Sabes que es el LNAT ?

LNAT (National Admission Test for Law): General Information

Eight law schools at universities in England, including Cambridge, have agreed to establish a uniform test for admission to their undergraduate law degrees. They have established a company called the LNAT Consortium Ltd to oversee the test. They have contracted with a specialist official awarding body, Edexcel, to set and administer the test.

Which law schools will use the LNAT?

The participating universities in the LNAT Consortium are:

• University of Birmingham
• University of Bristol
• University of Cambridge
• University of Durham
• University of East Anglia
• University of Nottingham
• University of Oxford
• University College, London

Why an admissions test for law?

The test is designed to provide an assessment of an applicant’s potential for law degree courses. It is not a replacement for A levels or other equivalent qualifications. It will be used as an additional piece of information for admissions decisions alongside A levels, GCSE results and the other information available to law schools on an applicant’s application form, as well as, where applicable, the applicant’s performance in interview.

Fair and improved decision making

The LNAT is intended to improve the selection process and to make it fairer to all applicants, whatever their educational background, by:

• helping to identify applicants with the aptitude and skills necessary for success on law degree courses
• providing objective evaluations of applicants from a wide range of social and educational backgrounds, and for those with disabilities/specific learning difficulties by assessing essential general intellectual skills of comprehension, analysis, logic and judgement
• enabling more informed and equitable selection decisions to be made on applicants with the highest possible grades in public examinations
• enabling more informed and equitable selection decisions to be made on applicants who may have more modest grades for a range of reasons but who have the potential to succeed on law degree courses
• decreasing the overall burden of testing of applicants by substituting a uniform national test for the tests that the individual law schools would otherwise use
• enabling the fair selection of applicants with many different academic qualifications, from many different countries

What form will the test take?

The test will be of two hours’ duration and will have two sections. The first, of 80 minutes, will be multiple-choice questions assessing candidates’ ability to read, understand, analyse, and make logical deductions from passages of text in formal English. The second, of 40 minutes, will be an essay chosen from a list of titles. Since these are not tests of knowledge but of fundamental intellectual skills, no prior legal study will be necessary. It is believed that the test will be relatively impervious to coaching. A sample version of a test is available on the LNAT website.

It is hoped that by eliminating the need for any extra study the test will be fairer to all applicants and particularly those applicants whose educational or social background may not provide equal opportunities for preparation. In this way the test will help to widen participation in higher education.

How will the test be used by the University of Cambridge?

In Cambridge, the decision to admit applicants is made by the Colleges, rather than by the University Law Faculty. Many Colleges already use aptitude tests as one element in their admissions decisions for law applicants. In that respect, their decision to offer the LNAT will not greatly change their present approach to admissions.

Cambridge received 1,400 applications for about 230 places for law this year, from very academically able students. This test will assist in making the process of admission fairer for all our applicants. Although all UK applicants applying for law at Cambridge will be expected to take the LNAT, it is expected that Colleges would make their initial admissions decision in the normal way, independently of the LNAT numerical score. The score would then be taken into account as a check on that decision, which might be reviewed in the light of it.

In Cambridge, it is not intended that the LNAT should be a substitute for the admissions interview. Even after the LNAT has been introduced, an applicant’s performance in interview will remain an important part of the College’s admissions decision, along with the information in the applicant’s application papers. The LNAT numerical score is not intended to determine the admissions decision. Rather, it will provide a further element of information in selecting the most intellectually able applicants who have the strongest potential to succeed in studying law.

Ahora, en Venezuela es puede hacerse algo similar ?. Es extremadamente difícil. Por que ?. Respuesta: porque las autoridades universitarias han construido un gran muro impenetrable llamado "STATUS QUO" en donde la imagen que tienen de si mismos como institución está tan distorsionada y tan fuera de la realidad como la actividad y las decisiones tomadas por los "honorables" miembros de los consejos universitarios, en el seno de sus reuniones. En estos países subdesarrollados suspiramos diciendo, "... si tuviéramos este tipo de sistemas en nuestro país ..." soñar no cuesta nada ... pero cuando uno piensa en las universidades venezolanas ... falta camino señores ...