The LSAT-like other acronyms that end in “AT”: MCAT, GMAT, etc.-only sounds fun until you actually try it. It is a serious, rigorous test that is used to select students for law school. In many developing countries, it is also used as the principal means of criminal reform. If you are a pre-law student, I suggest you read this column very carefully. In fact, clip it and duct tape it to your pillow.

One day I told my parents I was thinking about law after social work. They were silent, and the blank stares and lack of derisive, self-esteem sapping remarks told me they were happy. After all, a lawyer is one of the four “approved” professions; the other three are doctor, engineer, and businessperson. A combination of at least two of these four is preferred; social worker is at the bottom of the list, after professional toe-nail clipper. My parents were happy because they realized that their risky investment of feeding and sheltering me might just pay dividends after all.

The first four weeks of last summer, I spent countless hours studying for the LSAT, giving up summer necessities such as fresh air, sleeping in, staring into space, and the Spanish soap opera “Todo Sobre Camila” on Univisi¢n. The last was a major sacrifice because Alejandro was about to find out that Camila was carrying his baby-or that she had bought a car; I could not tell, my Spanish was not very good. The more I studied the more I understood a profound truth that only comes with endless hours of labor and soul-searching: the LSAT sucks.

If you are not familiar with the test, let me give you a brief description. The LSAT, or Law School-Acceptable Torture, consists of about 100 multiple-choice questions. These questions collectively predict whether you could withstand the slings and arrows of law school-such as the “Socratic method,” a type of classroom Russian roulette-or whether you might run screaming into the wilderness upon first encountering something called “tort,” which, I believe, is the branch of law dealing with French pastry. This means that most of the questions are convoluted and deceptive. The logic games especially were giving me a hard time. They are supposed to give you a glimpse of what legal analysis will be like in law school, and go something like this:

Set up: There are five kids, Ed, Ted, Fred, Ned, and Thelma, who take turns taking care of five different breeds of dogs. Ted has the Golden Retriever on Friday only if Ned has with the pit bull on Monday. If either Fred or Ed has the German Shepard on Wednesday, then Thelma does not have the Chihuahua on Tuesday. So here’s Question 1: If Ed had the Golden Retriever on Monday while wearing a blue sweater, and Thelma’s uncle had a crush on Ned’s mom, who came down with the measles on Wednesday, then who accidentally took the Chihuahua to Fred’s cousin’s Bar Mitzvah on Tuesday?

The answer, which is obvious to any person aspiring to be a lawyer, is B) FRED, because if Ed wore a blue sweater on Monday, then neither the German Shepard nor the Retriever could have been neutered on Thursday by Ted’s cross-dressing stepfather, since Mercury was in retrograde.

The actual test was pretty awful. Everything was OK until the proctor said, “Begin.” Then there appeared a mental vacuum of some sort that sucked all the intelligence and coherence out of my brain, leaving me a BSing know-nothing fool, thus probably qualifying me to study corporate law. I left five hours later, feeling very dejected, cursing the capriciousness of Fate, and vowing that one day, I would retake the LSAT and make a score good enough to make my parents ambivalent. From this experience, I learned several things, which I will pass on to you. First, the LSAT (and probably law school) has a really lousy refund policy, so make sure you want to take this test before you pay for it. Second, life is like the LSAT: sometimes you just don’t know who has the Chihuahua on Tuesday or why, and that’s OK. And finally, if the LSAT sounds painful to you, don’t commit a felony involving chocolate ‚clairs on the remote, developing Southeast Asian island of Phu Quoc.

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