You may have noticed that each released test is given a prep test number, in addition to the test date. The December 2009 will eventually be released as PrepTest 59, and they go all the way back to PrepTest 1, which was from June 1991. This was the very first “modern” LSAT in the way we see it today: two logical reasoning sections, one reading comprehension section, one logic game section, and an unscored experimental section. So 5 sections, 35 minutes each.

Since 1991, it has all been remarkably stable, with none of the above structure changing. Reading comp has gotten a little harder, in my opinion, and games have definitely gotten easier (a trend which might be slightly reversing itself). But changes have been very gradual (other than the sudden addition of comparative reading in 2007). Not everything used to be so stable, however.

After some market testing, the very first LSAT was administered in 1948, and things changed quite a bit from that point until 1991. Reading comprehension has been present in some form pretty much the entire time, but logical reasoning didn’t arrive until 1975, and games didn’t make their entrance until 1982. Also, the test used to be an all-day affair, so count your blessings that you’re out in roughly 3 1/2 hours. Anyway, I was looking at some of the old problems, so without further ado; here are some of my favorites.

Directed Memory/Reading Recall
This section had a lot of staying power, lasting from 1956-1975. It was basically reading comp from hell. You had 15 minutes to read three passages, and then, without looking back, you had to answer 30 questions about them. In 1971 they added the bonus of having you wait after you read the passages but before you answered the questions, so that everything you read could be slowly forgotten.

Expression Situations
This was a failed section that never made it out of the experimental phase. Here they tested your awareness of your audience, asking you to pick the most appropriate choice to express something. For example, to describe newly arrived immigrants, you could choose:
At first the various groups in the United States lived by themselves, like patches of unusual texture dotting the landscape.
(This was not the credited response). Here’s another:

General Background
This section was used to test cultural knowledge, but apparently this didn’t really predict anything about future lawyers. They started using it in 1961, but admissions officers weren’t using it, so they threw it away in 1970. It didn’t factor into your “real” LSAT score, but was reported separately. In this section the test asked you actual general knowledge questions, such as whether traffic congestion, air pollution, insufficient finances, and racial strife are all problems faced by cities. Also, you had to know that the Scottish dialect is characteristic of Robert Burns. And that potatoes are conducive to soil erosion. And why you can’t see as many planets when you stand on Jupiter’s equator. I swear to Christ I am not making any of that up. Here’s another gem:

Gottschaldt
a.k.a Find the Shapes! This was short lived, 1949-1951. Just look:

Insightful Reasoning
This is my favorite. It’s math that basically requires no math. Too bad it never made it out of the experimental phase, because it’s awesome. It looks incredibly hard, but it’s actually really easy. Try some for yourself:

Principles and Cases (1949-1982) and Issues & Facts (982-1989)
These were both sort of “lawyering light.” You had to look at a bunch of previous cases, and using them as precedent, decide how similar cases would go. Or you would get a set of facts, a dispute resulting from the facts, and then a couple of rules. You then got tons of questions, and would have to say if the questions looked relevant or not, and if relevant, how they would apply to the rules. It actually looked pretty cool, but apparently they had a hard time coming up with fully sound questions, and it was eventually abandoned. This was the last thing section on the LSAT to actually resemble the world of law.

Artificial Language
This is actually what it sounds like; the test asks you to translate shit into a made up language. Seriously. It only ever made it into experimental sections, but I’m guessing the people who got these in their experimental all collectively soiled their pants at once.

But the fun doesn’t stop here! Tune in next week for part two of the forgotten LSATs.

*All examples taken from A Compendium of LSAT and LSAC-Sponsored Item Types 1948-1994 by Lynda M. Reese and Ruth Anne Cotter, freely available at LSACnet.org.