Which one!? Forum

[tangelo]

Going a little crazy trying to pick the best LSAT study method/system/program. There's quite a few methods from various users here in the forum and lots of classes out there online and in person. I'm a little worn out trying to research and find the best one. So, which one is just the best! Is there some kind of matrix that tells me which of all these methods has produced the best results? Which method or training system did you pick and why? Is there maybe a voting link somewhere so I can see what path the majority of you have chosen?

[Jeffort]

Which method/combination of methods is the 'Best' is subjective and really depends on your learning style and other factors such as timeline, preferred pace, time per week available for prep, etc.

Live interactive class vs. mainly learning everything on your own with static sources such as books and/or videos is the first and most important decision you need to make in order to really get started. A lot of personal factors should be carefully considered other than just the costs involved. Learning style and level of self-discipline are two important factors to think about. Some people learn much better and faster with a live instructor explaining things that answers questions so you can make sure you really understand what's going on, you don't get any type of feedback or in depth discussions like that to flush things out when doing self study unless you hire a tutor or post a lot of threads here asking questions.

While self study saves a lot of $$, it puts a lot more responsibility on you to in effect teach all the important stuff to yourself with the guides. There is no great way for you to easily figure out if you understand everything properly and/or completely when doing self study. You could read an important chapter of a good prep book, think you totally understood it and got everything that was important but in fact have totally missed the main important points and misunderstood what some of the stuff was really about/meant for. This type of stuff happens all the time. Reading and going as far as memorizing everything in the good prep books, which tons of people do every year to try to score 170+, doesn't guarantee full/proper understanding or that proper application of the information will materialize. A live instructor or tutor does a much better job of describing and teaching the mindset, process and actual hands-on/how-to mental approaches to use with the questions than books or videos ever can.

Many people prep very well doing self-study, it saves a lot of $$ and is flexible so it's also a good option for many people as long as you are motivated and disciplined.

Basically, figure out class or self-study first, then explore options within whichever of those you decide. You gotta start narrowing down and ruling out possibilities somewhere.

[BPlaura]

Jeffort's explanation (as always) is great. No one can tell you what's best for you, but here are the main factors you'd probably want to consider:

- PRICE: self-study is cheaper than classes. For classes, I'd suggest that you look at the price per hour of the course - it varies a surprising amount between different companies
- YOUR MOTIVATION: if you're not highly motivated, self-study might not be best for you
- YOUR LEARNING STYLE: Jeffort covered this quite a bit, but basically, if you learn better by having someone who is readily accessible for questions, a course is going to be easier in that respect (though you can also get questions answered on TLS)
- CONVENIENCE: depending on your schedule, you may find that an online course (that you can watch at any time) is more convenient than a live course with set hours. And of course, self-study is the most "convenient" in that sense because your schedule is entirely up to you.
- REVIEWS: sounds like you're already doing this, but take a good look at the reviews for whatever method you choose.

Those are the main factors that come to mind now. Will update if I think of any others. Feel free to PM me with any questions, and best of luck!

Edited to add:
MATERIALS - what do you get for whatever you're paying? At a minimum, I'd think most worthwhile programs/materials should contain detailed explanations of each question, as it's important to fully understand the questions you're doing.

[tangelo]

Thanks guys, great advice.

I want to to do both. I will take a class that's being offered here in Los Angeles at West LA Law School. It's under 500 bucks and seems legit, 3 hours a weekend for several weeks. BUT I also want to pick one of the several methods suggested here at TLS for self-study. I guess that's what I really want to narrow down since there seem to be so many great one's used by members. So that's what I need help narrowing down. Which one have you guys had success with? Is there any numbers to validate the success of any one over another? Thanks again!

Money is not an issue.

BTW, this is the in-person class I was planning on taking since it's very close to me. Let me know if anyone has any thoughts on it: --LinkRemoved--

[BPlaura]

I've heard very good things about NoodleyOne's guide (which is billed as a guide for retakers but can by used by anyone) here on TLS. I'm not sure what materials that uses, but The LSAT Trainer and the Cambridge bundles (by question type) also seem to be really popular here. Just be careful with combining methods from different companies - it makes a lot of sense to try several methods to see what works, but learning different methods at the same time can be confusing. It might make more sense to start with learning from one source per section and then get more materials as you need them.

Regarding the class you pointed out, I don't know much about it but am not impressed by the website - it doesn't tell you what materials you're getting (for instance, do you get access to all licensed LSAT questions? Are they even using real LSAT questions? Do you get explanations? Are there any online resources?), doesn't tell you anything about the instructors other than that they're law school graduates (but what was their LSAT score? how long have they been teaching?), and doesn't tell you what methods they teach (do they use company X's materials? their own materials? etc). I'm obviously not completely unbiased, but if a friend sent me this link, I'd tell them to try to get some more info before signing up.

[tangelo]

Thanks BP, I'll be sure to email them those questions before I move forward with them and will research those 3 suggested methods again as well.

[Christine (MLSAT)]

I can't speak to that particular course (nor would I), but there are a number of factors to assess when looking at a prep course.

1) Number of hours of direct/interactive instruction (as BPLaura points out above)
2) Number of class sessions (yes, this is different from #1 - two 6 hour class sessions may not be as valuable for you as six 2 hour class sessions. If the class is too long for you, you won't get anything out of the last portion. However, if it's too short, you are wasting a lot of commuting time. Figure out the optimum class length for you personally.)
3) Class size.
4) Instruction style (lecture vs interactive/socratic)
5) Qualifications of the instructors - is it important to you that they be JDs? Is it important to you that they scored extremely well on an officially administered LSAT? Can you see each teacher's LSAT score? Is it important to you that they have a lot of teaching experience (either in test prep or otherwise)?
6) Access to LSATs


As for methods for study, I don't think you'll find any serious metrics. However, I'd read the various guides that people have posted with two things in mind:
1) you have to find the bits and pieces that work best *for you*. That might mean a little from Guide A, and a lot from Guide B, with a smidge of advice from Guide C. The only way to find all that out is to EXPERIMENT. And then you must be able to assess how you are adjusting to the experiments, and which pieces fit your thinking style, etc.
2) If certain things show up in multiple guides, there's probably a fair bit of merit to them. For instance, the general prioritization of drilling over PTing, or the importance of blind review. These are things everyone should be aware of, regardless of your personal style. There are a lot of broad strokes like this that should form the basis of your system, and you can find them in most of the major well-reputed books as well as many of the student-written guides on this site.

At the end of the day, finding the system that works best for you, though, requires a fair amount of work on your part, no small part of which is trial and error to discover what fits you best.