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Online Courses - BluePrint, PowerScore, and TestMasters

Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 5:11 pm
by HardenUp
Greetings all,

This is my first post, so please forgive me if I'm supposed to do something beforehand on this site that I haven't.

A little about me: I'm 26, going to school full time and will graduate with my undergraduate in May of '14. I plan on taking the October LSAT if I'm scoring above a 165 and if not above a 165, I'll wait till December.

My question is what is the best online course?

Blueprint seems very solid, but only six practice tests. I can't seem to find the number of practice tests on PowerScores site. And TestMasters has 12 provided. There all $150+/- of each other, and I'm willing to invest the money for a solid program I can immerse myself in.

But as you all have probably taken the LSAT, I was hoping to get some personal opinion sense it's a lot of money for me to spend.

So far I've been studying the PowerScore Bibles and have been absorbing as much as possible from them.

Thanks in advance!

Re: Online Courses - BluePrint, PowerScore, and TestMasters

Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 5:45 pm
by Clearly
Personally I'd go Velocity, or of the three, blueprint.

Re: Online Courses - BluePrint, PowerScore, and TestMasters

Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 5:54 pm
by HardenUp
Clearlynotstefan wrote:Personally I'd go Velocity, or of the three, blueprint.
Thanks - is there a reason why? I actually haven't heard of Velocity. Just the three I listed along with Kaplan, but the word I got about Kaplan is that it's a waste of money.

Re: Online Courses - BluePrint, PowerScore, and TestMasters

Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 6:00 pm
by Daily_Double
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Re: Online Courses - BluePrint, PowerScore, and TestMasters

Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 6:13 pm
by Clearly
I've had access to all 5 actually, the three you listed, plus Velocity and Kaplan. I prefer Velocity to the rest, particularly if LG is your main problem, although Blueprint is very good, as is Testmasters.

Re: Online Courses - BluePrint, PowerScore, and TestMasters

Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 11:23 am
by bp shinners
HardenUp wrote: Blueprint seems very solid, but only six practice tests.
Just to clarify, there are 6 PTs as part of the curriculum, but you'll have access to many more than that to take on your own. Also, through the course, you have access to every question released for licensing.

If you have any other questions about Blueprint's online course, shoot me a PM!

Re: Online Courses - BluePrint, PowerScore, and TestMasters

Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 3:07 pm
by HardenUp
bp shinners wrote:
HardenUp wrote: Blueprint seems very solid, but only six practice tests.
Just to clarify, there are 6 PTs as part of the curriculum, but you'll have access to many more than that to take on your own. Also, through the course, you have access to every question released for licensing.

If you have any other questions about Blueprint's online course, shoot me a PM!
Thanks all to who answered above!

@BluePrint - as is stated, Velocity has a better program for logic games. Can you verify that or let me (or other readers) know what separates you from the rest?

Thanks so much.

Re: Online Courses - BluePrint, PowerScore, and TestMasters

Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 4:44 pm
by LSAT Blog
HardenUp wrote:Greetings all,

This is my first post, so please forgive me if I'm supposed to do something beforehand on this site that I haven't.

A little about me: I'm 26, going to school full time and will graduate with my undergraduate in May of '14. I plan on taking the October LSAT if I'm scoring above a 165 and if not above a 165, I'll wait till December.

My question is what is the best online course?

Blueprint seems very solid, but only six practice tests. I can't seem to find the number of practice tests on PowerScores site. And TestMasters has 12 provided. There all $150+/- of each other, and I'm willing to invest the money for a solid program I can immerse myself in.

But as you all have probably taken the LSAT, I was hoping to get some personal opinion sense it's a lot of money for me to spend.

So far I've been studying the PowerScore Bibles and have been absorbing as much as possible from them.

Thanks in advance!
There's a big thread compiling threads about many of the courses available:

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 6&t=151670

It may help you evaluate TLSers' experiences with various courses.

Re: Online Courses - BluePrint, PowerScore, and TestMasters

Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 8:51 pm
by HardenUp
LSAT Blog wrote:
HardenUp wrote:Greetings all,

This is my first post, so please forgive me if I'm supposed to do something beforehand on this site that I haven't.

A little about me: I'm 26, going to school full time and will graduate with my undergraduate in May of '14. I plan on taking the October LSAT if I'm scoring above a 165 and if not above a 165, I'll wait till December.

My question is what is the best online course?

Blueprint seems very solid, but only six practice tests. I can't seem to find the number of practice tests on PowerScores site. And TestMasters has 12 provided. There all $150+/- of each other, and I'm willing to invest the money for a solid program I can immerse myself in.

But as you all have probably taken the LSAT, I was hoping to get some personal opinion sense it's a lot of money for me to spend.

So far I've been studying the PowerScore Bibles and have been absorbing as much as possible from them.

Thanks in advance!
There's a big thread compiling threads about many of the courses available:

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 6&t=151670

It may help you evaluate TLSers' experiences with various courses.

Thank you very much!

Re: Online Courses - BluePrint, PowerScore, and TestMasters

Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 11:32 am
by bp shinners
HardenUp wrote:@BluePrint - as is stated, Velocity has a better program for logic games. Can you verify that or let me (or other readers) know what separates you from the rest?

Thanks so much.
I strongly disagree that Velocity has a better program for logic games. But I've never seen their materials, so that's more a matter of principle.

From reputation (and again, I have no first-hand experience with it), Velocity has a very brute-force, let's get through this philosophy to games. Instead of focusing on deductions, it focuses on using brute force in an intelligent manner to get deductions as you go through the questions and then apply them to future questions.

We focus on deductions, but also on strategies should you miss the deductions. The big deductions always come from the same type of rules, so we feel it's important to focus on where to find them. However, not everyone is going to find every deduction. So we also talk about ways to get through the questions if you don't see big deductions - this would be more of a brute-force method that will elicit work you can use to tackle future questions.

If you want to get a feel for our method, you can check out the LG book we released a few months back. We've been getting good reviews on it, and I think the index of games and difficulties/strategies/types in the back is almost worth the price of admission alone. And if you have any other questions, ask away!

Re: Online Courses - BluePrint, PowerScore, and TestMasters

Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 11:43 am
by HardenUp
bp shinners wrote:
HardenUp wrote:@BluePrint - as is stated, Velocity has a better program for logic games. Can you verify that or let me (or other readers) know what separates you from the rest?

Thanks so much.
I strongly disagree that Velocity has a better program for logic games. But I've never seen their materials, so that's more a matter of principle.

From reputation (and again, I have no first-hand experience with it), Velocity has a very brute-force, let's get through this philosophy to games. Instead of focusing on deductions, it focuses on using brute force in an intelligent manner to get deductions as you go through the questions and then apply them to future questions.

We focus on deductions, but also on strategies should you miss the deductions. The big deductions always come from the same type of rules, so we feel it's important to focus on where to find them. However, not everyone is going to find every deduction. So we also talk about ways to get through the questions if you don't see big deductions - this would be more of a brute-force method that will elicit work you can use to tackle future questions.

If you want to get a feel for our method, you can check out the LG book we released a few months back. We've been getting good reviews on it, and I think the index of games and difficulties/strategies/types in the back is almost worth the price of admission alone. And if you have any other questions, ask away!

Thank you for the response!

I appreciate all the info.

I do have a questions: what's the BluePrint movie? I keep reading posts about it.

Re: Online Courses - BluePrint, PowerScore, and TestMasters

Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2013 12:03 pm
by bp shinners
HardenUp wrote:I do have a questions: what's the BluePrint movie? I keep reading posts about it.
Blueprint: The Movie is the title for our online course. It's a professionally written, filmed, animated, and edited video course that has Matt and Trent, two of the founders, teaching the course in front of a green screen so that questions can be animated, highlighted, etc...

There are quite a few sample videos on our website if you want to check it out!

Re: Online Courses - BluePrint, PowerScore, and TestMasters

Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2013 12:13 pm
by Archangel
bp shinners wrote:
HardenUp wrote:I do have a questions: what's the BluePrint movie? I keep reading posts about it.
Blueprint: The Movie is the title for our online course. It's a professionally written, filmed, animated, and edited video course that has Matt and Trent, two of the founders, teaching the course in front of a green screen so that questions can be animated, highlighted, etc...

There are quite a few sample videos on our website if you want to check it out!
http://blueprintprep.com/online-lsat-pr ... ple_videos

Re: Online Courses - BluePrint, PowerScore, and TestMasters

Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2013 12:43 pm
by HardenUp
Archangel wrote:
bp shinners wrote:
HardenUp wrote:I do have a questions: what's the BluePrint movie? I keep reading posts about it.
Blueprint: The Movie is the title for our online course. It's a professionally written, filmed, animated, and edited video course that has Matt and Trent, two of the founders, teaching the course in front of a green screen so that questions can be animated, highlighted, etc...

There are quite a few sample videos on our website if you want to check it out!
http://blueprintprep.com/online-lsat-pr ... ple_videos

Great! Thanks everyone. I was a tad confused by the "movie" aspect of it; getting the title mixed up with the online courses.

I'll be going with Blueprint today for the online program.

Re: Online Courses - BluePrint, PowerScore, and TestMasters

Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 12:13 am
by civis
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Re: Online Courses - BluePrint, PowerScore, and TestMasters

Posted: Sun Jun 30, 2013 6:06 pm
by HardenUp
civis wrote:FWIW, I've been taking the online Blueprint course (or watching the "movie", if you'd prefer) and I'd recommend it if you're looking at online courses.

Material is taught well with a hint of humor that causes enough chuckles that make it easier to get through a long stretch of studying.

They also just rebooted their websites interface today and it's looking pretty great.

Thank you much for your input! I just started the video/ reading a few minutes ago. It had read the PowerScore Bibles beforehand and it's already having a different way to read LR questions, so maybe two different perspectives will give me a little boost. (hopefully."