Customer Reviews

LSAT For Dummies

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

This book does an excellent job of making the LSATs seem simple. It provides commonsense and "zen" strategies that work perfectly well for the sample problems provided in the book but unfortunately they simply don't translate well to the actual test material. They do say in this book that it is only helpful if used in conjunction with actual LSAT practice tests which I absoutely agree with. While it does provide some interesting insights and approaches and make you feel like you are completely capable of nailing the LSAT it drastically overly simplifies what is involved in answering LSAT questions and will leave you stunned on test day if you don't use other methods of preparation. In short, it's a good book to flip through when you're feeling overwhelmed by study material or having a panic attack, but should only be used as some light reading to supplement your study routine.

I have to differ with the earlier reviewers. I found LSAT for Dummies to be very, very helpful. It gives solid common-sense advice, and explanations for the sample questions are very clear and easy to follow. The sample questions turned out to be very similar to the ones on the actual test, so there were no surprises there. Yes, there are a couple of misprints, which I hope the Dummies will fix before printing more books (one star off for those).

I have been out of school for a number of years, and have only recently decided to pursue a law degree. Since I'm kind of just feeling around this law thing, I have sampled a number of lsat prep books and found this one particularly useful. I thought it "reached" me at least, and can recommend it to many other prospective law students. Someone else bought it for me, but I'd say it's definitely worth the money.

Positives:

1) It's cheap!

2) Shows you how to condense information into shorthand notation.

3) She explains things in a very concise and simple format.

3) For anyone seriously considering taking the LSAT this is a good book to start with but terrible choice to end on.

4) Corrections are available from the dummies website and you can download them via MS word format.

Negatives:

1) It's a fact this book has typo's.

2) This book has answers that are flat out wrong, and its disappointing that this book went to print in 2004 has not been reprinted for 2009 with all of the corrections added. The only reason this book gets a 4 star is the corrections are available from the dummies website and you can download them via MS word format. This also provides proof that the publisher knows that this book is riddled with mistakes.

3) If you only have 3-4 weeks to prepare this isn't the book for you and I do not care for the fact that this author acts as if this would be enough time. If your an average student you need 2-3 months to prepare no less.

4) If you are not self motivated ditch the book idea and sign up for a class.

This book provides a straightforward look at the LSAT. The tips are useful and the content is easy to comprehend for people who are interested in entering law school. "LSAT for Dummies" succeeds in making the test seem less daunting and absolutely doable for future LSAT testers. I recommend this book as introductory material to the LSAT.

they call this the lsat for "dummies" and if you rely on this to coach you, you will achieve the score of a dummy. i spent a few weeks reading a little each night, getting every question right, thinking i am a genius only to purchase a kaplan book a few weeks prior to actually taking the lsat, at which time i figured out that most of the questions in the dummies book are what kaplan considers "one star questions". Every question was of the easiest level, which led me into a false sense of security. i ended up taking the lsat not fully prepared and i will have to retake it now. I partially blame this book for my low score. Kaplan wasn't much better either. Going forward i plan to only practice with actual lsat questions written by lsac, because any other type of questions are nothing like the actual ones you will face on test day.

This was the first test prep book I used. I just finished it over the weekend. I will certainly have to buy a more indepth book to continue my preparation. The logic games section has good tips, but the book and this section in particular, is just too short.

This book made reviewing for the LSAT easy. I suggest getting a few different LSAT prep books and also a bunch of real tests. Some books are better than others, and this one is a really good overall view of the test and strategies. I think this one and the Arco book are good. I also foudn NOVA's to be good. Kaplan and PR were waaaay too basic and was mostly annoying filler.

Well, i see lots of people have different ideas about books, so the best thing to do is to try out a bunch and see what works for you. I found this one really good in the AR section and RC sections. Also a good strategy for applying and getting into law schools in general. Two thumbs up.

Please do not make the same mistake I did -- this book was awful. It had a lot of misinformation and actually had wrong answers in the testing section explanations! It was very confusing, to say the least. Do yourself a favor and purchase the print version of Master the LSAT by Jeff Kolby and Scott Thornburg -- it provides useful guidance and a lot of help with the games section.

First, this book is riddled with misinformation; Some answer explanations don't make much sense and, even worse, don't correspond to their questions. For example, on page 53, question number 10, "If the contractor includes Andrew in the crew, which of the following pairs of workers must he also include", lists the answer options as follows: (A) Harry and Ingrid (B) Harry and Mary (C) Ingrid and Jesus (D) Mary and Ernie (E) Nick and Oliver. However, in the answer explanation on page 57 the answers are listed as follows: (A) Harry and Jesus (B) Harry and Ingrid (C) Ingrid and Oliver (D) Mary and Ernie (E) Nick and Oliver. As shown, options (A), (B), and (C) don't correspond with each other. This is just one of quite a few.

Second, the difficulty level of the questions in this book is grossly unrepresentative of real LSAT questions. The questions are made up singlehandedly by the author, whose process, as presumable, does not parallel the enormous amount of time, considerable amount of resources, and painstaking effort put in by LSAC officials who carefully construct the real, official questions on the LSAT. Leading readers of this book to believe that the author's questions are representative of actual questions, in my opinion, is highly unethical and reading with this assumption can be pernicious for the reader.

I hope I've made my point. I DO NOT recommend this book. This book is full of factual and substantive errors. If you prepare for the LSAT with this book, you almost certainly will not do well. Please consider the alternatives available on Amazon.