Return Policy for Powerscore and Testmasters? Forum

[Squiddy]

Is there a way I can go to the first lesson and then decide whether or not I want to continue? Because I don't want to spend 15 lessons going to a class and losing 1200-1500 dollars if the class is moving slowly. On the other hand, if it will be beneficial for me, I don't want to miss out on it because I'm scared of spending that much money on a class.

[borntokill]

even if the first lesson serves you well, there is no guarantee that the rest of the course would be equally satisfactory. I’d say don’t set your expectation too high for the prep classes.

[primusux]

I took Powerscore and let me tell you, they will not refund your money at all if you have an issue with the course. Even if you're seeking just a partial refund for say 4 hours (1 days worth) of the class. I found their customer service to be seriously lacking.
Its also a pretty ridiculous setup. Each day there is a set of problems/material that the entire class has to read aloud. This is done to waste time and ensure the course moves slowly so they can claim to give you the 80 hours or whatever is listed on the site.
Their phone tutors that you get access to when you sign up act as though you are bothering them when you call.
I will say the online resource of being able to input your scores on 10 specific PTs is interesting in that it shows you what types of questions you have difficulty on and gives you a breakdown of what percent of people who took the exam for real chose which answers etc.

I would say you can get everything you need from a class buy buying the bibles and all the practice exams. I really wish I would have saved my money.

[booboo]

I took Powerscore and let me tell you, they will not refund your money at all if you have an issue with the course. Even if you're seeking just a partial refund for say 4 hours (1 days worth) of the class. I found their customer service to be seriously lacking.
Its also a pretty ridiculous setup. Each day there is a set of problems/material that the entire class has to read aloud. This is done to waste time and ensure the course moves slowly so they can claim to give you the 80 hours or whatever is listed on the site.
Their phone tutors that you get access to when you sign up act as though you are bothering them when you call.
I will say the online resource of being able to input your scores on 10 specific PTs is interesting in that it shows you what types of questions you have difficulty on and gives you a breakdown of what percent of people who took the exam for real chose which answers etc.

I would say you can get everything you need from a class buy buying the bibles and all the practice exams. I really wish I would have saved my money.

+1.

[Squiddy]

Thanks for all your replies. I really appreciate it.

So can I expect much of the same for Testmasters? Because that's the course I'm really looking at. And are they all really like 100 students with one instructor?

[am060459]

Thanks for all your replies. I really appreciate it.

So can I expect much of the same for Testmasters? Because that's the course I'm really looking at. And are they all really like 100 students with one instructor?

it depends on location. i took the TM in NYC and there was, give or take, 100 students. but it was well worth it. it also depends on ur dedication outside the course. TM gives a lot of homework and supplemental work. i took the TM course leading to the Dec exam (although i decided to postpone my lsat exam) and am still finishing up the homework (not to mention i didnt even touch the supplemental work).

if your scoring, or havent even taken a PT, lower than 155 i would say take TM. if u took a PT and got higher than 155 buy the PS bibles and self study.

[Rand M.]

Thanks for all your replies. I really appreciate it.

So can I expect much of the same for Testmasters? Because that's the course I'm really looking at. And are they all really like 100 students with one instructor?

They are definitely not all large classes. My TM class had 5 people in it. It really just depends on the locale. The bigger the city the more people will be in your class.

[bluejayk]

Prep classes are all going to move slowly, they all assume you are a complete novice. If everyone in your class had a 160+ diag, you could probably move through all the material in 1/4th the time. That's the way classes work, though. If you're at the top of the class, you're bored, if you're at the bottom, you're lost.

[tomwatts]

If you have a competent teacher, he or she should be able to teach to all ends of the score range. Some pieces of advice apply primarily to the high end and some primarily to the low end, but the basics of how to recognize game types, patterns of flawed logic, how conditional reasoning works, and all the rest of that applies to everybody equally. I don't have a clue how TM or PS classes are set up, but in my PR classes, I think that most of the time (by a fair margin — 75%? 90%? I don't know) is spent on stuff that will be helpful to everybody.

Now, if you've studied the LSAT before and already know how to draw diagrams for the games, etc., then there's a decent chance you'll be hearing things that you already know to some extent, but if you've got a good instructor who himself has scored 170+ (which just about every company requires), then there's a good chance you'll be seeing these fundamentals in a different light or cementing them further, because frankly, if it was already solid to begin with, you should be scoring well enough that you don't need a class.

That said, for the very high end, we do sometimes recommend tutoring rather than a class.

Oh, and some companies offer free promotional classes. We call them Strategy Sessions at PR. I don't know what TM or PS call them or if they even offer them, but there's a good chance that they do. The idea is you see about half of something similar to the first class for free and then decide whether you'd like to sign up.