Kaplan Test Prep - LSAT PrepTest 86 Unlocked: Exclusive Data + Analysis + Explanations

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PrepTest 86 was administered in November 2018. What made this test so hard? Heres a breakdown of what Kaplan students who were surveyed after taking the official exam considered PrepTest 86s most difficult section.

Based on these results, you might think that studying Logic Games is the key to LSAT success. Well, Logic Games is important, but test takers perceptions dont tell the whole story. For that, you need to consider students actual performance. The following chart shows the average number of students to miss each question in each of PrepTest 86s different sections.

Actual student performance tells quite a different story. On average, students were actually more likely to miss questions in Logical Reasoning and Reading Comprehensionby a fairly wide marginthan they were in Logic Games.

Maybe students overestimate the difficulty of the Logic Games section because its so unusual, or maybe its because a really hard Logic Game is so easy to remember after the test. But the truth is that the testmaker places hard questions throughout the test. Here were the locations of the 10 hardest (most missed) questions in the exam.

The takeaway from this data is that, to maximize your potential on the LSAT, you need to take a comprehensive approach. Test yourself rigorously, and review your performance on every section of the test. Kaplans LSAT explanations provide the expertise and insight you need to fully understand your results. The explanations are written and edited by a team of LSAT experts, who have helped thousands of students improve their scores. Kaplan always provides data-driven analysis of the test, ranking the difficulty of every question based on actual student performance. The 10 hardest questions on every test are highlighted with a 4-star difficulty rating, the highest we give. The analysis breaks down the remaining questions into 1-, 2-, and 3-star ratings so that you can compare your performance to thousands of other test takers on all LSAC material.

Dont settle for wondering whether a question was really as hard as it seemed to you. Analyze the test with real data, and learn the secrets and strategies that help top scorers master the LSAT.

• 99 questions! This was the first test ever to have less than 100 questions. It was also the first test to have 26instead of 27Reading Comprehension questions since December 2006 (PT 51).
  
• PrepTest 86 is an excellent test for seeing a variety of question types in Logical Reasoning. Over the previous three years some question types like Main Point, Method of Argument, Point at Issue, and Role of Statement were entirely missing from a single test. However, on PrepTest 86 there were two of each of them.
• Crazy eights! PrepTest 86 featured an even mix of the major Assumption Family questions with eight each of Assumption, Flaw, and Strengthen/Weaken. This was the first test to do so since PrepTest June 2007.
• A trend continues! The Logic Games section has only started with a Hybrid game 10 times ever. That said, PrepTest 86 was the fifth test in the last eight released tests to do so!
• It may start with a Hybrid game, but its all Strict Sequencing after that. That makes this the seventh test to feature three Strict Sequencing games, and the first since June 2013 (PT 69).
• That last RC passage is a doozy! With three 4-Star questions and no 1-Star questions, it is one of only six passages ever where the average question difficulty is over three stars.
• Ariana Grandes Thank U, Next sat atop the billboard charts the week PrepTest 86 was administered. Even though the lyrics are clearly not about test-taking, the message about learning from each relationship and moving on is good advice for LSAT practice. Each PrepTest is an opportunity to learn a bit more and be better prepared for the next one.

As much fun as it is to find out what makes a PrepTest unique or noteworthy, its even more important to know just how representative it is of other LSAT administrations (and, thus, how likely it is to be representative of the exam you will face on Test Day). The following charts compare the numbers of each kind of question and game on PrepTest 86 to the average numbers seen on all officially released LSATs administered over the past five years (from 2014 through 2018).