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I'm thinking about going with Velocity for the comprehensive course membership. Any input from people who have actually done the complete course?

soj wrote:http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 6&t=161914

This is how i heard about Velocity.

i'm taking it now and love it. already have seen massive improvements (about 6 weeks into the course).

lol @ posting the link to dave's thread. was that a suggestion that you just go ask dave about the quality of his course?

anyway, i'm a big fan of his stuff. i'd recommend it highly and suggest trying it out. if you're afraid of committing the money and not liking it, you could just purchase the 1-subject course for now. he's got lots of good tips beyond what you find in manhattan/powerscore.

horrorbusiness wrote:lol @ posting the link to dave's thread. was that a suggestion that you just go ask dave about the quality of his course?

or PM him about it. obviously dave shouldn't be one's only source of info, but it can't hurt to ask him.

ggibelli wrote:i'm taking it now and love it. already have seen massive improvements (about 6 weeks into the course).

horrorbusiness wrote:lol @ posting the link to dave's thread. was that a suggestion that you just go ask dave about the quality of his course?

anyway, i'm a big fan of his stuff. i'd recommend it highly and suggest trying it out. if you're afraid of committing the money and not liking it, you could just purchase the 1-subject course for now. he's got lots of good tips beyond what you find in manhattan/powerscore.

Just purchased the comprehensive course, cant wait to start ^_^

Dave has thoroughly impressed me. If I were going to use a tutor/class, it would probably be him

JamMasterJ wrote:Dave has thoroughly impressed me. If I were going to use a tutor/class, it would probably be him

have you taken the comprehensive course?

Dave seems great. granted, I only know this from interaction on TLS, but I'm pretty impressed.

I'm currently using VelocityLsat. LOVE Dave! So great! I'm wary about LSAT programs, but I'm glad I made the investment.

glucose101 wrote:I'm currently using VelocityLsat. LOVE Dave! So great! I'm wary about LSAT programs, but I'm glad I made the investment.

do you mind me asking how much you improved? I've heard people talking about his RC methods -- I'm looking for a really good RC textbook since I've used about almost everything out there and for some reason, my RC just doesn't seem to improve..

If you thought his free advice was great--man, wait til you try his program out. I think why his program works is because he gives you a great system to work with. By having a great system, as he reiterates, everything becomes mechanical, automatic, and natural. The tips he gives for free are great, don't get me wrong, and even if I wanted to tell you his teachings, it will never be good enough as the real thing. It's kinda like reading Sparknotes on a book. Ya, it'll get you near the thing, but you won't have the full effect of reading the real thing, and you'll never get a true understanding of the LSAT.

I'm VERY frugal with money, first off. And perhaps I could've learned what Dave teaches on my own, but I think it's about convenience, and having someone else go through the legwork w o having to waste time figuring out the patterns of the test, and then giving them to you. I think it's worth it, but I can only speak for my experience.

glucose101 wrote:If you thought his free advice was great--man, wait til you try his program out. I think why his program works is because he gives you a great system to work with. By having a great system, as he reiterates, everything becomes mechanical, automatic, and natural. The tips he gives for free are great, don't get me wrong, and even if I wanted to tell you his teachings, it will never be good enough as the real thing. It's kinda like reading Sparknotes on a book. Ya, it'll get you near the thing, but you won't have the full effect of reading the real thing, and you'll never get a true understanding of the LSAT.

I'm VERY frugal with money, first off. And perhaps I could've learned what Dave teaches on my own, but I think it's about convenience, and having someone else go through the legwork w o having to waste time figuring out the patterns of the test, and then giving them to you. I think it's worth it, but I can only speak for my experience.

So did you take the comprehensive course? Could you give share a little bit more about his RC methods? Does it work?

Schang1 wrote:

glucose101 wrote:If you thought his free advice was great--man, wait til you try his program out. I think why his program works is because he gives you a great system to work with. By having a great system, as he reiterates, everything becomes mechanical, automatic, and natural. The tips he gives for free are great, don't get me wrong, and even if I wanted to tell you his teachings, it will never be good enough as the real thing. It's kinda like reading Sparknotes on a book. Ya, it'll get you near the thing, but you won't have the full effect of reading the real thing, and you'll never get a true understanding of the LSAT.

I'm VERY frugal with money, first off. And perhaps I could've learned what Dave teaches on my own, but I think it's about convenience, and having someone else go through the legwork w o having to waste time figuring out the patterns of the test, and then giving them to you. I think it's worth it, but I can only speak for my experience.

So did you take the comprehensive course? Could you give share a little bit more about his RC methods? Does it work?

I'm taking RC+LR because I'm already proficient at LG. For RC, like I said, he gives you his method, and in the booklet he sends to you with passages, he goes through how you should be annotating the passages, and how you should be zooming through the ACs. By watching his method of thinking, the way you start to think about the LSAT/RC changes.

Again though, he only gives you the method. How you apply it on your own is your challenge.

You should definitely use velocity, BUT together with the powerscore books. I feel as if velocity is a more advanced method, yet it lacks some basics that you will get from the bibles. Besides that Dave Hall is truly an amazing teacher/owner. He answer all of my private emails, and would sometimes make videos specifically about my questions. His PT question explanations were also a huge help. So I would definitely recommend buying his whole course.

Agreed. I had already used PS and MLSAT.

glucose101 wrote:Agreed. I had already used PS and MLSAT.

I've done the exact same thing -- I guess I should check out velocity now, then! Thanks for the great info!

Actually, if you don't mind, what are your PT scores?

Schang1 wrote:Actually, if you don't mind, what are your PT scores?

Agh had a long post typed up and it got deleted. I'll try to recreate it quickly before class did.

Anyway, I can provide an exact timeline of my progress, improvements, and basic realizations. Forgive any typos in advance, I'm on my iPad in class so I'm not looking and might type some weird words.

Started basically studying in july. Read a few chapters of the LG book (I'd say maybe 3 or 4) and didn't finish because I wanted to try to take a PT (untainted). Got a 164 on an older one timed, although I went over in total by roughly 4 or 5 minutes. Finished the ps books, took another, got a 161, was slightly disappointed but I knew that the newer ones were harder and within two more was at 165-167. That was near the end of July, andi had to take off nearly two weeks to move, buy things for a new apartment, etc.

August about second week starts. Two more pts later, one at like a 168 and one at 164 and I decided that I wanted to be doing better and knew I could. Started scouring all the threads from those claiming to know "the way", had broken 175, etc. All of them, while useful in some ways, were lacking in something.

Then I went through all eighteen cumbersome pages of Daves thread. Immediately I realized the vital difference: he was preaching a system, while the others offer you tactics, or techniques that are PART of a system. Seems stupid, but let me give an example, gonna quote it so it stands out:

so part of Daves system lies in being able to viciously attack question types without really even knowing the content system. This is part of the 4x4 system, and it's designed to make you not only more proficient but also to aid in recognizing why one answer is 100% wrong and the other is 100% correct when you are struggling with 50/50 issues.

For must be true questions (our example), many "systems" are going to tell you certain things (diagram somes, do some other nonsense, etc.) and while they can work, the beauty of Daves system Is that it isn't just limited to one question. So when I see a mtb stem immediately my thinking is:

"ok the right answer is going to be completely in scope and can be directly founder inferred from the stimulus. It's probably going to use small language, instead of middle language or load bearing language (you'll know what this is), and we can expect it to be the right scope. A wrong answer will likely employ load bearing language, be out of scope, or attempt to confuse by starting attractive but then end out of scope.

Then I'll look at the stimulus:
"what are the important words? Is there a conclusion (there won't be likelyin inference questions), what's the assumption if there is a conclusion that's flawed (which, as you ome to understand and think in velocity terms, you'll see that most arguments have assumption issues on the LSAT), how is the right/wrong answer going to be typical of other answers?"

This sounds like a lot of thinking, but it becomes second nature once you understand Daves system. Now, why I claim it's a system, is because we can take this same paradigm, and import it to his RC SPAM system. Some of this same thinking is needed to effectively understand the attitude and purpose, and recognizing key words and knowing the difference between load bearing and middle language cues are one of the biggest improvements I made in terms of getting RC consistent.

But it extends further than this. Let's take a look at an RC question:

"based on the passage, which one of the following most accurately describes the attitude the author has about X."

One answer may say:
"hes critical about x"

The other may say:
"he's completely disgusted about x "

Unless this passage is explicit about how much the author loathe x, you can almost always easily eliminate the second as one can't be disgusted with something without being critical. Now you see where his thinking comes full circle. You first learn why inference questions are likely to use smaller language (a simple explanation, but I don't want to mess it up so I'll let Dave explain when you cop is program)., then we can apply this thinking and implement it into our RC techniques.

The above is the most obvious way I can recall how Daves system is more like a puzzle than just individual appendeges.

Regardless, as I said, that was about two weeks into august. I took a few days revising his advice, then took a calculated risk and took TWO WEEKS (now were going into the beginning of sept) and drilled the 4x4, did post it RC drills, etc. (also picked up on manhattans ps technique, great resource and is why i suggest going with them with Dave, don't wanna be dishonest as I didn't get a chance to really use Daves system (except one of his basic ordering ones). About two and a half weeks before the test I took my first PT, and my timing was horrible, I was scared shitless and my score was roughly the same despite me feeling like I knew more. Two tests later my timing ad recovered. A test after that I (my first one I consider "real" after completing Daves regiment in a compressed amount of time) finally broke 170. Another after that I got to 172, and another after that I got a 173 or 174, with two misbubblesl my tests after consistently were 171-174, except two near test day, which were a 167 and 168 or 9 IIRC.

At that point I also almost always knew when I had something wrong (something wouldn't feel right), and I'd SAy about 90% of the time my wrong answers I had marked. Although can't guarantee it, I truly believe I could've (with some stupid luck) gotten a 175+ this last test, despite not "technically" getting it before the test. and literally three weeks before this my highest PT under my belt was a 167 or 168.

Other things I used: compiled a guide of toughest LG games and LR as from LSATblog (also bought their pts, their LR explanations for some difficult games can help if you really can't figure it out yourself using the 4x4 process), and manhattans ps technique ( I can confidently suggest that people invest in it despite not having read the other chapters; the first alone would've been worth the cost), and the two ps bibles. In total about 15-19 pts, probably less.


Hope that answers some people's pms I've been getting. Good luck all, hope I don't have to join you in dec lol because if I do I may just delay, take velocity and guarantee my 180 while working, because I know it'll happen if i do.

If you still are hesitant after my awesome review, just check out the free videos on YouTube. I'm pretty sure you'll sense the value.

^ did you actually take the Velocity course or just use the skimnotes Dave provides on TLS?

I used his videos, as well as his advice on TLS. There's a ton of them, I couldn't buy them all, I know his LR + RC comprehensive package covers a lot more than just the basics, and from talking to the people that bought the full one you get ridiculous RC help which alot of people seem to want.

I can't comment on his games though, I didn't use his games method. I ended up being pretty fine on my own just drilling using mostly PS and Manhattan's stuff, although honestly it seems like those stupid "which one of the following if replacing "X rule" would have the same effect on the question" things are gonna be a standard question on future LSATs as they've been in almost everyone from like 58-64. I hope someone figures out an efficient way to get those done, otherwise (at least for me) getting a -0 on games would always be a matter of sheer luck if one of those pops up.

hyakku wrote:I used his videos, as well as his advice on TLS. There's a ton of them, I couldn't buy them all, I know his LR + RC comprehensive package covers a lot more than just the basics, and from talking to the people that bought the full one you get ridiculous RC help which alot of people seem to want.

I can't comment on his games though, I didn't use his games method. I ended up being pretty fine on my own just drilling using mostly PS and Manhattan's stuff, although honestly it seems like those stupid "which one of the following if replacing "X rule" would have the same effect on the question" things are gonna be a standard question on future LSATs as they've been in almost everyone from like 58-64. I hope someone figures out an efficient way to get those done, otherwise (at least for me) getting a -0 on games would always be a matter of sheer luck if one of those pops up.

Have you looked @ Manhattan's supplement chapter on the substitution rule? I think it's the best bet

glucose101 wrote:

hyakku wrote:I used his videos, as well as his advice on TLS. There's a ton of them, I couldn't buy them all, I know his LR + RC comprehensive package covers a lot more than just the basics, and from talking to the people that bought the full one you get ridiculous RC help which alot of people seem to want.

I can't comment on his games though, I didn't use his games method. I ended up being pretty fine on my own just drilling using mostly PS and Manhattan's stuff, although honestly it seems like those stupid "which one of the following if replacing "X rule" would have the same effect on the question" things are gonna be a standard question on future LSATs as they've been in almost everyone from like 58-64. I hope someone figures out an efficient way to get those done, otherwise (at least for me) getting a -0 on games would always be a matter of sheer luck if one of those pops up.

Have you looked @ Manhattan's supplement chapter on the substitution rule? I think it's the best bet

Where is this chapter?

On a side note, the Velocity free Podcasts are amazing! He has a way of explaining things that is very clear, even on first listen.

tehrocstar wrote:Where is this chapter?

http://www.manhattanlsat.com/download/E ... 111106.pdf