RC Manhattan vs Trainer vs Powerscore Forum

[TrunksFan1]

Hi everyone, I'm prepping for the September 2017 LSAT. I'm making great progress, but I'm reaching a part of my program that is about to dedicate a LARGE chunk of time to RC. Part of me feels like if I'm reading The Economist and WSJ from a debater's perspective that I'll be indirectly training this muscle, and that my actual prep time would be better served by refining my LG and LR skills in the mean time. I have the three resources listed in the title for RC, and as mentioned I don't really want to spend a ton of time on this so:

1) do you disagree?
2) which resource has worked best for you and why?

[Platopus]

Where are you at with RC right now? Personally, I didn't find any of the books for RC terribly helpful, a lot of it was intuition for me. However, I was an English-Lit turned philosophy major, so college was very reading intensive for me, and I'm the kind of guy who reads a ton of academic-level philosophy for "fun". Back to your point: I would recommend Powerscore and then Manhattan, these two methods seem to complement one another. However, I wouldn't be wed to any particular method for RC. Experiment a bit with notation strategy and see what works best for you. I found I did much better with no notation at all. In terms of where you should be dedicating your time, that also depends on how well you're doing with LG and LR. I will add the caveat that most people struggle the most with RC. If you are one of these people, it should take up a very significant amount of your study time. RC can be learned, but you'll need to drill and review just like you would with LR or LG.

[TrunksFan1]

I'm right at the start of my RC training. I had taken many History/Lit classes in undergrad as well. LG - I'm doing very well in. LR - has dramatically too, but it's still not where it needs to be. I have perused Manhattan's method in the past (The Scale). I'm just asking, is it worth diving into the 5 straight chapters of RC that I'm about to begin in the Trainer, or am I better off bypassing it altogether and returning to a different method once I've finished the LG and LR components of it?

And thanks for your response!

[poptart123]

I can only speak to Manhattan, but it is a relatively short book with some good tips. It's pretty cheap because it's so small too. I recommend it, but it's not a necessity.

[Rupert Pupkin]

I really found the trainer and MH RC most useful. I follow their ideas and kinda created my own twist that works best for me. I never bothered with Powerscore RC as I heard it wasnt as good as the LG and LR bibles.

The books are so short you can definitely blow through MH and Trainer... And the powerscore one if you really wanted too

Voyager's RC guide is helpful as well

[freekick]

The challenge in working with any guide is that they all tend to be formulaic and RC being the most individual-dependent section of LSAT, no guide by itself clinches it for you. LIke jagerbom said, you've gotta create your own 'twist' off of the guide you use. To that end, I found Manhattan RC to be the best starting point and Trainer a good second perspective if you plateau or if Manhattan just doesn't cut it for you. Powerscore is a downright waste of time. In fact, some of the notable RC threads on here offer much better perspectives than PS.