Spotting a Bad, Useless and Obsolete LSAT Review Book
Students who want have graduated from college may opt to proceed to study and practice law. To do so, they should take and pass the LSAT so that they could be accepted in law schools.
LSAT is an acronym for Law School Admission Test. This is a standardized test that is designed to evaluate an aspiring law student's logical, analytical, reading and verbal reasoning skills that are important in the study and practice of law.
This is quite an important test so many students go through great lengths to prepare for it. One of their means of preparation is to purchase LSAT review books to help them in their preparation.
Unfortunately, many LSAT review books are no good. They may be useless, out of date or made by unauthorized administrators or someone who does not have a good understanding about LSAT.
Here are a few pointers on how to spot LSAT review books that should not be used.
First, a bad LSAT review book uses simulated questions. The real LSAT questions come from Law Services for a fee. An examinee can determine if the book has real LSAT questions if the a notice is printed on the copyright page stating that the tests in the book are actual LSAT questions used with the permission of the Law School Admission Council or LSAC.
In a bad LSAT review book, the author mentions general test strategies rather than giving emphasis to the test items. This just shows that the author does not have a through knowledge of the types of questions and the logical concepts surrounding the items.
Another indication of a no-good LSAT review book is that the author spends a lot of time discussing about the Writing Sample of the LSAT. In the real LSAT, the Writing Sample is not scored. It is not a deciding factor in law school admissions. Therefore, only a short discussion about this section is needed.
A bad LSAT review book also lacks a thorough discussion of sufficient and necessary conditions that should be taken into consideration in the Logical Reasoning section. This is called conditional reasoning, and is part of the real test and a good LSAT review book. A bad review book also does not discuss cause-and-effect reasoning, called casual reasoning.
Review books that recommend the use of Venn Diagrams, Family Tree games, numerical system for classifying Logical Reasoning question types and matrixes of some sort are outdated and should not be used. Also review books that recommend reading each question before reading the passage or skimming the passage are no good
Any LSAT review book that has all the characteristics mentioned should not be used or recommended.
