- Mon Mar 14, 2022 2:33 pm
#94236
While I found no specific mention of gum in my review of LSAC's policies (primarily the Candidate Agreement), past experience tells me that LSAC's opinion is that gum is prohibited. As far as I know, every time a student has asked LSAC this question, the answer has been "no." But there has also been plenty of anecdotal evidence of students chewing gum and not being flagged for it, and if it isn't explicitly prohibited I'm not sure how they could penalize you for it.
A gum prohibition makes sense for an in-person test and would fall under the broad prohibition against disturbing those around you, but for an at-home test with nobody to disturb other than a proctor, what's the problem?
So, if you feel a real need to chew gum during the test, here's my advice: don't ask for permission, and don't be obnoxious with it. No blowing bubbles or making a bunch of noise. If the proctor tells you that you can't chew it, just spit it out, because it's not worth the fight and the lost time. If you don't feel a real need for it, then take the conservative approach and proactively avoid potential problems by not doing it in the first place. Why poke the bear?
Adam M. Tyson
PowerScore LSAT, GRE, ACT and SAT Instructor
Follow me on Twitter at
https://twitter.com/LSATadam