Customer Reviews

Cracking the LSAT with CD-ROM, 2001 Edition (Cracking the Lsat With Sample Tests on DVD)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I have bought all the prep books on the market, Kaplan, Barron's, Arco, Petersons, etc. and this is the best by far. The techniques presented are straightforward, logical, simple, and most importantly, effective ! If you are serious about doing well on the LSAT, trust me on this. The only area that needs improvement is the lack of tests in the book. It only has two exams but unlike other prep books, they are very closely modeled after the real LSATs. Other than that, this is the only book you will need in order to learn the necessary skills, techniques, and the knowledge of the test to do very well and feel good about your future as a result.

At first, this books seems good - helpful, friendly, and complete. However, as you go through the course, you discover that the book is filled with errors, and important ones at that. The most typical error is that the explanations of the problems often seem to refer not to the question in the book, but a question from a previous edition of the book. This causes great problems, especially considering they place the answers to the practice problems in these explanations. Secondly, the books "friendly" tone gets old fast. Statements like "Reading comprehension tests your ability not to rip up the test into little pieces and fling them at the proctor," are sometimes funny, but their repetition reveals not the absurdity of the LSAT, but that of the writers of this study guide. Finally, the books seems geared to those who would like to receive an "average" score (approx. 150-155). If you want to do very well, you might want to look elsewhere, or at least buy supplementary books. This one will not get you there alone.

I've read 'em all -- Kaplan, ARCO, Barron's, and Princeton. No doubt about it, this one is the best. Clearly written, concise, but helpful. Buy this and a bunch of real LSATs and you're set.

This is a great starting point for studying for the LSAT, but a lot of the strategies offered within are cumbersome and difficult to utilize. Further, the two practice tests in the back aren't the least bit representative of what your actual score will be. I took one of the practice exams, then took an actual LSAT that had been previously administered and noticed a huge difference. It was later explained to me that anyone other than the LSAC can't use actual LSAT test sections, so they have to make up their own. The result? They're either much more difficult or much easier than an actual LSAT section.

Still, the book gives some useful pointers on how to study for the exam (like starting two months before you're scheduled to test, no sooner and no later) and some of the strategies for attacking the section are great. But you'll definitely want to get some of the latest actual LSAT tests and you should consider taking a prep class, though I'd take it from a local university as opposed to one of the corporate outfits if you can.

Good luck.

First off, I have to say that people should really be paying attention to those reviews that point out the errors and shortcomings of this book and tell you the real truth about it. This book has tons of mistakes (they really do write about questions and passages that aren't even printed in the book!) and poorly written, contradictory practice questions in it. I think you can still get some use out of it if you've already purchased it; their section on logic games helped me, but the rest of the book is pretty bad. Don't buy it.
My general criticism of the book, errors aside, is that it's really aimed at people who want to jump from 150 or so to the 160s. But their advice isn't helpful to those of us who can already score 170 without any practice. Basically they try to teach contempt for the test makers, which just isn't helpful, and gear their strategies towards not even answering all of the questions. If you really want to score high (175+) on the tests, and have a realistic shot at doing so, just get the books of actual LSATs (published by LSAC) and take those. You'll be able to diagnose your weaknesses and work on the areas that you really have trouble with, not the areas where TPR has tried to illustrate what they think the 'tricks' of the LSAT are, or where they've just written bad questions.
Since TPR can't use actual LSATs, they write their own, and their LSATs are terrible. The answers are inconsistent and the "right" ones often are picked in wholly contradictory manners.

An example: Practice test 1, Section 3, Question 2:

Answer D: "There are certain aspects of social status that are common among all SOCIAL hierarchies" This is said to be wrong because "we are only concerned with social hierarchies." What??? The answer clearly refers to SOCIAL hierarchies!

Answer E: "There are certain aspects of social status that are common among all hierarchies"

This is said to be right -- except it refers to ALL hierarchies, not just social ones. In fact, it's identical to answer D except that it refers to all hierarchies, not just social ones, so by the reasoning for saying that answer D is wrong, IT should be wrong and answer D right. But they don't even mention this.

I think it's highly irresponsible and even reprehensible that The Princeton Review would put out a book like this knowing that many people are going to rely on it for their LSAT preparation. I'm just glad that I discovered their errors in time to get all the other LSAT prep books and still do well on the test. DON'T buy this book because of the Princeton Review name. Spend your money on the Kaplan book, which is rationally, seriously written and can help all test takers, from 140 to 180, and buy a whole bunch of REAL practice LSATs. Then your score will really go up, because you'll have prepared using high-quality materials.

This book is full of errors and inconsistencies. They do not fully explain why a certain answer is right and this can be very frustrating when your understanding of the question is already hanging by a thread. I do not like the sarcastic tone this book uses when refering to the people who made up the test. And no, the reading passages do not make me want to throw them across the room. I want to understand them so that I can get a good score. I don't need joking around, I need help and this book does not give it. Nova's "Master The LSAT" is full of useful information about the LSAT and they actually help you understand the test better. Go with that one instead even though it is a little more expensive. If you have already bought "Cracking the LSAT," throw it across the room and buy Nova's book. P.S. I do not work for the LSAT or Nova.

I used this book in conjunction with the LSAC's TriplePrep books. This book presents the information in a straightforward and sometimes irreverent manner. The most appealing feature about this book was that it was very easy to follow. Each section and its strategies are presented in a very visual way, which encourages learning. For example, in the games section, it has you solve a game first and then goes step by step and shows how to solve it, how to put all the clues together, etc. This book is much easier than some other books I also used, notably ARCO's book. The one thing I thought that could have been done better was the games section in the diagnostic tests at the end of the book. They were much easier than the games in the TriplePrep books. But besides that, this is the best book that's out there.

I purchased this book after reading the rave reviews here, and was very disappointed. The book does contain tips and strategies to help you perform better, but when it came to actually working out answers to questions, _Cracking the LSAT_ failed. The book contained several typos: on p. 117 in the "Here's how to Crack it" paragraph, they write, "You've had (A) in question 5, (B) in question 6, (C) in question 6 ...." One question cannot have two answers! This example only makes me wonder how many other such errors this book contains. In other "Here's how to crack it" sections, the authors did not explain all of the answer choices and why one choice was passed over in favor of the correct one; and more than once, the explanations for sample questions were contradictory. This book did not help me in answering LSAT questions. Instead, I recommened the Triple-Prep books published by LSAC.

The book is definitely good. I used it before taking a live Princeton Review course. I think it helped me get a lot more out of that live course, but the latter is definitely superior to simple using the book and going into the test. My score increased more from the course than from the book. But for an introduction to the LSAT, I don't think there's anything better.

The book is OK, at best. Chapter 4 - concerning Reading Comprehension Questions - contains an entire section that refers to questions that are not in the book. Full explanations are given, not to the questions in the book, but to some other set of questions from a totally different reading comp passage. After seeing that the problems in that chapter and many other errors throughout the book, I am convinced that the book was very poorly edited. I would not recommend this book to prepare for the LSAT. I rank this book as marginally helpful.