New LSAT Strategy Guides Are Here!
Since the LSAT went Digital in Sept of 2019, we at Manhattan Prep have been working furiously to figure out the best new strategies to share with our students. I’m pleased to announce that all that hard work is about to hit the shelves in the form of our new, fully-updated, Manhattan Prep LSAT guides. These new and improved guides are included with all of our Manhattan Prep LSAT classes, tutoring packages, and self-study programs.
So…What’s New?
The paper test is old news. Test booklets and scantrons, be gone! Each of our guides has been updated with strategies specific to the digital format of the exam.
LSAT Logical Reasoning Strategy Guide
The LSAT’s digital testing platform doesn’t allow for freehand annotations. You can highlight and underline text, select and eliminate answers, and flag questions to come back to if you have time. Our new and improved guide contains our best tips, tricks, and strategies for navigating the testing platform. It also includes advice for the kind of questions where you may want to put pencil to paper—I’m looking at you, conditional logic questions!
This version of our guide also includes more detailed information on a process that has become central to our teaching in the last few years: blind review. And for students who purchase this guide without enrolling in one of our courses, the guide will tell you when and how to introduce timed practice, full sections, and full-length PrepTests into your studies.
If you’ve already begun your LSAT journey, you know full well how important Logical Reasoning is. It’s 50% of your score, after all! Luckily for us, the content of the section hasn’t changed, even though the format has, so all of the Logical Reasoning goodies you’ve come to expect from our guides are every bit as relevant now as they were before digitization.
This guide is still structured around different “families” of questions, and each “family” of question has its own set of best practices. But transcending these families is a simple, repeatable 4-step process that you can (and should!) use for every LR question so you can understand what’s important, predict correct answers, and avoid being fooled by the most tempting traps.
LSAT Logic Games Strategy Guide
Similar to the Logical Reasoning Guide, our newly-minted Logic Games guide includes all the content from our original Logic Games guide, plus our best and brightest strategies to help you use the digital testing platform to maximize your score.
Now that you’ll be doing all of your Logic Games work on scratch paper, you’ve got to consider how you want to organize it. Our experts are here to help! You’ve also got some new choices to make based on what’s visible and what isn’t. On the paper test, you had a bird’s eye view of each game—you could see all the questions for one game at one time and make strategic decisions based on that information.
Now that the test is digital, you can see only one question at a time. But now you can see a bird’s eye view of the entire section. The number of questions associated with each game is visible at the bottom of your screen, and the progress bar will tell you how far you’ve come and how far you have left to go. How can you use this information to get the most points? Don’t worry…we’ve got some ideas.
And as far as the content is concerned, the guide is still designed to help you master the standard iterations of each game type and the common variations on those themes. Just as importantly, the guide is designed to help you master the type of thinking that will help you adapt those approaches when you face that super weird game on test day. Non-standard is the new standard of LSAT logic games, and our approach is designed to help you think on your feet by providing a process that is consistent but also flexible, no matter what kind of game you encounter.
LSAT Reading Comprehension Strategy Guide
Reading Comprehension is the section that was most impacted by digitization. As such, it’s the strategy guide that has changed the most, too. Our chapter on annotation has undergone a total overhaul. We’ve also adapted a cornerstone of our Reading Comp approach—Passage Mapping—to the new reality of tablets and scratch paper. And you know what, we think you’ll learn even more about how to read for the LSAT from this guide than from our last one. Why? Because the challenges of annotation on the digital test will force you to focus more on how you’re reading than what you’re reading, and that’s what will move your score.
This updated version of our guide will help you learn when and how to annotate effectively on-screen, when to take notes on scratch paper, and when you might be using these tools as a crutch. We’ll also help you navigate the different ways of viewing the passage on the digital platform, the accuracy of the annotation tools, and the screen preferences you can use to your advantage.
And, like all of our RC guides, this version is designed around a simple, repeatable process to help you read like a law student. We’ll teach you how to use that process to identify the central issue in a passage, understand the author’s position, and understand how they make their case. We also break down all of the questions that an RC section can throw at you, with tailored approaches to each.
Anything Else About the New Manhattan Prep LSAT Strategy Guides?
One more thing! Our instructors aren’t the only gurus at the Manhattan Prep offices. We also have a brilliant team of web designers that are committed to bringing you the very best in education tech. See, when the LSAT went digital, so did our LSAT syllabi. Introducing (drumroll…) ATLAS—our very cool online learning platform. You can create a free account in Atlas right now, without buying anything at all. With that free account, you’ll get all sorts of goodies, including free drills, performance analytics, and 5 free video lessons. So go ahead, check it out! And if you like what you see, come sit in on a class for free! The absolute best way to figure out what kind of LSAT prep is right for you is to try what’s out there.
Ready to start studying? Check out our new LSAT Strategy Guides.
Happy Studying!
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Laura Damone is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in San Francisco, CA. She fell for the LSAT while getting her undergrad degree and has now taught LSAT classes at more than 20 universities around the country. When she’s not teaching, learning, or publishing her work, she can be found frolicking in the redwoods and exploring the Pacific coast. Check out Laura’s upcoming LSAT courses here!