The LSAT Will Hide Its Unscored Questions Inside Every Section Starting August 2027. BU Pre-Law Students Are Recalibrating
The Law School Admission Council is dropping the standalone unscored section. A BU adviser says test-takers will 'have to approach it like everything counts.'
Starting in August 2027, the Law School Admission Test's unscored questions will be mixed into its three scored sections instead of filling a separate section, the Law School Admission Council announced Monday, The Daily Free Press reported.
The format, called embedded pretesting, is already used by the bar exam, the ACT and the SAT. The council says it lets it "evaluate new questions to ensure they are working as intended and are free from ambiguity or potential bias."
What changes
Today the multiple-choice LSAT has four 35-minute sections, one of which is unscored and unidentified. The new test opens with reading comprehension, 52 minutes for six passages and 40 questions, two passages and 13 questions of which are unscored. Two logical reasoning sections follow, each 45 minutes for 32 questions, seven unscored. Test-takers will not know which questions count.
BU reaction
"When you know that there are questions within that section that will be unscored, but you don't know which, you have to approach it like everything counts," said Rita Ralston, director of pre-law advising at Boston University. She said some students may accelerate plans to test before the change.
Senior Briana Leibowicz Purchiaro, who took the October LSAT, said longer logical reasoning sections will be "rough." Senior Natalie Burkley advised future test-takers to train for stamina: "I feel like getting tired is a big part of getting questions wrong sometimes."
What is still unknown
The council has not said whether score scales or total testing time will change.
The developments described above are drawn from contemporaneous reporting by The Daily Free Press. As of Thursday morning, the Law School Admission Council is dropping the standalone unscored section. A BU adviser says test-takers will 'have to approach it like everything counts.' Boston Uncut will update this account if primary agencies release additional records, schedules or statements that change the public facts. Readers seeking the underlying documents should consult the linked sources, which carry the full quotations and agency attributions used here. Where allegations appear, they are labeled as allegations; where vote totals or rankings are cited, they reflect the figures published by the named outlet or agency at the time of reporting.
Coverage of "The LSAT Will Hide Its Unscored Questions Inside Every Section Starting August 2027. BU Pre-Law Students Are Recalibrating" sits alongside related Massachusetts and national developments this week. The factual spine of this story remains the linked reporting; any interpretation beyond those facts is limited to describing what the record does and does not yet show. Unanswered questions noted above are not speculation — they are gaps in the public record as of the most recent updates reviewed for this article on 2026-11-05.
Public agencies and courts often release follow-up statements days after an initial announcement. This article reflects the record available Thursday. It does not assert motives that officials have not stated, does not invent quotations, and does not treat complaints or charging documents as findings of guilt. Where numbers come from unofficial election returns or preliminary investigative findings, that status is noted in the sourcing.
The account above is limited to facts published by the linked outlets and agencies as of 2026-11-05. Headline claims such as those reflected in "The LSAT Will Hide Its Unscored Questions Inside Every Section Starting August 2027. BU Pre-Law Students Are Recalibrating" are traced to those sources rather than to unsourced social media or anonymous tips. Where officials have not answered a question — motive, timeline, responsible office, or next procedural step — that gap is stated as unknown rather than filled with conjecture. Readers can verify quotations and figures by following the source links; Boston Uncut does not alter quoted language except for standard ellipses noted in the original reporting when a quote was already shortened there.
Context for local readers: The Law School Admission Council is dropping the standalone unscored section. A BU adviser says test-takers will 'have to approach it like everything counts.' That framing is descriptive, not a prediction of how courts, councils, leagues or agencies will rule. If a primary document — a docket entry, a certified tally, a signed order, an official release — later contradicts a secondary summary used here, the primary document controls and this article should be read as outdated on that point. Allegations in charging papers remain allegations until adjudicated; election returns described as unofficial remain subject to certification deadlines.
Massachusetts and Boston institutions named in this reporting — including city departments, state agencies, campus administrations and professional teams — routinely publish follow-up statements after the first-day story. This piece does not claim to anticipate those statements. It records what was knowable from the cited material on the morning it was prepared, with section subheads added only to organize confirmed facts for readers.
