Master the LSAT (with Software and Online Course) (Paperback)

For one thing, the single most difficult part of the LSAT has to be the "Games" section. You know: "There are 6 businessmen seated around a table: Jacobs, King, Lewis, Meyers, Nathan, and O'Connor.
O'Connor always sits between Jacobs and Lewis
Nathan cannot sit next to King....etc.

Unless one is a member of Mensa, and enjoys these kinds of puzzles for pure recreation, one is unlikely to score well on this section of the test. BUT, having said that, the Games section of the test is probably the one area where you can most improve your ability. The authors realize this and devote more of "Master the LSAT" to this section than any other.

There is one point on which I disagree with the authors. They recommend that you create a kind of shorthand for the conditions of each game. I think that this is a foolish waste of time. After all, as you are not allowed to bring any scratch paper with you for use during the test, you will have to use the test booklet to draw any diagrams to aid in solving the problems. Therefore, since you will be writing on the same page as the question and conditions are printed, there is no need to add the additional step of rewriting the conditions in shorthand,IMHO.

As for the rest...It is presumed that we have all taken a course in critical thinking and composition, so we should have some proficiency in analyzing an argument and reading comprehension. Still, the authors do a great job of pointing out where the creators of the LSAT will attempt to trip you up through obfuscation, strange wording of conditions, etc.

My advice, like so many others here on Amazon, is this: Buy this book at least two months in advance of your test date, buy the "10 Actual" book from LSAC, and study at least two hours per day. One attorney told me: "If I had known how important that stupid test was, I would have begun studying a year in advance."

One other trick: When you first attempt the practice questions DO NOT observe a time limit. Then, little by little, try to improve your speed. Why? Well, I'm a guitar player, and I've never mastered a difficult song by first attempting to practice it at its normal speed. You begin by playing the passage so slowly that you cannot make a mistake and only then do you increase the metronome. Get the idea? Well, I've already said too much. After all, on a percentile basis, I'm competing with all of you, right?

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You'll find the advice presented for the analytical reasoning section contains the basic methods that are found in the Kaplan and PR books, i.e. methods for weakening and strengthening arguments, etc. No revelations there. Also, this book relies more heavily on "tips" such as ruling out answers containing "similar content." Some of the recent LSAT questions are now hip to this technique and actually have "similar content" on all the answer choices. Basically, 90% of analytical reasoning questions break down to finding the conclusion and linking the premises to the conclusion.

The sections on Logic games are somewhat spotty. The book does a nice job explaining linear games, e.g games with 3 slots, for variables A B C. However, it doesn't do a great job with grouping games, which appear frequently on recent LSATs. The techniques in the book will give you a basic plan for doing the games sections. However, one of the best way to do well on these games is to do a ton of previous logic game sections so that you can solve them quickly and rapidly. Typically, each game hinges on getting one or two big deductions, after which the whole game falls into place. You'll need to solve each game in under 8m 45s to finish this section on time. So, get cracking on piecing the individuals rules to get that big deduction. Oh, and the book spends way too much time on circular, diagramming, and mapping games, which almost never appear on the recent LSATs. Order the recent Preptests and you can see for yourself.

Reading comp - not much info here will help you than what you can find in the LSAT/LSACD guide tells you. Best advice, is to map out the passage so that you rapidly refer back to it.

The software accompanying the book is useless, as they are not real LSAT questions.

Overall, I found this book better than the Kaplan and PR books, as they seemed to be expanded advertisements for their classes. If you're tight on cash, skip this book, order the "Official LSAT Prep Test with Explanataions" and the other recent LSAT Prep tests.

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