Customer Reviews

Kaplan LSAT 2011 Premier with CD-ROM (Kaplan LSAT Premier Program (W/CD))

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is actually a review of the 2010-2011 edition. I reproduce it here because almost nothing has changed in the few months between publication of the last book and this 2011 version.

The LSAT exam has rules of its own, and there is not enough time during the exam to figure out what those rules are. If you learn what they are before you go in -- you can spend your energy answering the immediate questions at hand rather than wasting valuable time trying to figure out what each question is asking.

The purpose of both the LSAT prep books and the LSAT prep courses is to teach you exactly that: the basic rules of the LSAT exam questions.

Whether you are someone who is good at learning from a book or do better in a course with a live classroom, only you can know. My experience is that the overwhelming majority of people do better in a course -- but some do better from books.

Your LSAT score is the single most important determinant of whether and how good a law school you will get into. Law School admissions committees weigh it so heavily because the LSAT score has been proven to be an excellent predictor of performance in law school and ultimately a good predictor of passing the bar exam after law school.

If you try to wing it once and see how you do, even if you repeat the LSAT exam, the LSAC which oversees the LSAT exam sends both scores to each law school to which you apply. The admissions committees, as a rule, average the two scores to determine where you rank in the 1000's of applications they receive.

So it is best that you put your best foot forward the first time you take the exam and do the full and proper prep that you need before you walk in to take it. If you really want to go to law school -- hang the expense and just take the plunge. The price will be even higher if you don't.

Whether you decide on purchasing Kaplan's book or not, I urge you to use at least one other. There are multiple perspectives on how to approach taking the LSAT exam and it is learning from varied perspectives that will serve you best.

As to Kaplan's book itself, I have mixed feelings. I actually happened to have been tutored by Stanley Kaplan himself for chemistry while I was in high school. He was the most highly regarded tutor in my neighborhood area and he tutored in every subject. I personally found his tutoring style, both one on one and in a class, unsatisfactory. He taught gimmicks for succeeding on tests rather than understanding the material. I did not function well that way, though apparently others did or he wouldn't have been so popular. I was not surprised, therefore, to see that he built a whole industry around review courses and exams in all areas. It is one of the most successful companies of its type today.

I am currently a law professor, a switch from another discipline -- so law school was a mid-career change for me. I prepped for the LSAT through books but, obviously, being an academic, I am a book learner. Let the prospective law school applicant be warned however: Based on a practice exam I took before my preparation, I was appalled to learn I could barely score a bottom-of-the-barrel respectable grade on my own resources. This includes a PhD from a prestigious institution, a number of published scholarly articles as well as a book and being a professor in my previous discipline. Despite my credentials, I still wouldn't have been admitted to the law school of my choice if I did not do well on the LSAT; the law school Dean was quite blunt about that. If I needed to prep for the LSATs, then I feel confident to say that pretty much everyone does. I used 3 different prep books (Kaplan's was not around then) and crash-studied 100's of hours before taking the actual exam and fortunately did very well.

Reviewing Kaplan's book here, though the teaching approach has improved considerably over my personal experience, I find the presentation breaks down the LSAT exam into too-simple elements to be of much use for mastering the art of taking this test. Though there are many aspects of the pointers presented that are excellent, there are many aspects that are merely platitudes that don't teach you anything.

The least effective, I find, is the section on preparing for the writing sample. For one, the pointers are useless for someone who needs to learn how to write something like that. The pointers are already known to those who already know how to write. Those who need to learn those pointers will not understand them, figure them out or be able to apply them.

As an example, there is one part admonishing the reader to write well and clearly. Apart from the fact that the section itself is not written clearly and is a poorly structured paragraph -- saying "try to make your prose as clean and flawless as you can" teaches nothing. "Use structural signals to keep your writing fluid" is absolutely correct -- but if someone needs training on how to write -- they will have no idea what "structural signals" are and, indeed, there is no explanation given. (", indeed," is a structural signal.)

If you wish to improve your writing skills for the purposes of the test -- you would do best with an in-person teacher who will go over repeated writing efforts of yours and who will explain how to improve them as you go back to do the exercise again. Though the writing sample itself is not graded -- writing is the most important tool of a lawyer and the Kaplan book is correct that admissions committees look at the writing sample, especially for those applicants who fall in the gray area of whether to be admitted or not.

On the other hand (another structural signal), the book, in breaking many other aspects of the test down to elemental points, can give a good starting foundation. For those who feel intimidated by the power the LSAT exam has over their future career prospects, Kaplan's simplifying approach can reduce fear and anxiety by giving a sense of command over the material, which is critical to doing well on an any exam.

For those who feel they "don't do well on these kinds of tests" -- the book is an excellent starting point. It does a good job of reducing the sense of being overwhelmed by the process and enables you to see you can indeed nail this exam.

So Kaplan's book can serve as an excellent foundation. I just wouldn't stop there. I would go on to another, more sophisticated book that builds up your mastery of taking this kind of test or work through another one concurrently with Kaplan's or, perhaps even better, take a course.

Finally, as an aside, law school is an excellent way to start a career or do a mid-career change at any age. People in their 60's as well as their 30's & 40's do it all the time. If you are concerned about being older, you will not be, by any means, alone. Furthermore, in addition to reasoning and writing skills, experience is equally important to success, whether it be from life or another career, not only in law school but in any subsequent career that capitalizes on your legal training. So whatever your past is, good or not so good, it will serve you well in law school. And just because you go to law school, that does not mean you are slated solely for a career as an attorney. A significant percentage of law graduates go on to endeavors unrelated to law but related to their own interests that their legal training opens doors to.

Honestly, in my view, being a lawyer is one of the most powerful and productive roles in our society. Doctors give the power of life; lawyers give the power of living life, both for themselves and for others, to and for any one they wish to help or support. There is nothing more satisfying than to open doors for the deserving who thought those doors were closed to them forever. And I am not just referring to helping those caught in the criminal justice system, this includes students who are the first in their families to pursue higher education and a career, families caught in battles over estates and family businesses, businesses trapped in hostile environments -- these are among the many scenarios in which a legal perspective can be very felicitous. Being able to be available to assist in resolving a conflict with fairness and justice to all involved gives one a great sense of value. And one can do this at any time -- totally apart from those endeavors that earn one an income.

I purchased the Kaplan LSAT Premier 2011 book a couple months ago to prepare for the October LSAT. And I found the basic information, sample questions and practice tests to be helpful in preparing me for the information that will be on the test. However, when I went to go through some of the additional practice problems on the CD-ROM I ran into a problem.

Apparently Kaplan has decided that they don't need to update their CD-ROM technology to the 2010 - yet alone the 2011 - standards. After unsuccessfully attempting to access the CD-ROM on three computers and google-ing the issue, it seems that the CD-ROM is useless for anyone with a current OS - I have Windows 7.

So, if you were interested in the additional practice questions/tests on the CD-ROM and you have Windows 7, find another LSAT prep book...

I found this book to be helpful with introducing the Lsat but if you want to get everything you need in order to score high on the test, you need more than this book. Actually, I was a bit disappointed because I felt this book was just setting me up to take the Kaplan class, which I brought the book because I cannot afford the classes. I am ordering the powerscore workbook and bible in hopes of getting all the info I need...I will be posting a review of that when I get it.

You are planning to take the LSAT. You are a very smart person, and you know that this is literally the most important test you will ever take, and your future may be determined by your score.

Kaplan is a huge waste of time and money. The instruction they give is quite superficial and really insulted my intelligence. My goal is to get above 170. This is not the book for that.

Here are a few examples of reasons not to buy this book:

The CD-ROM is not Mac compatible.

They do not cover comparative reading questions. All of the practice tests they supply are from the '90s. You will need to buy the Actual, Official LSAT Preptests with Comparative Reading from LSAC to get the most recent tests.

The online companion: also a joke. The online user interface is crap. There are some short videos that do nothing more than rehash what is in the book. The "live online classroom event" is one hour long: 15 minutes of hitting you over the head telling you how important your LSAT score is, 15 minutes on one logical reasoning question, 15 minutes on one logic game, and the last 15 minutes was a sales pitch for their $1,000 classes.

There is no helpful advice for completing the writing sample.

Seriously, don't waste your money.

I've been taking standardized tests very successfully for years now, and there's really just three key aspects to test taking success:

1) Very basic background knowledge
2) Lots of practice
3) Review of material

#1 is obtained from school; you don't really need much background knowledge, especially not for the logic-based LSAT.
#3 is covered by Kaplan, though other test books do it as well or better

#2 is perhaps the most crucial component of test preparation, and it is where this book comes short. If you want to be successful, you need to do a LOT more practice. This book will not standalone.

The Kaplan LSAT Premier book is just what you'd expect from Kaplan - a high quality book to help someone prepare for a major standardized test. This much, it does well. The content comes directly from previous exams, so you know the material is exactly the types of questions that will be on the test. The test-taking strategies are mostly valid for any standardized test, with some specialization for the LSAT. The test-prep strategies are excellent.

The CD, however... I have a hard time blaming Kaplan, because a lot of software is not making the transition from Windows XP to Windows 7 64-bit. Still, I would have expected a bit more information in the book about how to use the CD with different types of computer systems.

This problem was there in the "Kaplan LSAT 2010-2011 Premier" CD as well. I would have expected it to have been corrected before a re-release of essentially the same book, but it has not been. Kaplan loses one star on the review for not fixing that!

I used the Kaplan LSAT 2011 Premier to supplement my Kaplan LSAT Experience course. I found that the Kaplan methods were extremely helpful and I don't know how I would have made it through taking the LSAT without the help of Kaplan. Between the book and the course my LSAT score went up 10 points throughout the process. Preparing for the LSAT is a stressful experience and can easily cause anxiety but with the help of the Kaplan methods my stress and anxiety levels were decreased. I felt a lot more confident walking into the LSAT the day of my test than I would have without the aid of the Kaplan LSAT 2011 Premier book. I highly recommend anything Kaplan for LSAT prep.

I've already taken the LSAT, so I selected this book kind of as a walk down memory lane and to see if this book would properly prepare students for the test. While I can't say that the book won't be useful, there are plenty of better options on the market.

The book is more of an overview for stuff that you would learn in an LSAT prep course. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially since I wouldn't recommend taking the test without a prep course. But if you're looking for a book that could serve as your primary education resource for the test, you should probably look elsewhere. Other books on the market can do that better than this one.

I also couldn't get the CD to work. I'm not a computer illiterate person, so this was very annoying. The book treats the CD as a major part of the experience and that makes its inability to work all the more frustrating.

If you're looking for supplemental LSAT practice, this book could be of value. But there are plenty of other LSAT books on the market and most of them are better than this one.

Great review, like most Kaplan problems. Unfortunately, I don't see any use for the CD, and some of the examples offered are not structured similar to the actual LSAT. I would try other brands before committing to Kaplan, though their specialized books on specific exam sections are usually superb.

I bought this book telling myself that I would hunker down and study without having to pay the seemingly exorbitant prices of test prep companies. I went through the entire book in two days, practice tests included. The "rules" that this book gives you are painfully inadequate for the actual test. I would be surprised if anyone's score improved at all after using this book. As mentioned by many other reviews, the point of a book or class is to provide basic rules that the LSAT follows. There really are only a few basic "types" of questions and this book gives you very little in terms of substance.

I took a course through Blueprint and this book is now sitting gathering dust. Again, this books seriously lacks substance and is a complete waste of time (unless you're cramming just weeks before the exam, in which case this may be the best option available to you).