Education and training company Kaplan has launched the first training sessions to prepare aspiring law students for the new national admissions test for law (LNAT) adopted by eight leading UK universities this year - despite claims by the test's designers that it is impervious to coaching.

The two-day courses will train students for the specially created test that will take place in November as part of the selection criteria for law schools at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol, Durham, Nottingham, Birmingham, East Anglia and University College London.


Students will be given samples of the LNAT logical reasoning questions intended to test the specific skills needed for a law degree. They will sit practice papers under exam conditions and receive training on strategies for recognising question types.


Louise Cook, director of European operations at Kaplan, said: 'When these tests were introduced in the US, there were a lot of comments that they were not coachable - but now it is an accepted part of the test that they are prepared for, and in fact 94% of law students there do prepare for the test.


'We take the view that we can maximise students' potential by helping them to be as prepared as possible, making sure there are no surprises for them and giving them advice on stress management.'


The eight universities announced their decision to adopt the LNAT test in February as a response to the overwhelming number of applications now received for their law courses, and the high number of students obtaining top A-Level grades.


Students will sit the exam in November, with the results shared among the eight universities.