Manhattan LSAT LR and RC for GMAT

[abhitechie]

The Manhattan LSAT LR has been called a "cracker of a resource" by a 780 GMAT scorer. This prompted me to ask the experts as to how good this book would be for GMAT CR. What is truly interesting is the fact that this books does advocate a flexible over a formulaic approach which is how it is on the GMAT.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

There is a lot of overlap between the LSAT and the GMAT, and it can be helpful to review certain LSAT materials.

There are some caveats, though. The LSAT Logical Reasoning is designed to test very specific reading and reasoning skills. I don't have an understanding of how GMAT writers design their Critical Reasoning problems, but from my experience with the questions themselves my personal sense is that the GMAT writers are not required to be as disciplined in the design of the questions.

Furthermore, keep in mind that on the LSAT you will see about fifty Logical Reasoning questions, and that, collectively, they are supposed to represent a "complete" testing experience -- that is, essentially, with fifty questions, the test can get a rounded out sense of the range of your reading and reasoning skills.

On the GMAT, you will see about 11 or 12 critical reasoning questions, and they aren't even a "contained" set in that everyone who takes the GMAT, which is adaptive, will be seeing a different set of 11 or 12 questions. That makes it impossible for the test writer to get a "rounded out" sense of your reasoning skills from the set of questions -- relative to the LSAT, they can only get a very simple analysis of your general strengths and weaknesses when it comes to reading and reasoning.

All of that is perhaps too academic and not necessarily what you were asking about (sorry!) but it does help get me to my point:

The GMAT and the LSAT reasoning q's test very similar things, but the LSAT is more specific and defined in the way they test those things. Think of the difference between a spelling test with 10 somewhat challenging words (GMAT CR), vs a spelling test with 50 words that are carefully chosen to test the gamut of certain spelling issues (LSAT LR).

What does this mean for using LSAT material to prep for the GMAT?

The general, main advice about reading process and reasoning principles is all relevant and very important for the GMAT.

The question specific strategies and nuanced subtle-steps are more likely to be influenced by the specifics of the LSAT, and less likely to translate to the GMAT.

The Manhattan LSAT LR book is pretty hefty, and probably more than you need for your GMAT studies. My suggestion would be to skim in for the main suggestions, and to carefully consider how they also relate to GMAT questions. Some of these main ideas include:

1) Reading for reasoning structure
2) Identifying conclusions
3) Being specific and critical of reasoning (expect reasoning to be faulty in some way)
4) Having tools to eliminate incorrect answers

However, don't spend hours worrying about how we linked together three contrapositives for some crazy sufficient assumption question -- you won't have to perform such a task on the GMAT.

I hope that is helpful. Please follow up if you have further questions, and thanks for taking the time to look at our materials!

Mike Kim
Teacher for Manhattan LSAT and Manhattan GMAT

[abhitechie]

You are probably the best person to answer this question as you are a GMAT and a LSAT instructor. Thanks for the insight.