If you’ve been following the news, you’ve probably heard about the TestMasters-LSAC lawsuit. Apparently, TestMasters has been sued by the Law School Admission Council (LSAC), the non-profit company that produces the LSAT, for breach of contract for unpaid use of LSAT questions.  According to the court papers, the owner of TestMasters failed to account and pay in a timely manner for his use of questions and now owes almost one million dollars in fees.  The owner has tried to work out a payment plan with LSAC, but the terms seems to be far from what LSAC is willing to accept.

Since LSAC administers exams to assess one’s ability to do well in law school, it should come as no surprise that they are careful about details!  All LSAT test prep companies must make an agreement with LSAC to use its questions. Interestingly, the questions used in PrepTests from many years ago cost less than  more current ones. That’s why some companies fill their books with old tests (and not to toot our own horn too much, but we use only very current exams). Anyway, here at Atlas we are extremely careful to account and pay for every use of official LSAT questions. Here’s one small example: our books and courses use real LSAT questions, but if you look at the chapters you can download from our site  //www.manhattanprep.com/lsat/lsat-books.cfm, you’ll notice that we swap out the real questions for ones we’ve written.

I want to assure our students that we’re very transparent and straightforward with LSAC. Now get back to work!

People often ask whether we offer a score guarantee and are sometimes surprised to find that we don’t.

Why don’t we do this?

1. Score guarantees are not what they seem. If you read the fine print about score guarantees, you’ll see that you have to do a great deal to qualify.  You cannot miss a single class; you must do all the HW, etc.

2. Everyone’s goal is different. What if your score improved one point – is that satisfactory?  What if you’re shooting for a 15 point gain and your scores rise only 10 points?  We want to help anyone who has not yet reached his or her goal, and is willing to do the work.  Finally, a 6-point increase means very different things for the person initially scoring a 150 and someone starting at a 169!  We specialize in people looking for top scores, and often they come to us already sporting robust numbers.

3. Improving isn’t hard. If your score doesn’t improve a few points after doing a series of PrepTests, something is off!  Exposure to the LSAT is in itself a way of improving your score.  Why guarantee something that is easy to achieve?  We guarantee satisfaction.

4. It’s a waste of time. Managing a score guarantee program generally entails a lot of work on the part of the student and the company.  HW needs to be checked, diagnostic tests need to be administered, etc.  Our first class is a class – not a diagnostic test to be used for score comparisons later – we are more interested that you practice once you have something to practice!

5. You need to do the work. There is an unavoidable fact about LSAT prep: if you don’t do the work, you won’t improve your score.  While our teachers are phenomenal and our curriculum is top-notch, you need to do the heavy-lifting.  We guarantee that we do our job, but we can’t guarantee that you’ll do yours!

If you find that you were unable to keep up with the class – if life got in the way – you can take our course again for $399.

The first year of law school has been built up to near-legend.  Journals, grades, awards, and job prospects often are determined in your first year, leaving you not a whole lot of time to get settled.  Here are Manhattan LSAT’s  5 Things to Remember from those who have been through the halls of legal academia and lived to write about it:

1.     More is not better.  On your way to class your first week, you will almost certainly see your fellow students carrying around many books aside from your shared case law textbooks.  Law outlines from Emanuel’s, Gilbert’s, and other study aid companies will abound, and you will think to yourself, “Hmm, I wonder if that outline is better than what I’m studying from?  Maybe I should pick that up at the book store.”  Before you know it, you’ll find yourself in a study supplement arms race, and your room will be filled with a stack of outlines in addition to your textbook and your notes.  Do not succumb to this temptation!  You’ll likely find that your notes are the best resource.  Outlines and tests from your professor’s past classes, which your school’s law library will generally have on file, are also very useful.  At most, pick up one commercial outline you like for each subject (they’re all the same anyway).  A big stack of outlines will only distract you and wind up gathering dust in the homestretch. Read more

As an LSAT teacher you end up explaining a lot of LSAT questions.  We’ve actually designed our forums to focus on providing an easily searched bank of explanations to any LSAT problem – //www.manhattanprep.com/lsat/forums .  (We figured we’d save a few trees by not printing an entire book of them, plus then all those studying on their own have a place to go.)   I will say, however, that I’m always a bit cautious when I find a student asking for the explanations for an entire test.  I always wonder – and sometimes ask – whether the student has reviewed the work on his own first.  The best students first review the test themselves.  A couple of tips on reviewing your work:

1. Mark which answers you can easily eliminate and which ones are tempting.

2. Note any problem that you find difficult, find yourself guessing on, or that you find takes too long.

3. When you review your work, review all the questions you answered incorrectly, and all those you noted above (see #2).

4. For the questions you review, ask yourself the following:
– Do I understand the question (this includes the stem and the stimulus, passage, scenario, etc.)?
– Why is the correct answer right?
– Why is each wrong answer wrong?
– How could I have approached this question differently?  Is there a more efficient manner?  Is there a more intuitive approach? Read more

Folks are starting to get their scores back, and we’re facing a volley of questions.

Should I Re-Take the LSAT?
The most common—of those who aren’t so excited about their score—is whether to re-take or not.  That depends on a lot of factors, which we spelled out in the last blog entry.  In short, if you’re not competitive for the schools to which you’d be happy to go, and you have legitimate reasons to think there are more points on the table for you, then go for it.  But make sure you dig deep with your prep this summer.  We’re going to spell out a few re-take or not scenarios in our upcoming Review the June LSAT Workshop.

The Dinosaur Game Explanation
The second set of questions is about how to solve the Dinosaur game.  I could spell out a diagram and solution explanation here, but if you struggled with that, learning how to solve that specific game is not the issue.  Plenty of people were able to nail that game, so how come they did and you didn’t?  If you did a lot of prep work, then most likely the difference is that they were flexible in their approach and didn’t freeze up.  There are a lot of overall lessons to be drawn from that game.  If you’re interested in going over it with us, come to our Review the June LSAT Workshop and see what you can learn from that game.

The most obvious and important difference between Kaplan and Manhattan LSAT is how each company ensures teacher quality.

Teacher Quality
Kaplan generally requires LSAT instructors to hold a 163 or higher on an LSAT, which may be administered by them, while we require our teachers to have a 99^th percentile score (172 or higher) on an officially-administered LSAT.Kaplan’s does offer an “LSAT extreme” class for which teachers must hold a 95^th percentile score (166). I think that says it all about the score requirement issue.All of our teachers must have a top score.

Selection
But, as we’ve seen many times in auditions, scoring well on a test is one thing, being able to teach others how to get to that level is another.We’re extremely careful about who we hire.Here’s a break-down of the audition process: Read more