Law School Discussion

I prepped using a Kaplan book, worked through the exercises, and increased how many practice tests I did as test day grew nearer.  Logic games were my worst area, so a week and a half before the test I bought the Kaplan logic games book, and worked through those quite intensively.  It worked....my logic games score improved to the level of everything else, and I made a 12 point improvement overall.

That said, I wouldn't recommend you use the Kaplan books.  I only used them because I was living in a small town in Eastern Canada at the time, and they were what the bookstore had.  That was in 2007, I don't think it occurred to me to order books on Amazon.  Now I would recommend you use the LSAC books to prep.  They're pretty cheap.

First focus on understanding the questions, and doing them write with unlimited time.  Then focus on doing a section well in 35 minutes.  Then improve your stamina by writing full practice tests. 

As for how to learn to do them well....there are several options.  There seems to be a lot of free and useful info on the internet, but it takes some sifting through.  Any of the corporate prep books will give you a decent base, but don't take them as gospel.  The powerscore books seem pretty good.  If you've got the budget for it, you could hire a tutor for 1-2 sessions, to learn the following skills:

1.  How to diagram.  All dogs are cute becomes     D --> C, or      not C --> not D,

(meaning, if it's not cute, its not a dog.  That's called the contrapositive, and normally you would draw a line through the letter.  You should learn how to link diagrams together, and how to tell if something goes on the left or right of the diagram, using words like if, only if, etc.)

Diagramming is useful for both logical reasoning, and logic games.  If there's time, you could also ask to learn about statement negation (for assumption questions), quantifiers (words like most, many, some, all).

2.  How to set up a linear and a grouping logic game, and which symbols are the easiest to use.  How you should make sketches on your page.

3.  How to look for structure in a reading comp passage, and how to improve your understanding of a passage. 

4.  Lastly, you should have them watch you do a few questions, and see if they notice anything obvious to change. 

Any good tutor should be able to teach you those things.  You should be able to find a good one for about 50$ an hour on craigslist, and they should be able to teach you all of that in 2-3 hours.  The rest is practice, to master the skills you've learned, and you can do that on your own if you're motivated.

I did well somehow, without having mastered those things, but I'm better at the LSAT now that I know how to do all of that.  I scored a 177.  I recognize that the things I mentioned may sound very simple - that's because they are.  Yet not many people know how to do all of those things on the LSAT, so hopefully something in there will let you improve.  Good luck!