Just looking for a bit of help in regards to the Law Admissions Test (LAT) that is required by UNSW. What does the test involve/is based on and how can I prepare for it?
Thanks heaps!!
Hey HannahHurst,
Sorry it took me so long to get back to you - I have been asking people in my cohort what their take was and how they prepared.
Soo, I am currently a first year law student at UNSW which means I sat the LAT and got in through it. This is my take on it influenced by a few others and is no means a definite perspective on the LAT and the ways to prepare.
Firstly what the LAT is - it is the test that is compulsory for entry to Dual law at UNSW.
It is a 2 hour exam in which you write 2 essays.
The first essay is about you responding to an opinion piece. You are given a piece of writing - article, blog post etc. in which you must evaluate how the author creates an argument, evaluate the strengths and weaknesses and asses and how effective that argument/ will the author succeed in persuading an argument - something along these lines.
I found that this section was very similar to the VCE Language Analysis Essay. I'm not entirely sure how the VCE works but this one part of the exam is very similar to the LAT question 1. It would be very helpful to do some of those practice questions which I'm sure you can find here on AtarNotes, ask questions on the Language Analysis Forums and even submit essays.
Another place you can find practice material - they will not be 100% similar but good for practice since there is very limited resources available- is the SAT essay component. Yes, I know that the SAT is an American exam, but there are many practice resources online purely because this test has been around for ages. The essay component is very similar to the LAT question 1 and is worth taking a look at.
Section 2 of the exam gives you a variety of sources that you should incorporate into an essay. I was very thrown by this question as I was not really comfortable or used to using sources. From people that I've asked, they said history and in particular extension history helped many of my friends gain very high LAT scores - so for this question, it is probably worth asking around on the AtarNotes History forums how to integrate sources into an essay and more specifically how to use them to enhance your argument. This question tests your clarity, expressiveness and succinctness as well as judging how persuasive your writing is.
Also, the biggest thing that I remember freaking me out.. was the fact that I had to put a title on my essays, and one that had to "indicate my stance" - I was thrown by this because for years I had never had to title an essay.. I spent a long time trying to come up with a pun for the title - not the best idea. So proper time management is essential (2 hours seems like a long time since hsc makes us write 3 essays in 2 hours, but if you didn't prepare and have no experience with either essay question then 2 hours seems like not enough). Another thing is that there was no extra writing paper.
Lastly, how the LAT is used.
There is a lot of contention over how offers were made and to be completely honest I have no idea. From my limited understanding UNSW uses the LAT in combination with your ATAR to determine if you get an offer. That being a high LAT score would boost your atar (using whatever scale they have) and put you in a competitive position for offers. There was an article posted about the LAT which said that the median atar was 98 and the median LAT was 74 - please keep in mind that this was most probably not the same person. Also, don't consider your percentile that much - I got 50th percentile and thought I had no chance of getting into law - this was because no one had done LAT before or knew how it operated, the only other entry exam into a course was the UMAT which has rumours of a 90+ percentile being the only way to get in.
Hope these help!! This was a much longer answer than i thought it would be, sorry about that but if anyone else who did LAT this year has any opinions that would be great, these are just my narrow minded opinions from a person who forgot about the LAT and showed up and sat the test