I'm not an LSAT tutor, but sometimes my clients give me great tips to pass on. Here are a sampling:
From S:
I am feeling much better about my LSAT progress ever since I finished the PowerScore books and utilized the materials at: www.testsherpa.com .
Back when I was in college my favorite calculus professor used to say, "If you don't understand a particular concept in your text book, don't give up . . . just get a different text book." He was right. Often times a different text author would explain something in a way that even a knucklehead like me could understand. Eventually I would find that author.
The games were still killing me so with my teacher's words in mind I went online looking for a different explanation, and I found TestSherpa. The owner of TestSherpa gave me links to his four-hour long "Logic Games Workshop" and I'll be doing that tonight at home, after I leave work. I have a feeling that's going to solidify things a lot for me and then I'll resume taking practice tests tomorrow. The material's good and helpful. Why does he charge so little? I'm thinking maybe he's a disgruntled ex-LSAC employee or something.
Anyway, I think www.testsherpa.com is a wonderful little find. I'll let you know how much I improve. I have a feeling I'll have some good news about TestSherpa to share with others.
From J:
By the way, the Powerscore Logical Reasoning Bible is also good. I liked the Logic Games one so much I decided to order another to try to further improve my Logical Reasoning scores, and I'm glad I did. Both books include good information and techniques for approaching formal logic and conditional reasoning, and they interact well with each other. I was in the US for the last few weeks and skimmed through a few of the general-purpose LSAT prep books (Princeton Review, Barrons etc) in a bookstore, and I was amazed at how superficial and generic they were in their advice. I've always been quite suspicious of the whole standardized-test-prep racket, so I feel strange writing these gushy testimonials, but Powerscore really does offer exceptionally effective methods.
I took Testmasters and they increased my score from a 160 (February 2008) to 178 (October 2008).
ReplyDeleteTestmasters' teaching methods are closely similar to the Powerscore books. I think the reason I saw such a great increase is not only because it's a good course (although it is) but because it FORCES you to spend, like, hours and hours prepping. If you're going to pay all the money, after all, it's a great incentive to not slack off.
Kiki
PS In October, on this blog, you can see me totally begging and freaking out about getting back my LSAT scores. Hahaha.
Thank you for your blog. Such great information.
ReplyDeleteI used Test Sherpa as well and I thought it was incredible. I "talked" to the founder through email. He told me he used to charge a lot like the other prep companies until he met an underpriveleged student with a really sad story I won't go into here. He started thinking that access to good test prep shouldn't be a barrier that keeps out good students and started using the web to deliver the classes more cost effectively. Anyway, good stuff.
I also took Kaplan, and thought it was great. The benefit of Kaplan is their huge test prep laboratory and the high price kept me motivated to study.