0 12 - The Michigan Daily - Monday, May 8, 2006 LSAT SCAMS continued from page 8 companies have been locked in a bitter struggle over the domain name testmas- ters.com, currently controlledby the Texas Test Masters. Both sides have dirtied their handsinthefight.TheU.S.districtcourtin Houston called the California company's litany of lawsuits against the Texas Test Masters "a campaign of terror." The New York State Consumer Protec- tion Board has also warned the public that the Texas Test Masters is attempting to defraud students using Singh's reputation. Corporate deception is not the only thing students need to watch out for. Uni- versity students often fall victim to false advertising by private tutors as well. Mayssoun Bydon, founder of the Ann Arbor-based 180 LSAT Company said one of her students went on to teach sev- eralcourses byimpersonating Bydon,who charges $250 an hour for private lessons. "There's so much of this fakeness," Bydon said. "It's astonishing. It's everywhere." Bydon saidthat inher 11 years working in the area, she's seen tutors use false refer- ences and test scores and had friends pose as references on the phone. Bydon estimates there are about 25 pri- vate LSAT tutors in the area, but said she would only consider hiring three of them. "(While shoppingforaprep course) we recommend students truly do their home- work,' said Mariella Mecozzi, a senior assistant directorat the University's Career Center. "It's just like buying a car. You want to check all their sources, preferably In the race to achieve the perfect score, more than once." some students overlook the possibility of Dineil Diaz was a student at Pace Col- self-teaching, Mecozzi said. lege in New York when she enrolled in "I'm not saying preparation courses are the Texas Test Masters course under the not necessary, but that shouldn't be a start- impression it was Robin Singh's TestMas- ing point," she said. "It's not something ters. where somebody has to necessarily hold Diaz said she yourhand." learned of the differ- "There's so much Mecozzi said some ence between the two of the best scores companies after she of this fakeness. It's come not from the had attended the class smartest students, for several days and astonishing" but those who were it was too late to get - Mayssoun Bydon disciplined and a refund. Upon com- motivated enough pleting the course and 180 LSAT Company to study and teach retaking the test, her themselves. She score stayed the same. also said that students who work extra Diaz, who has since enrolled in Test- hours to pay for increasingly popular Masters, abandoned her hopes of attend- and expensive one-on-one tutoring ing New York University School of Law may sacrifice hours they should be and will be eurolling in the Benjamin N. preparing for the test. Cardozo School of Law in the fall. Diaz In Ann Arbor, most group classes recently received a letter from the Attor- costbetween $1,000 and $2,000, while ney General of New York informing her private tutoring costs range from $35 that the Texas Test Masters has accused to about $250 an hour. her of espionage. Most instructors consider a dif- "It's been a process that's been very ference of five to 10 points out expensive," Diaz said. "I just wish I would of a possible 180 a success story. have known." Although the importance of LSAT But,itcanbedifficulttocheckevery fact scores varies with each law school about a potential course or instructor. Rich admissions policy, the scores are Klarman,a local LSAT tutor said he might often given greater weight than not want to teach a student who insisted on grade point averages. checking every fact about him. Nearly 1,200 University students "On the one hand, you want to be and alumni applied to law school in careful in life, and on the other you 2004-05. Twenty-two percent were don't want to become a paranoid freak," rejected from every school to which Klarman said. they applied. VOLKOW continued from page 8 high enough doses are known to result in psychosis. Not all drugs are the same and the consequences of taking drugs will be different for every person, Volkow said. Because individu- als are not aware of their genetic composition, they do not know the effects certain drugs will have on them. "In many cases, it's like playing roulette," she said. Researchers like Volkow look at- the genes that code for such con- nections in the brain. For example, dopamine, widely known as the brain's pleasure chem- ical, provides feelings of enjoyment and reinforces certain behavior. Drug addicts, who tend to have a lower expression of dopamine D2 receptors - mechanisms that regu- late the release of the chemical - may seek out drugs to compensate for this deficit, Volkow said. To study the role of receptors in addiction, scientists injected the gene that codes for D2 receptors into animals. While this research revealed that a heightened amount of D2 receptors results in reduced intake of drugs, Volkow said we cannot claim there is a causal relationship between the amount of D2 receptors and the degree of pleasure experi- enced from drug use. It is only one factor that may influence behavior. Another factor is a person's metabolism. Because each person breaks down drugs differently, neg- ative experiences with drug use may be due to an inability to metabolize the drug, she said. The Barrett Lecture series began in 1990 to honor Albert Barrett, the first chair of the University's psy- chiatry department, who is believed to be the first full-time psychiatry professor in the United States. Volkow carries on the exemplary trail of Barrett lectureships. Volkow is the great-granddaughter of Bol- shevik revolutionary Leon Trotsky and grew up in the Mexico City house in which Trotsky was killed on Stalin's orders in 1940. After graduating from the Nation- al University of Mexico's medi- cal school, she came to the United States. She has since established herself as an international leader in research on addiction and brain imaging. Volkow became director at the National Institute of Drug Abuse in May 2003. Before coming to the NIDA, she held leadership posi- tions at Brookhaven National Labo- ratory. Before Brookhaven, Volkow was a professor in the department of psychiatry and associate dean of the medical school at the State Uni- versity of New York-Stony Brook. 14 ~OI C44-C 3 O~4ttvL~L~ekX''t +~b*~Lv ~~t vW{ CL+0 CIO c:Ovvse6+ih oboA it. attd4'& w Ch~d*%* Low*vC &#oW 4 Whta, t coool'.Adtio ,sis, n s o youow aout,',anoterr $4550or nore- in Yosr pocke't:,-rel,,sonth'- raster twarttis O thet Q (S,toPA. 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