Ace the LSAT Logic Games
by Get Prepped
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Book Reviews of Ace the LSAT Logic Games
Book Review: Worth Buying BEFORE going through the LSAC published tests
Summary: 4 Stars
I made the mistake of buying all three LSAC practice books and completing those before buying this book. You want to do this book first because:
1) FOREMOST: the tests in ACE are good, but don't "feel" 100% genuine LSAC produced, its difficult to put a finger on exactly what is off, but I'll try:
2) the tests in ACE are slightly easier in specific parts. For instance: a frequent first question of the games portion "which of the following could be an accurate..." renders the tester with a possible solution to the game if they answer correctly. In real LSATs this solution will allow the tester to cross of one, maybe two later answers later in the same game, in the ACE version it often does much more, frequently in the question immediately following.
3) it gives you artificial confidence in the 14 full games portion by placing objectively harder games in the earlier portions, so as you go through you feel like you are improving more than you are (just going backwards 14-1 is an easy solution to this) for instance, i did the 14th game first by a fluke and answered all questions correctly in 32 minutes, flipped to the first game and only got through 3 games with only 80% accuracy in 35 min. this could just be me, but on reviewing the games more closely, i believe most testers would be in the same position, plus my explanation makes sense from a marketing perspective.
4) all of the warm-up games have 5 questions, you are supposed to do these in 8.75 minutes -- but this is a question short, they should have placed 6, not 5, questions in this area because all LSATs have more than 20 logic game total questions (usually 23-25).
5) there are very few 7 question games, in the LSAT there is usually one 7-question game. this matters for timing and guessing
BUT do NOT let these dissuade you from purchasing the book. It is a great resource because the skills it develops are the right ones. complete this book and THEN use the LSAC published real tests. (BUT BE SURE TO DO BOTH)
The 71 original games they provide are an excellent preparation for the REAL practice tests. ideally there would be more available LSAC released material, but this is an acceptable supplement.
Book Review: Practice makes perfect
Summary: 4 Stars
When I started my LSAT prep last summer, I picked this book over the other available options because it had the most practice games. The book is by no means perfect, but it did help me significantly improve my performance on the games section.
My biggest problem with the games section was timing--I was getting most of the questions I answered right, but I was only answering about ten questions per section. This book includes some helpful advice on how to manage your time, as well as tips on how to diagram questions quickly and consistently. However, the thing that helped me most was the amount of practice it offered. With more tenacity than I can usually muster, I worked through the entire book from cover to cover, and it paid off. I went from running out of time on every practice logic section to finishing with time to spare on test day. I got a perfect score on the section.
As other commenters have mentioned, the games written for this book are not exactly like the games on the actual LSAT. They are not quite as well-written and are occasionally ambiguous. That said, they do get the job done, and after I had hacked my way through the original questions, the games from real LSATs at the back of the book felt refreshingly clear. Even though the games are a little bit off, it's better to buy this book than to just do all the logic sections of several Actual, Official LSAT books because using the book makes sure that you've seen and prepared for every type of game you might be tested on, even the strange and rare ones that you might miss if you pick sections on your own. Most of the advice in the book is also worthwhile.
I used this book along with The Official LSAT SuperPrep and a couple of volumes of Actual, Official LSAT PrepTests. I would recommend this regimen to people who have at least a few months to prepare for the test. The games section is very learnable, but you do need to put in the time to practice.
Book Review: A good mix of tutorial advice with decent problems
Summary: 4 Stars
The book contains 71 original problems as well as 12 more from LSATs 46-48.
I have to admit that I didn't buy this book for the tutorial advice as I had already done a reasonable amount of games and just wanted more games for practice. I did however, still go through the book and didn't skip right to the games.
I found the tutorial advice quite good. I wasn't particularly fond of the way they presented their diagrams in the book. But perhaps that was just my personal preference. The diagrams seemed to just be what was easy to typeset, not how a person would actually write on a piece of paper with a pencil.
This book is the only book out there that actually gives you some advice on how to organize the space on your test booklet since you won't be allowed to bring in scrap paper. I thought this was a nice touch.
When I originally started going through the problems, I found them a little bit tougher than they needed to be. Did *every* problem need to be an unbalanced game? The book even says that circular, mapping, matrix games are all but obselete. Yet I kept encountering them in their practice sets. I also found that I couldn't quite finish their sets in 35 minutes. And often the problems were so verbose, it took my 2-3 minutes just to get through the rules and diagramming. Games on today's LSATs are much tighter and cleaner than most of the problems in the book. The book's problems seemed more heavy and clunky - at least to me. A lot of the problems take up an entire page, so there's no room to work on the problem even if you wanted to write in the book.
Regardless, I did find the book helpful. It's obviously better to practice with harder questions than you are likely to encounter rather than easy ones.
I would recommend this book as a source of problems for anyone looking for some tougher questions to do as practice.
Book Review: Best of a Bad Bunch
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is very good. It does contain errors. It is also the case that these errors are really just lazy editing, which is annoying. It is further the case that in many instances, the explaination for which answer is the correct answer is just bad or misses the point. But this is true of all such prep books--incl. the other big one in this area, Powerscore's LSAT Logic Games Bible. But given that they all suck, you mught as well go with the one that sucks the least. I give it 5 stars because it is the best there is, not because it could not be better, and I think that is probably what is most relevant to LSAT students.
And, dispite these problems, the book really does give you good stratergies and lots of good practice. I used both this book and the bible, and together they helped me turn the games section from my most feared into my most productive. I got a perfect in this section on the June 2008 LSAT. It was a pretty easy logic games section, admittedly, but I certainly would not have aced it without these books.
One last word of advice: If you are going to use this book, WORK your way through it, don't just meander through it. That means even when you get an answer right, read their set-up and explaination. See how they approched it, and (if it was different to your approach) if you would have done better answering it their way. Time is obviously a HUGE factor in the LSAT, and even when you get it right, others might have a better (quicker) way to get there. At least this was often the case for me.
Book Review: You'll be more sorry if you don't buy it!
Summary: 5 Stars
This book may be the best value you'll ever get! I purchased it based on the reviews and because it has a ton of practice questions at an extremely reasonable price. I already had 3 Kaplan practice books including the Logic Games book but wish I had bought this along with them in the beginning. I didn't have a problem figuring logic games out per se, but was completely inept at doing them with sufficient efficiency. Thanks to this book, I went from 11 wrong/missed answers on the games section to 2 mistakes on my second LSAT, which I re-took after using ACE...
If you only want to get one practice book for logic games, hands down choose this one, and don't look back. Maybe pop into a store to take a look at how Kaplan diagrams sequencing games (basically with -'s instead of >'s which I greatly preferred) because that's the only thing I found it to be good for compared to the ACE book.
As far as overall score improvement is concerned, please consider taking lots of the LSAT Official PrepTests if you're thinking you can manage w/o them. The combination of ACE the logic games and a series of the LSAT PrepTests raised my score 12 points- you can imagine I wish I'd done things right the first time. I wish you better luck and that these insights are helpful to someone.