the best LSAT books/prep courses.....

[JuliePanic]

Hey everyone,

I'm thinking about taking the LSAT and i want to start preparing as soon as possible. The problem is, i don't know which LSAT books to read or prep courses i should be taking. I was wondering if any of you successful law students have any suggestions, like which books, etc helped you get a respectable LSAT score (168 or higher) or which prep courses led to getting into law school.

If anyone can help me out, i would greatly appreciate it!


Julie

[stuvxyz]

I'm going to preface this with my opinion that the best preparation possible is a full-length LSAT prep course by TestMasters or PowerScore. 

I studied on my own with the below book titles for about 2 - 3 months, and THEN took a full length TestMasters course, and the TM course STILL added 5 points onto my overall score. 

If you think a PowerScore or TestMasters (www.testmasters180.com) course is "too expensive" or that books are "much more cost effective," consider that with the extra 5 points provided to me by TestMasters I not only got into top 20 schools that I would have had absolutely, positively, with no question, had no chance of getting into, I also got scholarships, particularly one scholarship at the school I will attended, that represents a return on investment ($1250 for TestMasters) of over 2,000%. 

And with no further ado, here are my book recommendations:
Crucial:

1. "10 More Actual LSATs"

2. "The Next 10 Actual LSATs"

3.  "10 Actual LSATs"

Extremely Helpful, nearly crucial:

1.  The Logic Games Bible

2. The Logical Reasoning Bible

3. Word Smart I & Word Smart II (vocabulary building can be enormously helpful for reading comprehension)

Moderately Helpful, sometimes confusing, sometimes repetitive:

1. Jeff Kolby's Mastering the LSAT

2. Kaplan LSAT 180

Watch Out for These, Most are Counterproductive:

1. Any Princeton Review book

2. Any Kaplan book that's not "LSAT 180"

3. Most other LSAT prep materials are fodder.

Hey everyone,

I'm thinking about taking the LSAT and i want to start preparing as soon as possible. The problem is, i don't know which LSAT books to read or prep courses i should be taking. I was wondering if any of you successful law students have any suggestions, like which books, etc helped you get a respectable LSAT score (168 or higher) or which prep courses led to getting into law school.

If anyone can help me out, i would greatly appreciate it!


Julie

[naomi288]

umm yea, the best lsat books are previous lsats

i took the kaplan prep course and really loved my instructor, i think it really just depends

i wouldn't start working through the real lsats until you have started te course so that you have a understanding of the test beforehand, and i would also save the most recent lsats as the last ones you will do, a few weeks before you take the actual test, from what i understand, the games have gotten considerably harder as more lsats were administered

[bruin]

I strongly recommend the full-length Powerscore class. By reputation, Testmasters is at least as good as PS.

If taking the class did not get me into schools, it at least get me large scholarships at some schools, which more than make up for the cost of the course.

[gavinlarson]

I personally didn't use any books or classes to prep for the LSAT. I used the sample test that they send you when you register, and that's it. I just don't understand what they could teach in those classes. The LSAT is so straightforward. Of course...I didn't get a "respectable score" by your definition. I definately wish I had done better, so maybe a formal prep course would have been good. I just don't know if I would have been willing to spend the money. Bruin seems to have done incredibly well on the LSAT, so his advice is probably very good advice.

[long ago]

The Tests are by the far the best and the Logic Games Bible.  That is what I used and I raised my first score from a 163 to a 176 on the real deal including perfect scores on two of the sections.  The advantage of studying is that the LSAT seems straightforward enough, but if you take 30 prep tests then you see the same subtleties over and and over and they are the same stupid thing with different words.  There are patterns if you can see those and recognize your weak spots you will do well.  I didn't take a course, but I was very disciplined and dilligent in my study I think a lot of people need the structure of a course to help them get ready, for me it wasn't worth it after I did half of the Logic Games Bible I was already scoring in the 170's.  It just depends on the person, but I h ave never heard a bad review for the Logic Games bible, but there are plenty of people who wish they would have studied more/harder or taken a prep course.  So if you want no regrets then study the best way you possibly can.