Dilemma
I’m taking* the official LSAT. Why would I do such I thing? First, because I’m a standardized test dork and think dissecting arguments and playing logic games is** great fun. Second, because I’m currently on hiatus*** from teaching LSAT classes, and taking the official test is part of the plan for my return.
The LSAT is administered four times a year, in February, June, September/October, and December. The deadline to register for the December test date has passed, so my next chance to take the test is in February.
Here’s the problem: the February test is nondisclosed, which means the LSAC (the folks who administer the LSAT) doesn’t release the questions. If you take one of the other three tests, you get to see all the test questions, your answers, and the correct answers.
If I take the February test and miss a few questions (which is likely, since that’s what I’ve done on every practice test I’ve ever taken), but I don’t get to see what they were, or even how many I missed, will I absolutely explode? It’s possible.
If I do take it in February, that’ll certainly be an extra bit of incentive to work my ass off in practice to have the best shot at nailing every damn question. But what if I slip up and miss a couple anyway? Will the agony of not knowing whether my defeat came at the hands of a tricky inference question or a careless error be too much to bear?
Is it worth the guaranteed peace of mind to wait until June? I have until the ninth of January to decide.
———
Link: Just before composing this post I stumbled across this database, which contains 200,000 internal Enron emails released into the public domain. I found it through a Google search for something unrelated, and at first I thought some company was allowing public access to their employees’ *current* email, which seemed exceedingly strange. Then I noticed the dates. Ha.
I haven’t poked around much—it feels creepy to flip through other people’s correspondence. Most of it’s dull as dirt, but I still can’t read too much without getting weirded out.
———
* It’s funny that this tense, which I think people call the present progressive (right? I’m shaky on English tenses), can sometimes refer to the future, as it does here. And by funny I mean not fun at all for anyone trying to learn this crazy-ass language, I imagine.
** (Apparently I’m grammar-happy tonight, excuse me.) Why is this not plural? Is “dissecting and playing” not a plural subject? Replacing “is” with “are” sounds awful to me. I feel like dissecting-and-playing is a single action, like the conjuction happens before the ‘ing’-ing, as if it were [dissect and play]ing. Does that make sense? More important, can I get someone to pay me money to talk about grammar? Because I could do this all day.
*** I wasn’t sure which of “on hiatus” or “on a hiatus” (or neither) was idiomatic. Google declares victory for the former, 1.6 million to 63,000.
Tags: NaBloPoMo