biggestlawman wrote:
I see a lot of posts saying that the Trainer was useless, that it was very basic, etc. Is there a need to do the Trainer when I plan on doing the MLSAT books? I just want to make sure that I am not wasting my time.
Trainer and MLSAT felt really similar (not surprising given Mike Kim cowrote the original MLSAT stuff). I feel like there's enough redundancies such that if you already go through one, it probably won't help too much to go through the other, and it's by no means necessary. The biggest difference is that Trainer tries to take a really broad, "forest rather than trees" approach, which I think is cool. But either way, you'll end up learning the categories/q+game types anyways, and in the end, you'll prob have the basics down regardless of whether you go through MLSAT or the Trainer.
For LG, the methods are almost identical, except, off the top of my head:
1. MLSAT uses a really, really weird and mechanical way of doing conditional-heavy games that isn't simple link up (2 column vertical tree).
2. MLSAT uses more than one row for complex ordering games, while The Trainer uses only one row + subscripts (for me, the former felt a lot easier to keep track of for most games, but it's really personal preference)
3. Slight notational differences (i.e.: A _ _ ... vs. A _ _ + for 2 or more things are after A)
Trainer and MLSAT are insanely similar in LR too, except Trainer emphasizes a more flaw-focused mindset, while MLSAT focuses on just argument core. They're both advocating the same approach though: what's conclusion, what's support, what's the gap, learn the different question types, profit
Don't really remember any significant differences for RC except Mike Kim goes hardcore on the mindset of trying to get the purpose of each sentence, while MLSAT focuses on paragraph-by-paragraph main points. In essence, they both emphasize the same general idea of reading for structure rather than details. Honestly, I didn't find either too helpful for RC.
This site is definitely full of good info... I was pretty opposed to the idea of retaking when I applied this cycle, but honestly with a better score I could be graduating from law school with minimal debt, so it's worth checking my ego and hitting the LSAT books. As of now my best option is a full ride at a lower T1 or half-tuition at a mid T14 + boat loads of loans.
