The Long Arm of the LSAC...

A week ago, we interviewed LSAT Blog's Steve Schwartz on tips to beat the LSAT. Amongst other things, Steve strongly urged prospective law students to take LSAT prep tests in the course of their preparation. Doing so, it turns out, is increasingly difficult. As LSAT Blog reports, LSAC has "pulled the plug" on a number of prep tests making them more or less unavailable for eager students:

[According to] LSAC's website (click on "The Official LSAT PrepTests") . . . it [is] no longer selling PrepTests 39, 40, 41, and 42. This mean[s] that not only has LSAC failed to publish another book of 10 exams, forcing students to pay $8/exam, and not only is its shipping incredibly slow, but now it[ has] made PrepTests 39-42 difficult to obtain.

The story makes little sense at first blush--why, after all, would LSAC withhold a valuable commodity that prospective law students would willingly line up to pay top dollar for? You don't need a 180 LSAT to guess the answer: test preparation companies (some of whom have already been accused of monopolizing the LSAT market) are willing to pay more via hefty licensing fees. So, in essence, the juggernaut test preparation industry can access all 60 existing LSAT exams while regular students self-studying only have access to 49 past exams.

And, to make matters worse, it turns out the test preparation companies end up getting "more" for "less." They pay only $194.00 for the 60 exam set as compared to the $208.00 a self-study student would need to pay for the 49 exams that are generally accessible. Of course, the test preparation companies only get such a "deal" because they're buying in such large quantities; it's simple economics. But when the practical result is to disadvantage others who (perhaps) cannot afford to fork over $1500 for an LSAT course, maybe that's a problem?