The LSAT and the MCAT do not measure the same thing and do not sit on comparable scales. One runs 2 hours 20 minutes of scored multiple choice and requires no coursework at all. The other runs about 7 hours 30 minutes and draws on seven introductory subject areas.
Those three numbers explain why the Reddit version of this argument never resolves. The tests differ on length, price and scale, so "harder" depends entirely on which of those you happen to be bad at.
What Do the LSAT and MCAT Test?
The LSAT tests reasoning with no outside content. Since the August 2024 redesign, the multiple-choice portion has held two scored Logical Reasoning sections and one scored Reading Comprehension section, plus one unscored variable section that LSAC uses to pretest future questions.
Logic Games are gone. Any prep book that still teaches diagramming is describing a test that no longer exists.
Roughly 77 questions count toward your score, and another 24 or so do not. You cannot tell which section is the variable one while you are sitting in it, so the practical instruction is to treat all four as scored. Our breakdown of how many questions appear on the LSAT covers the section-level counts in detail.
One more change lands this month. Starting with the August 2026 administration, LSAC is moving the multiple-choice portion to in-center testing at Prometric for almost all test takers, with limited exceptions. Remote proctoring ran through the June 2026 test.
The MCAT works the opposite way. It is a content exam first and a reasoning exam second, covering introductory biology, general and organic chemistry, physics, first-semester biochemistry, psychology and sociology, plus research methods and statistics.
AAMC does not require specific coursework to register. It does build the exam on the assumption you have taken those courses.
LSAT vs MCAT: Which Is Actually Harder?
Difficulty splits cleanly into two failure modes, and almost every student is vulnerable to exactly one of them.
The LSAT fails you on speed. Three scored sections, 35 minutes each, roughly 1.3 to 1.4 minutes per question, and no content to fall back on when a stimulus stops making sense. Everything you need is printed in front of you, which sounds generous until you realise it means the only variable is how fast you think.
The MCAT fails you on gaps. It allows more time per question, 1.6 to 1.7 minutes, but a gap in first-semester biochemistry cannot be reasoned around in 90 seconds. You either encoded the pathway or you did not.
There is a second, less obvious asymmetry. Percentile movement costs about the same on both tests, which undercuts the popular claim that the LSAT curve is uniquely brutal. Climbing from a 160 to a 165 on the LSAT moves you 14 percentile points, from 71.1 to 85.2. Climbing from a 508 to a 513 on the MCAT moves you 12 points, from the 74th to the 86th.
Five points of scaled score, roughly a dozen percentile points, on both exams. The curve is not the differentiator. Endurance is.
MCAT test day runs about 7 hours 30 minutes of seated time with three optional breaks of roughly 10, 30 and 10 minutes. The LSAT gives you one 10-minute intermission after the second section and sends you home. Students who have never sat a mock under full timing consistently underestimate what hour six does to accuracy.
How Do the Scores Compare?
A 172 and a 520 sound nothing alike. Against their own test-taking populations they are almost the same result.
Read that table as a standing comparison and it holds. Read it as a conversion and it breaks, because the two populations are not the same people. Pre-med applicants self-select into a science-heavy pool before they ever register.
The counting difference matters more than it looks. AAMC's inclusive method nudges its published ranks slightly above LSAC's on identical distributions.
How Many Retakes Do You Get?
Most comparison pages still say the LSAT caps you at three attempts per testing year. LSAC removed that annual limit in 2023.
That no-show asymmetry is worth reading twice. Skipping an LSAT costs you the fee. Skipping an MCAT costs you the fee and one of seven lifetime attempts.
Almost nobody reaches the ceiling. AAMC's own repeat-policy analysis found just under 95% of examinees have tested once or twice, about 5% three times, and roughly 1% more than that.
Who Should Take Which Test?
The test does not pick the career. But three constraints should shape when you sit, and students routinely discover them too late.
Sequencing. The MCAT assumes coursework you may not have finished. First-semester biochemistry is the usual bottleneck, and sitting the exam before that course lands tends to cost more points than an extra month of review would have gained. The LSAT has no such dependency, so a sophomore can take it cold if they want a real diagnostic.
Calendar. The MCAT is not offered October through December 2026, which makes the late-summer and September dates the last window of the year. The LSAT's constraint is different: from August 2026, nearly everyone tests in a Prometric centre rather than at home, so if you prepared under remote conditions, run at least two full-lengths in an unfamiliar room before test day.
Failure mode. Take one timed full-length of each format before you commit study hours. If your LSAT accuracy collapses in the last eight questions of a section, you have a pacing problem. If your MCAT accuracy is flat but low across a whole section, you have a content problem, and those need opposite study plans. Our LSAT study guide and the week-by-week LSAT study plan cover the pacing side; the content side is closer to how you would approach a heavy science subject, which our guide to working through organic chemistry gets into.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the LSAT harder than the MCAT?
Neither is harder in the abstract, because they break students in different places. The LSAT packs roughly 77 scored questions into 2 hours 20 minutes at about 1.3 to 1.4 minutes per question, with no outside content, so failure looks like running out of time. The MCAT gives more room per question, 1.6 to 1.7 minutes, but spans 230 questions and seven introductory subject areas across about 7 hours 30 minutes of seated time, so failure looks like a content gap you cannot reason around. The percentile curves are similarly steep in both directions: five scaled points buys about 14 percentile points on the LSAT between 160 and 165, and about 12 on the MCAT between 508 and 513. Sit one timed full-length of each format and see which one breaks first. That answer is more useful than any general ranking.
How rare is a 172 on the LSAT?
A 172 sits above 96.72% of scores on LSAC's percentile table covering the 2023–2024, 2024–2025 and 2025–2026 testing years, which puts it in roughly the top 3%. For context on the rest of the scale, the median score is 154 at the 50.4th percentile, a 168 clears 91.4%, and a 180 clears 99.85%. LSAC calculates these against three full testing years rather than a single administration, so a 172 in August means the same thing as a 172 in November. Note also that LSAC reports the share of scores strictly lower than yours, which makes its figures slightly more conservative than AAMC's inclusive method. Before setting 172 as your target, check the 25th and 50th percentile LSAT figures in your target schools' ABA 509 disclosures, because a 168 at one school outperforms a 172 at another.
Can you take the MCAT seven times?
Yes, seven is the lifetime cap, applying to attempts from the April 2015 test dates onward. Within that ceiling you are limited to three attempts in a single testing year and four across two consecutive testing years. Voided scores and no-shows both count, which is the rule that catches people out: holding a seat you never use costs an attempt as well as the fee. AAMC will consider appeals but reviews no more than one per testing year, and approval is at its discretion. In practice almost nobody approaches the limit. AAMC's repeat-policy analysis found just under 95% of examinees have tested once or twice and about 5% three times. Read the MCAT Essentials for your testing year before voiding a score, since the decision permanently consumes an attempt.
Can you study for the LSAT and MCAT the same way?
No, and treating them alike is the most common wasted month in pre-professional prep. The MCAT is content-first: seven introductory subject areas have to be encoded before reasoning practice pays off, which makes retrieval scheduling the core of the plan. The LSAT has no content layer at all, so hours go into timed drilling of 35-minute sections and forensic review of every wrong answer until the reasoning pattern is visible on sight. Spaced repetition earns its place on an MCAT calendar and is close to useless as a primary LSAT method, though it helps with the 13 or so recurring question types. Our guide to spaced repetition covers the scheduling logic; build MCAT decks in AskSia's Flashcards with FSRS anchored to your test date, and keep LSAT review in timed full-lengths instead.
How long is each test on test day?
The LSAT multiple-choice portion runs four 35-minute sections for 2 hours 20 minutes of testing, with a 10-minute intermission after the second section. Argumentative Writing is separate: a 50-minute task taken online, available in the eight days before your scheduled test and required before scores release. The MCAT is a different order of commitment. Four sections of 95, 90, 95 and 95 minutes total 375 minutes of testing, and with optional breaks of roughly 10, 30 and 10 minutes, AAMC lists total seated time at about 7 hours 30 minutes, before check-in. Plan the MCAT as a full day, not a morning. Book at least three full-length practice exams at your real start time so your energy curve matches test day rather than your study habits.
Comparing the two tests only helps if you are genuinely undecided between law and medicine. That is a smaller group than the search volume suggests.
If you already know which field you want, the other test's difficulty is trivia. Nobody switches from medicine to law because CARS runs 90 minutes.
The comparison also breaks outside North America. Australian and UK applicants sit the GAMSAT, UCAT or LNAT instead, on different scales with different admissions weightings, so none of these numbers transfer.
And both scores are one input. Medical and law admissions read GPA, experience, letters and essays alongside the number, which is why a 511 with a strong application beats a 518 without one often enough to matter.
