I just finished PR's Cracking the LSAT.
It wasn't completely useless as my first guide, but was definitely lacking in more ways than one.
I still have the Superprep, both Powerscore bibles, the Manhattan RC bible, and a multitude of preptests.
Would you recommend moving on the bibles next, or preceding them with the superprep?
Study Guide Order Forum
-
Jeffort
- Posts: 1888
- Joined: Wed Jun 18, 2008 4:43 pm
Re: Study Guide Order
Forget everything you learned from the PR crack book, it is crap. Ask Earlcat, or perhaps he will pop in to give you his insight about that book.
Assuming you are just starting your LSAT prep and haven't done much else other than reading the PR book, I say take one of the tests from the SuperPrep UNTIMED. Take up to an hour per section if need be and focus on trying to select the correct answer for every question without time pressure and WITHOUT checking the answer key whatsoever until you have completed all 4 sections and determined what you believe to be the correct answer for each question. You don't need to do it all in one sitting, just answer all the questions before you look at the answer key. Then score the test and read through the explanations for the questions you missed and the ones you struggled with but got right for lucky reasons.
That will give you a good baseline of your current 'LSAT logic' reasoning skills regarding all the concepts and skills tested except for how well you implement those skills under timed pressure. This will help you identify/flush out your current strengths and weaknesses so that you know what to focus and study more or less on. If you get questions wrong without time pressure, it is due to your currently developed logical thinking skill sets that are important for LSAT performance.
Then start working through the instruction books in slow motion to improve your LSAT problem solving skill sets.
Assuming you are just starting your LSAT prep and haven't done much else other than reading the PR book, I say take one of the tests from the SuperPrep UNTIMED. Take up to an hour per section if need be and focus on trying to select the correct answer for every question without time pressure and WITHOUT checking the answer key whatsoever until you have completed all 4 sections and determined what you believe to be the correct answer for each question. You don't need to do it all in one sitting, just answer all the questions before you look at the answer key. Then score the test and read through the explanations for the questions you missed and the ones you struggled with but got right for lucky reasons.
That will give you a good baseline of your current 'LSAT logic' reasoning skills regarding all the concepts and skills tested except for how well you implement those skills under timed pressure. This will help you identify/flush out your current strengths and weaknesses so that you know what to focus and study more or less on. If you get questions wrong without time pressure, it is due to your currently developed logical thinking skill sets that are important for LSAT performance.
Then start working through the instruction books in slow motion to improve your LSAT problem solving skill sets.
-
EarlCat
- Posts: 606
- Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2007 4:04 pm
Re: Study Guide Order
Pretty much what Jeffort said. SuperPrep is a great starting point for the basics. After that, I'd recommend picking one method (I don't really care whose it is) and sticking with it. If you're going the self-study route, make sure your books use real LSAT questions (which I don't think Cracking does, although I haven't looked at the last several editions).
