HOW MANY TOOK A LSAT PREP COURSE BEFORE TAKING THE LSAT? Forum

[LaurenLaw]

That was the exact question I asked myself before signing up for a course.

I took the Princeton Review, did all the homework and stayed on task and raised my LSAT grade 11 points. I read through the Kaplan books (when a friend of mine asked me to teach her how the LSAT works because Kaplan wasn't working for her) and I found them to be less focused. In my opinion, they weren't concentrating on the correct areas necessary to do well on the LSAT. Kaplan seems like it's good for average students, no offense to those who benefitted from Kaplan. Those who are already scoring in the 160's don't seem to benefit much from the teaching (any more than practicing on your own would help). But as long as you concentrate in the right areas of learning and practice, I think you'll be fine in ANY class. Spend time building up test stamina. It's going to be a DAMNED long day, and you'll need to be going strong from the first section to the last (well second last, since the writing portion is essentially useless). Also, work with identifying what each type of question is asking. Know it in a nano-second, this question is inference so the answer must use weak language, etc. That will help you out the most. Other than that, develop your own strategies if theirs don't work. Don't confine to how they teach logic games, if you were scoring better beforehand. That being said, give their methods a full hearted attempt. I went down with the practice tests before I went up.

Last, and Kaplan specific, I've heard that they tend to give the easiest practice tests towards the end so that you feel you are vastly improving. Be realistic about your score. I know a lot of people who expected to score 10 points higher than they did because they felt that the practice exams mislead them.

If you have any specific questions about the LSAT once you start taking the class, feel free to ask!

[nanochick]

does kaplan use real test questions or the crappy simulated questions?

[awesomepossum]

Real crappy question.... but they're real. I bought a Princeton review book....those questions reminded me of Tara Reid.

[nanochick]

I made that mistake as well. I tried to get my moneys worth for a few hours and then abandoned it. I think it made me dumber.

[anchaires]

I took Testmasters. I think it was more spending so much money that was motivating for me. I mean if you drop that kind of change on a class are you really gonna go out to the movies on Friday night or study LG?

I needed it to kick my ass. Plus, they really do know what the hell they are teaching over there and if you can absorb it, you def. have a good possibility of doing well.

[aguacaliente]

I took the Princeton Review Accelerated class.


It was a decent class, but more focused for those in the 140's and low 150's. Once you hit the 160 mark, I don't think it does much.

I took it mostly for discipline, and it did help in that area. But then again, I also busted my chops and did WAY more than the course required.


If you're disciplined, and are capable of teaching yourself material.. forget the class.

(The diags were nice though..)

[fleur1984]

I registered with powerscore. Does anyone have any expereince with them?

[Slash2049]

this thread made great by the renewed joe and katkins show.

[eqmassa]

I didn't do a course. Instead, for 3 months beginning in July, I took about 30 tests. I paid close attention to my weaknesses (e.g. by keeping track of what kinds of questions I missed, etc.), but was still having trouble with logic games, so I photocopied the games sections from each test and just drilled them every day until I could do a full game in 5 minutes.

By September, my average score was about 178, and I'd hit 180 twice. However, on the actual test, I scored a 168. To be honest, I'd attribute this to the fact that I only started doing the newest tests in September -- and in my opinion, the LR and RC on those are significantly harder. I didn't do any tests pre-2000, so it wasn't that big of a change, but definitely noticeable. I hadn't missed more than 1 question on those sections for weeks, but you know how these things go.

So, as far as classes go, there's a few questions I'd ask yourself based on my experience:

1) Do you have the discipline to get off work/school and do an LSAT in real conditions? Note: I learned that there's one condition you can't reenact: being in a room full of other people. I didn't think this would pose much of a problem, but who knows, maybe it did.

2) Will you be more comfortable applying someone else's "method" or developing your own? I find that far too many people learn a method before they've done many questions. You should do at least 4 or 5 tests before reading any advice/methods literature, so that you can have something to evaluate those methods by.

3) Do you know anyone else who's taking the test? For me, this was very important... 2 of my roommates were also doing the test; one was doing TestMasters. It's nice to be able to discuss it, but it's also nice to just have some support/someone to complain with.

Ultimately, I'd say that courses might help some, but you really should do a few tests yourself first. I realized that I was improving dramatically on my own. Of course, in the end, I got a score 10 points lower than what I'd been averaging for about 3 weeks over the course of 10 or 15 tests, so take it or leave it.