Customer Reviews

LSAT Exam Cram

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If anything, I found many questions in this book to be *harder* than what I saw on the LSAT (I took it earlier this year). I think that this is best used after you've purchased some old LSATs and gotten into the rhythm of practicing the questions. Other than that, good guide and worth the price.

This book works great as an in-depth review of what all the other review books tell you to do. Each chapter gives a brief (as in 10 page) summary of some of the skills you may need and some of the questions you may encounter. However, the list of skills and techniques is by no means comprehensive (and I personally found the recommended techniques for logic games very inefficient and confusing compared to every other technique for logic games that I've tried), so if you are looking for a "How to" approach to the LSAT, this book is not your best bet (I recommend Nova's Master the LSAT book instead). On the other hand, it does gives you some succinct tips, and works great if you are trying to cram in some studying in the month before the test.

The book comes with a CD that "features sample test questions and an audio presentation of chapter concepts." The audio presentation of chapter concepts is nothing more than the author reading exactly what he wrote in the chapter (with maybe a few words different, I followed along in the book as the audio played just to see!). The sample test questions are not worth it at all. The program is called ExamForce CramMaster and I first thought that it would give me a wide variety of questions to practice on so that I would improve. The program tells you that it will give you new questions based on how you answered an old one and that it will help you improve in areas where you need it most. It might work a little bit like that, but mostly it gives you the same questions over and over again so that you can ace the section because you've memorized the answers and don't even need to read the question or answer choices anymore!

As for the practice exams in the book itself, there is no score conversion table so you only know which questions you got wrong, not how you would have scored on a real LSAT. The explanations of answers are good, although the answer key tends to be wrong. The list of answers will give one answer for a question, while the explanation gives another, and usually the correct, answer. I found the logical reasoning practice questions very useful, and the logic games questions were okay, but the reading comprehension passages were nothing like what you would get on a real LSAT. The passages were actually interesting and fun to read, sometimes excerpts from novels or short stories, and did not give any indication of what the reading passages are actually like. A better set of practice exams would be the old LSAT exams published by LSAC, even though you don't get detailed explanations.

While the questions were perhaps wittily written, I think most people would agree that taking tests most like the LSAT are the best way to prepare for test day. I thought this book was quite helpful as a review of general techniques, and as practice for the logical reasoning sections, but there is no way that I would recommend this as the only book you buy to study for the LSAT.

I was familiar with the 'Exam Cram' series so decided to take a chance with this book. They've really kept the quality up with this one. This book doesn't mess around - it gets to the heart of the test with questions that are actually more difficult (at times) than the LSAT itself. Some of the questions are actually very wittily written - got a big chuckle out of me a couple times.

A nice bonus I haven't seen elsewhere is that the author has a CD-ROM which has a recording of him going over the test techniques. He's got a pleasant speaking voice and obviously likes conveying the material - wish I had him for my pre-law class. Since I commute in to school it was very cool to be able to 'study' while on the go.

I agree with earlier reviewers that old practice LSATs are probably the best way to prepare. BUT, if you are presured for time as I was, this book works great for trying to cram in some studying in the month before your test date.

While I have yet to take the LSAT, and am therefore not sure about the quality of the questions, there are some major problems with this book. First, the answer keys are sometimes wrong. Second, editing is poor, with misspelled words, etc. Third, and most irritating, the CD is worthless, and is actually just an audio CD of the exact text of the book. It has NO sample tests and is NOT a program. You have to spend another $20.00 to upgrade it to do so, although the link provided to do this doesn't work either. So if you wanted to take sample tests on your PC and get your likely score, DO NOT get this book. No wonder its one of the cheapest ones.

Misspelled words, confusing questions that are nothing like the real LSAT questions, confusing answers to confusing questions that serve only to frustrate you more, and then more misspelled words. Whoever edited this thing should be ashamed. Save yourself the money and just buy the LSAT practice tests. The test still sucks, buy hey, you knew that already.