I’m sure the authors of many LSAT books have good-intentions. They want to help you prepare to get the best score possible. But you know what they say, “The road to an abysmal LSAT score is paved with good intentions.” Or at least I think they say something like that.
The point is there are a lot of bad LSAT prep books out there. How bad are they?
Back when I was studying, I got several hundred pages into an LSAT prep book only to come away frustrated, confused and stressed.
Here are the books the typical student is probably most familiar with:
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There's Barron's, some Princeton Review, and a whole LOT of Kraplan.
AVOID THESE BOOKS AT ALL COSTS
That may seem a bit harsh, but let me explain.
Every head of a student re-using a paper they wrote for a different class? That’s essentially what these guys have been doing EVERY YEAR. They use the same fake practice tests from a bunch of different prep books, including the GRE and GMAT.
The GRE and GMAT are definitely NOT the LSAT and you can’t study for one like you study for the others. And again, they keep using the same questions!
(Note: I reviewed the Kraplan book a bazillion years ago, so it might be different now, but these books typically change so little from year to year that it's not worth my time to review each year. Just...be careful.)
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Ok, I’m going to tell you something about Princeton Review's Logic Games Workout that is going to sound like a good thing, but very much is not:
LGW uses real LSAT questions that are reworded or reordered.
You would think this would make you more prepared, but it actually has the opposite effect.
Why? I have a whole article on why this is terrible, but the short answer is if you do the LGW prep and do poorly, then take an actual LSAT prep with essentially the same questions, of course you’re going to do better. You’ve seen those exact questions.
To oversimplify it a bit, it is the difference between memorizing that 5 x 5 is 25 and actually understanding how multiplication works. As soon as you get 9 x 7, you’re going to be stumped.
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This is getting long, so I’ll keep this short and sweet: Barron’s has been re-using the same fake test questions for years (like since1979).
They did finally redid their LG book back in 2014, but from the reviews I’m reading it still has a lot of errors.
Here’s the bottom line: read the reviews on anything before you buy it. Do your homework. You’re going to be spending a lot of time and money on prepping for the LSAT so spend it wisely.
Sincerely,
Steve, the Book Vigilante
P.S. If you’ve had a bad experience with a prep book, let me know! Misery loves company, after all.
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