As you study for the LSAT, you may find yourself wondering why law schools insist on torturing you with this cursed test. As you have questions, LSAC has answers. They also have a cure for insomnia. And it’s all in this report on the predictive validity of the LSAT.

So you don’t have to slog through the whole thing, here’s the gist: LSAC went through a bunch of data to see how well LSAT scores and undergraduate GPAs correlate to first-year law school GPAs. They found that your LSAT score predicts your first-year grades better than your undergraduate GPA does. But LSAC isn’t one to commit an exclusivity fallacy, and they found that a combination of LSAT score and undergrad GPA makes an even better predictor than LSAT score alone.

LSAC has been running studies like this for a while. This most recent report also found that the LSAT’s predictive validity isn’t changing much, if any, over time.

Law schools tend to weight numbers heavily in the admissions process, and they tend to give a little more precedence to your LSAT score than to your GPA. Makes sense now, huh? This report underscores one big reason that law schools’ practices are unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. The LSAT got what they need.

Combine that with the LSAT’s importance to a certain set of law school rankings that law schools might happen to care just a little about, and it looks like the LSAT’s not going anywhere. For better or for worse, if you want to get into law school, you’re going to have to take the LSAT, and your LSAT score is going to matter a lot. So get to studying.

And if you ever find yourself struggling through an LSAT Logic Game and wondering exactly whom to blame for coming up with such a devious test, LSAC has answers for you, too.