How long is the LSAT?

The multiple-choice LSAT is 140 minutes of testing: four sections at 35 minutes each. There is a 10-minute intermission between the second and third sections. That puts the timed portion a little over two and a half hours before you count check-in.

The four sections

LSAC's specifications describe the standard LSAT as four 35-minute multiple-choice sections: one Reading Comprehension, two Logical Reasoning, and one unscored variable section. Three count. One does not, and you will not know which.

The unscored section can be either question type and can turn up anywhere in the order, which is deliberate. If you could identify it you would coast through it, and the data LSAC needs from it would be worthless.

The intermission

One 10-minute break, between sections two and three. Not between every section — one break, in the middle.

Ten minutes is less than it sounds like when you are standing up, dealing with whatever the check-in procedure requires, and sitting back down. It is worth rehearsing on practice tests rather than discovering on test day, and it is the single most common way a full-length practice test fails to resemble the real thing: people take a leisurely break at minute 70 and then wonder why the real exam felt harder in section four.

The part most timing answers leave out

LSAT Argumentative Writing is not one of the four sections and does not happen on the same day. It is a separate 50-minute component: a 15-minute prewriting analysis period, which you may advance past after 5 minutes, followed by 35 minutes of essay writing.

It is unscored, but LSAC requires a completed and approved writing sample on file for your score to be released. So the honest answer to how long the LSAT takes is 140 minutes plus a break, plus 50 minutes on another day that you cannot skip.

More on that in the piece on the writing sample.

How long the whole appointment runs

Which modality you will be in is itself changing. See the piece on in-person testing.