LNAT

Today I took the LNAT (England's equivalent to the LSAT) so I can transfer to a different campus. Oh my god, this was the hardest test I've ever taken in my life, and there were only 30 questions!

Now, I've taken the DLAB, the DLPT, SAT, etc, but those were child's play compared to this. At DLI they say that English is one of the hardest languages in the world to learn. It's rated a category 5 out of 5. They also say that in America, roughly 95% of the population can only speak English with the proficiency of a level 3, meaning not college graduate material. This test I took today was about a level 4 - 4.5. I can't imagine how anyone could ever gain a sufficient score to ever be admitted to law school!

The LNAT is only 30 questions. The LSAT is 120 - 130 questions and grades out of 180. 180 is the best score, 120 is the worst. The LNAT, yeah, not so much. It's not a standardized test, so whatever score you earned is the score you get.

In addition to the 30 multiple choice questions, there is a requirement of 2 essay questions. These are not scored, but used by the university to rate your reasoning skills. The essay portion gives you the opportunity to choose 2 of 5 questions to answer, and answers must be between 500-600 words long with a maximum of 750 words. My first question was incredibly well reasoned out and worded. I had the fortune of my first topic being teaching tolerance towards religion and sexual minorities in school. My second essay topic was similarly easy, but my time ran out with only 1/5 of the test completed. Unfortunately, I ran out of time because of my first essay. I took far too long in organizing the essay without monitoring the clock. One could say it was poor time management. I'm sure the admissions offices will take the fact that I was so poor at managing my time into consideration and probably give me a lower overall "score."

But, it's all done and I can breath a sigh of relief. I find out my score on the truly scored section on 15 Jan. Shortly after that, I expect to start hearing from the universities. I'll keep my fingers crossed that I make it into UCL (University College London) as my first choice, then King's College as my second. BTW, they're both part of the University of London system. Too bad the school doesn't just have one requirement for all campuses. That would make things so much easier when applying.