The PowerScore LSAT Logic Games Bible

By David M. Killoran

• This book is extremely comprehensive in every respect... But if you are smart enough to begin your LSAT preparation a few months ahead of time--and are willing to work [hard]--then this book will do the trick. It helped me score a 179 in February.
  
  Before purchasing the Logic Games Bible, I took KAPLAN's $1000 classroom course... Right away, I knew "The Bible" was going to be better than KAPLAN because it used the commonsense approach of setting up games BELOW the questions (where there's actually room to write).
  
  In every respect, The Bible provides a more systematic and organized approach to setting up games than does KAPLAN. Having The Bible's more disciplined and systematic approach to setting up and solving the games proved invaluable on test day. I finished all four games with 9 minutes to spare. You should have seen the confused looks I got when, after only 26 minutes into the Logic Games section, I put my pencil down, raised my hand, and asked to go to the restroom!
  
  Their system paid off. Again, this book will deliver the goods--but like most things in life, you'll only get out of it what you put into it.
  

• There are two things to know about the LSAT before studying for it: (1) at least for native English speakers, the analytic (or "logic games") section of the test is by far the most challenging; and (2) no one can do well on the analytic section without study and practice. Thus the choice of the correct study plan geared toward the analytic/logic games section of the test can make or break your LSAT performance, which in turn can go far toward determining where you go to law school (local vs. regional, regional vs. national, top 15 vs. top 5, etc.).
  
  For some reason, I chose the PowerScore book, and now I'm sitting pretty. This guide has four huge advantages over other guides that I looked over:
  
  (1) the suggested notation is concise, thus leading to less scribbling time and more answering time in the test. This is very important insofar as the logic games section of the LSAT is the most "intensely timed" section of any test that I've ever taken.
  
  (2) the categorization of problem types is accurate and easy to understand. As any guide will tell you, the logic games featured in the LSAT fall into a small set of recognizable types. However, some guides that I've seen posit phalanx of potential problem types, including types of problems that make reference to non-essential attributes like time. This is BAD. A linear problem is a linear problem regardless of whether its linear in time or in space. Anything else is needless confusion.
  
  (3) this guide does NOT propose shortcuts to problem solving. By contrast, other guides that I encountered suggested FROM THE BEGINNING that test takers plan to skip a problem completely in order to save time. This is a supposed shortcut that actually cripples your performance before you've even begun. In reality, there are methods for solving logic game problems, but there are no short cuts.
  
  Use the methods recommended, practice a lot, and then and only then consider skipping anything. (In my LSAT, I answered every problem, scored well, and had a minute or two left over to sharpen my pencil.)
  
  (3) the sample problems are mostly taken from actual LSATs, and the made up problems are true to the LSAT model. Particularly nice is the reference in the back of the book that characterizes EACH published LSAT analytic problem as regards problem type.
  
  In sum, I studied for a month and a half for the LSAT, using the Logic Games Bible as my study guide and LSAC's 10 More Actual, Official LSAT PrepTests for my practice material. I practiced the tests (both in part and in full) under timed conditions. I disregarded the reading comp. and logic sections almost entirely. Result: I scored well enough to get me where I want to go, and suffice it to say I was aiming high from the beginning.