Customer Reviews

The PowerScore LSAT Logic Games Bible

5 star:		(58)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is the first time I've ever taken the time to write a review for a product, but I couldn't not say something about the quality of the PowerScore books. Let me say, I started preparing for the February 2010 LSAT in December 2009, and I did so by taking a $1300 Kaplan prep course. I scored a 148 on my diagnostic, and my scores with Kaplan never rose above a 153. I often felt as though their explanations weren't thorough, and it seemed as if whenever something was difficult to explain, it was simply labeled as "out of scope" -- not very helpful in understanding why incorrect answers are incorrect. So I took the LSAT in February and got a disappointing, but not surprising, 152.

I wanted at least a 156, so I planned to take the June 2010 LSAT, but decided to try a new study method. I'd heard about the Bibles, so I ordered the LG & LR Bibles. Overall, I liked their format. Yes, they are wordy, but they are THOROUGH. I went through them slowly and carefully, especially the LG Bible, as logic games were my weak spot. After finishing both bibles, I took my first full length test since the Feb LSAT, and got a 160. That was literally doing no other practice than reading the Bibles.

Ultimately, I ended up taking about 10 full length exams, never dipping below a 160 again, and peaking at 168. I took the June 2010 LSAT, and though I felt that it was quite difficult, I decided not to cancel my score, and ended up with a 165, way above the 156 that I wanted, and quite a leap from anything I'd ever done with Kaplan.

Basically, I'm telling you that there is absolutely no need to spend $1300 on a prep course (or at least not at first). Buy these books and go through them carefully, taking the time to understand each concept. THEN, if you aren't scoring where you want to, consider a course. I wish I'd tried the Bibles first... I would've had to take the LSAT only once, and I could've saved a ton of money.

Go ahead and take an official LSAT logic games section. Don't worry about the time, just try finish the entire thing with brute force if you have to.

If this was your first time and you finished the section under 35 min with only a few incorrect then your best bet is to keep doing official practice games until you're consistently where you want to be. This book won't be as helpful to you because you're a freak and I hope you're not in my class.

If you were like me and were able to finish the section with only a couple incorrect, but it took you an hour, then this book is golden and if you follow the instructions, you'll be acing these sections with minutes to spare. Yes.

If you couldn't finish the section or it took you hours, then this book will also help you enormously.
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Most of the 1 star reviews claim that this book is confusing and causes test takers to waste too much time and energy on the perfect set up and not on tackling the questions and getting points. There is some truth to this, but if you read the book, it talks at length about this issue and about how to approach the exam knowing this.

Sometimes you'll spend quite a bit of time on a setup and then pick off the questions in seconds - many times you'll read the question and immediately know the answer based on your set up producing only 2 or 3 possible solutions (this frequently occurs and when you get it, you feel fantastic). Other times, your setup will only take a few moments and you'll spend more time on the questions which will most likely be giving you hypothetical information in these situations. In any event, you'll know this and you'll act accordingly. You'll have been exposed to and instructed on how to approach, construct and deconstruct so many of these games at such great length that you'll be able to do them in your sleep - yes, there is a method to the madness.

Other important items to note are that this book only contains real/official LSAT questions, many questions are from recent exams (yr 2000+) and there's a companion workbook you can pick up which I highly recommend.

This book was incredibly helpful and actually not as boring as I was prepared for. You'll see yourself making progress immediately and consistently and you'll find yourself in many "a-ha!" moments. I hesitate to say this book is "fun", but when you're eventually crushing game after game, it's hard not to enjoy yourself a bit - at least as much as is possible when doing logic games.

Instead of typing a paragraph, I'll do a bullet point review to make this review more readable.

Pros of this Book
* A lot of good information can be had here if you're willing to read
* Very useful info on proper diagramming techniques
* The drills throughout the chapters help with learning the application of techniques
* The organization is excellent in this book. The most common game types are at the front of the book while the more obscure game types are in towards the back of the book
* The drill explanations are detailed. The most important thing to do is to look over drills/questions and learn why answers are correct or incorrect and where you messed up if you got a question wrong.

Cons of this Book
* The author at times wrote too much to make a simple point. It can be daunting to read due to the needless text making the reader want to skim
* This book is expensive, so one has to budget carefully to make room for this book
* The use of actual LSAT questions can end up tainting one's practice tests
* The tone of the author can be haughty at times (I don't mind, but others probably would). The author suggests some techniques for diagramming and time management as if it were the best when people have to develop their own style. The author also attacks other prep books and companies needlessly.
* Some of the techniques are good, some are too impractical to be useful. Using hypotheticals to answer questions would eat up too much time during the real test.
* There are some typos throughout the book. Nothing that makes the book unreadable, but it can be annoying at times.


All in all, this is a good book for learning the basics of LG. If you do well on LG already, then this isn't worth a purchase, but if you're like me and struggle with LG, then this is a worthy purchase. Of course, buying PTs and other similar study aids are far more important, so don't make this your first purchase, especially if you haven't taken a couple diagnostics first. This book is too expensive to buy without KNOWING if you need it.

Take it from an experienced LSAT Tutor-this is the best Logic Games book out there, bar none. However this book somewhat wins by default. The rest of the Logic Games books are generally an unhelpful lot that may actually harm you rather than help you. This book has many positive qualities but I want to list a few of the problems with it so you know when to proceed cautiously.

1) This book, like all books, is geared towards a mass audience. What this means is that it is not tailored for your specific weaknesses and strengths and you should always feel free to alter what they tell you to do. For the most part, suggestions in this book are just that: Suggestions. The way of doing games that the book provides is an excellent way, but will not work for everyone and if it doesn't you shouldn't be afraid to tweak what they tell you to do.

2) The book wants you to front-load all the work. That is, they want you to figure out all the deductions before you go on to make the game simple as cake. Which is great if you can figure out all the deductions beforehand, but 99% of the time you won't be able to do so. This is ok. Figure out the deductions that you can figure out and then go on and work through the problems. Front-load the work as much as you can, but if you hit a brick wall then start answering questions.

3) The book does not address the psychological aspect of the test. Looking at a game for the first time is scary, it is terrifying. This is because when you look at a game you are trying to process the entire game at the same time. Unless you are a functional genius, this is impossible to do. Instead what you need to do is take it step by step, sentence by sentence. Look at rule #1. Translate it. Look at rule #2. Translate it. Etc, etc. Suddenly the game that before seemed incomprehensible is now understandable.

4) The book uses the < symbol to say that A comes before B. For the purposes of the book A comes before B would be A > B. This is incredibly problematic because > has a prior reference point for us as human beings. When we see the > symbol we think greater than/less than. However we aren't saying that A is greater than B we are saying it comes before it, which is something completely different. Instead I recommend you write A comes before B as A-B or A....B

For more help you can visit 180degreeslsat.com

Best of luck!

The LG bible present has positive and negative aspects. On the positive side, they teach some useful techniques for diagramming.

On the negative side, they focus far too much attention on conforming to their techniques at all costs, and on their cumbersome classification scheme for the game types.

The book's dogmatism about their techniques exacerbates students' tendency to fall in the trap of trying to create the "perfect diagram". The authors imply that once you master their diagramming and deduction techniques, the answers will simply flow out. Unfortunately, on a timed test, the perfect diagram's costs are often higher than its benefits. The same goes for the initial deductions that they stress- they are useful, but not always worth the time.

The book's classification scheme of games into more than a dozen types is unwieldy. I have gained very little insight into the games based on their classifications, which they encourage readers to memorize. The authors should remember their audience: most of us don't want to be LSAT taxonomists. The emphasis on the diversity of game types leads the authors to downplay the commonalities between the different kinds of games (for example, the question types and the procedures for answering each question type, which are largely the same).

Personally, I would recommend combining PowerScore's diagramming techniques with the approach suggested in the Big Fat Genius Guide to Logic Games. Nonetheless, I don't dispute that many people find the Powerscore book useful- but if it's not doing the trick for you, it's worth exploring other options!

I bought this book when I was about 9 weeks into a Kaplan LSAT prep class and I just wasn't making the progress I wanted to, in Logic Games. Felt I needed extra practice and some kind of change in the way I was approaching the problems. This was really well-reviewed on Amazon... so I bought it.
THANK GOODNESS I DID! My scores on the LG sections of the test rose from low 70th percentile to high 80's/low 90's. I literally went from missing 5-6 questions to missing 2-3, every time. I was particularly pleased with the way the book teaches you to approach the games: it shows you how to confidently attack every problem you will face... and for me, that was key.
I was so impressed with this book that I also ordered The Logical Reasoning Bible; I'm only 1/5 of the way through that one and already see subtle differences in the way I'm performing on that section of the test.
The books are well laid out, with the concepts clearly, simply explained. There are plenty of drills and the explanations are detailed and extremely helpful. I really can't recommend this highly enough.

When I took my first practice LSAT I received a 145. My weakest section was the logic games, but after reading this book it became my easiest section. I recently took the June 2008 LSAT and received a 153- not bad if you are looking for mediocre schools, and received 21 of 23 on the Logic Games section. I know a lot of fellow LSAT takers who have problem with this portion of the LSAT and the books they read have all of these wacky, difficult to understand diagrams.
This prep book gives you clear, and easy instructions that become like second nature with enough practice. I probably studied for less than a month with the Logic Games bible. Oh, and I do plan on taking the upcoming October LSAT and using the Logical Reasoning Bible(same company, must be good right?) along with anything I can find on reading comprehension!

I highly recommend this book.

I've been studying for the LSAT and so far I've taken three practice tests. I took one about a year ago, I took one two weeks ago right before starting this book, and I took one a few days ago after reading through to chapter 8 in this book.

I found the book entertaining and was actually able to sit down and study it fully and for longer amounts of time (something that is a rare occurrence for me). I actually found myself wanting to read this book and study for the LSAT instead of doing my regular homework. It's a very good motivator.

Regarding my score increase:
I got a 158 on the practice test last year. I got a 158 on the practice test I took before reading this book. I got a 163 on the practice test I took after chapter 7.

Of only the test I took before reading this book and after reading most of this book:
The first test: I got 9 out of 24 logic game questions right (about 37.5%)
The second test: I got 16 out of 24 logic game questions right (about 66.7%)

I think I should also mention that before this book I ran out of time before getting to seven of the questions. After this book I had extra time on the section (but I didn't go back through and check my answers. I may have increased my score further had I done so).

I plan to continue on with some of the other PowerScore books, staring with the Logical Reasoning Bible. I also highly recommend using this book in conjunction with the LSAC prep test books (the practice tests that I took immediately before this book and during/after this book were LSAC tests. The test I took last year was a Kaplan test).

As someone who did not take a class but relied on prep books to study for the LSAT, I highly recommend this book. A friend recommended it to me as being a must-have, and I completely second that. The logic games is perhaps the most intimidating section of the LSAT, and I was completely clueless as to how to approach this section. This book breaks down all the different types of games that might appear on your LSAT by section, offering an explanation and example of the type of game and tons of drills (from preliminary to practice questions). Practice, practice, practice! I found that this book completely worked for me, and I ended up actually finding the logic games kinda fun after I was through! Explanations are thorough and easy to understand, and all the drill sets and questions from previous LSATS ensure that you get all the practice you need. If you're struggling with logic games, this book is a must to have in your arsenal of prep work.

The PowerScore LSAT Logic Games Bible was truly just what I needed to ace the LSAT. I first studied from Kaplan's prep book and Princeton Review's prep book, however, they did not offer detailed instructions on how to attack the concepts of the Logic Games. Whereas the Logic Games Bible goes through step-by-step on how to attack any problem that has ever been on the LSAT and may appear again. Once you couple the skills you learn from this book with several timed, practice tests, you will be truly prepared to score high on the LSAT.