Winter for me means the season for long walks while listening to podcasts. Malcolm Gladwell has a podcast called Revisionist History and in this season of long slow walks, I started listening to the episodes where I had left them in 2019. Revisionist History season four opens with a two part story on testing for one of the most prestigious courses in the United States, Law. Over the two-parts, Gladwell goes through the logic of administering the LSAT in the manner it is administered. Time bound distinct parts where you can’t carry time from one section to the next. The episodes are Puzzle Rush and The Tortoise and the Hare. If you enjoy podcasts, Revisionist History is well worth a try.

Gladwell is a Canadian who did not need to take such standardized tests of intelligence to get to college, or to land a job. But he is fascinated by the prevalence of the standardized tests and how do they determine the suitability of a person for a certain course. It’s a really interesting look into the how (Gladwell takes the LSAT along with Camille, his assistant, in the name of science) and the why of the LSAT.

But, this post is not on what Gladwell says. This is about the thoughts that triggered for me after listening to the two episodes. The barebones version of the two episodes is below –

LSAT tests the ability to solve complex problems, quickly. When you read a passage for the reading comprehension section, you are not really reading to comprehend the passage, you are reading so that  you can quickly pick the correct answer from the given choices in a multiple choice question. The speed is of essence and not complete understanding or deeper nuance. The test is designed for “hares”. If you increase the section time limits, there will be more people who will be able to solve the questions. He calls them tortoises and characterizes himself as one of them. Then using an example of a Supreme Court judge he explains that in the most important role of the legal profession, understanding nuances matters much more than speed and thus tortoises are more suited for the role.

As I heard the story, I couldn’t help but draw the parallel to GMAT – another standardized cognitive ability test out of the United States. Given that I had taken this test recently, I started drawing parallels to LSAT. Sectional time limits, you can’t carry time saved from one section to the next and speed is of essence. The GMAT is one of the critical inputs for your MBA admission to a multitude of B-schools across the world. First you have to prove that you are a “Hare”, then you have to go through multiple other parameters.

Why is being a “Hare” so critical? Gladwell discovers that the score on LSAT is a predictor of how well you do with your grades during the first year of the law school. The exams ask you to wrestle with brilliant legal problems within the standard time limit of two hours. Apparently, it is not enough. Gladwell took an example of one of the professors. The Professor increased his exam duration to four hours. And a student got an A for the first time after three years in Law school.

Given time, tortoises can beat the hares. And complex problems require time, understanding and critical thought.

Back to my MBA. Even though the selection is based on a test which identifies the “Hares”, my first term had tests for both “Hares and Tortoises”. In one of the mid-term exams, we had a twenty question test to be completed in 15 minutes. Professor Chetan Soman simply said – “I’ll put you in a pressure cooker”. But then for the end term he gave four questions, two hours and proclaimed – “open book, open notes, open Internet, open all”.

And to give an edge to the tortoises, we also had take home exams, time to consider the problem as much as you want. By the time, we got out of college our skill at being tortoises was also given the opportunity to get fully honed.

Back to the problem of the legal education in the United States, Gladwell says that one way to solve the problem is to make sure that no one gets to declare their alma mater. It doesn’t matter whether you went to Harvard school of Law or to Ohio state university. This will ensure that parameters other than the score on LSAT (which determines your school) will come into play. In IIM Ahmedabad’s One year MBA programme, the batches over the years have followed the practice of non-disclosure of GMAT score, grades and incoming salary. We can’t take away the college, but at least we have been able to bring the hiring to a place where how you perform in the recruitment process is all that counts.

I will end this with an interesting parallel that Gladwell has drawn from the Chess world. The classical chess allots 90 minutes for first 30 moves and then 30 minutes for the rest of the game. At the time of recording the episodes, Magnus Carlssen was the champion and Hikaru Nakamura stood at the eleventh position in the rankings. Then there is Blitz chess, with a time limit of 5 minutes. Carlssen was rank one and Nakamura was rank two (at the start of 2022, Nakamura became rank one in Blitz chess). And then there is Bullet chess, with a 1 minute time limit. Nakamura is the best at this.

All three are chess games. The Blitz and Bullet are equivalent of LSAT. But the world’s greatest is judged on the Classical chess. If you change the criteria of the best in the world based on Bullet chess, Nakamura is the greatest. In the interview he says, it would be true but it wouldn’t be right.

Tortoises solve complex problems. If that takes time, so be it.