosm of this model of the Flynn effect. That is, studying for one g-loaded test (LSAT) helps you with the test-taking frame of mind measured by another g-loaded test (AFQT). It doesn't make you smarter though.
May '11
Re: Does the LSAT Make You Smarter?
I studied for quite some time on the LSAT and even took a prep course. I grew in confidence, but from my first practice test to the final test my score never varied by more than 4 points.
But the same goes for exercise. I can run long distances pretty fast (even faster when I was younger) and training improves my pace, but I can't sprint fast ever. I spent an entire summer one year trying to improve my sprinting and my time never varied over a session or the season. So, perhaps the analogy between exercising and studying is similar: For some it might result in improvement and for others it might not.
The Bar exam is the dumbest thing on earth, or at least that's true for the multiple choice questions that almost every state uses. It is memorization of what isn't the law anywhere and an intelligence test. It's really just a misery factor to weed out the people who didn't invest enough in preparing for the test.
Nov '10
Re: Does the LSAT Make You Smarter?
Anon_academic has it. You're not actually getting smarter, just better at the tasks.
Mar '11
Re: Does the LSAT Make You Smarter?
As I was taking the exam at Northwestern's law school, I spent the night before taking the LSAT in downtown Chicago. When you're 24 and spending a rare night in the City, you don't spend it in your room. When I took the exam, I hadn't slept, but I wasn't hung over. I was still drunk. My score was 2 points off perfect.
I hadn't taken any of the review courses; I took the exam as a lark. I ended up going to law school, and I'll forever be grateful for the education I received there. Law school is a lousy place to teach people to be lawyers, but it's the best education in the world. There's nowhere better to teach a person how to deconstruct a problem and analyze its constituent parts. You become a mechanic delving into the recesses of human relationships, and whatever you decide to do after you graduate, you take with you the ability to look objectively at whatever problem is thrown your way. I'll be forever grateful. But smarter? I had that to begin with.
Re: Does the LSAT Make You Smarter?
I think it's pretty well known that GRE and SAT test performances map pretty well to IQ test performance. This article just seems to be saying that LSAT does as well.
The result that would interest me is whether the boosted score from studying for these tests is just a transient or more permanent effect, and the evidence I've heard so far indicates it's the former.
Apr '11
Re: Does the LSAT Make You Smarter?
Clearly the LSAT has little to do with the law: as evidence I advance the fact that I used to teach LSAT prep classes (as well as SAT, GRE and GMAT prep) and all I know about the law I learned from the second half of Law & Order.
May '11
Re: Does the LSAT Make You Smarter?
Of course it doesn't have anything to do with the law. It would hardly be appropriate to test people about the law before they learn it. It is purely meant as a test of intelligence and suitability for law school.
Aug '12
Re: Does the LSAT Make You Smarter?
When my son was studying for the LSAT, I was struck by how the formal logical structure of the questions resembled the skills required for programming computers. Since he was very good at the latter, I was not surprised when he did very well on the former.
Nov '11
Re: Does the LSAT Make You Smarter?
The same might well be said of law school: as evidence I advance the fact that I learned more law from the second half of Law & Order than from the second half of law school.
Edited on September 1, 2012 at 5:34pmNov '11
Re: Does the LSAT Make You Smarter?
Astonishing
The same might well be said of law school: as evidence I advance the fact that I learned more law from the second half of Law & Order than from the second half of law school.
This is fun!
The same might well be said of law professors: as evidence I advance the fact that I learned more from the second half of Law & Order than from half my law professors.
Nov '11
Re: Does the LSAT Make You Smarter?
Astonishing
Astonishing
The same might well be said of law school: as evidence I advance the fact that I learned more law from the second half of Law & Order than from the second half of law school.
This is fun!
The same might well be said of law professors: as evidence I advance the fact that I learned more from the second half of Law & Order than from half my law professors.
Look what we're learning now:
The same might well be said of law books: as evidence I advance the fact that I learned more from the second half of Law & Order than from the second page of half my law books.
May '12
Re: Does the LSAT Make You Smarter?
The same might be said of lawyering: as evidence I advance the fact that I learned more from the second half of Law & Order than I did from nearly ten years of practice. -You're right, Astonishing, this is fun!