Does the world really need another LSAT book? The short answer is yes, but only if it s the right kind of study guide. What the world does not need is another LSAT book with generic test-taking gimmicks, written by people who have never actually taken a timed LSAT. If you ask LSAT students what they disliked the most about commercial LSAT materials, you ll likely hear: I can understand what I m supposed to do, but I can t actually do that in the limited amount of time I have on the test! That s the problem. Most of the methods in commercial courses and study guides are not designed to be efficient. Instead, they are full of generic tips that appeal to middle-of-the-road students; they fail to teach you how to actually apply those methods under time-pressured circumstances. That s where this book is different. This book was written with four goals in mind: 1.Have a Plan This book will give you a plan of action so that you can: 1) Know what to work on 2) Know how to allocate your limited study time 3) Learn the key skills and logical principles that will actually help you improve your LSAT score. 2.Understand the Questions This book will teach you not only what to do on any given LSAT question, but how to recognize what kind of questions you re looking at in the first place. Many study guides ramble at length about 25 types of questions, without really teaching you how to tell the questions apart. Whether your target LSAT score is 155 or 175, understanding what each question is calling for is crucial to improving your performance on the LSAT. 3.Avoid Misleading Test-Taking Strategies This book aims to teach you how to identify common pitfalls and traps on the LSAT without giving you bad advice. Many LSAT books give generic test-taking tips like, Avoid any answer with words like always or never. This is wrong! As you will learn, there are many questions on the LSAT where extreme language is actually desirable. By learning how to recognize exactly what each question is asking, you will learn what kind of language is appropriate for the answer. Extreme language may be a common pitfall, but so is avoiding extreme language when it is actually the answer! 4.Get the Big Picture This book aims to present you with the big picture: how arguments work in day-to-day life. In our experience as LSAT instructors, we have noticed a trend: students who make an effort to apply the logical principles on the LSAT to arguments in their daily lives tend to improve much more quickly than students who only study the LSAT on paper. If you are open to changing the way you argue (or to analyzing your own argumentative patterns), odds are that you will come to a deeper, more fundamental understanding of what the LSAT is testing. This will help you not only on this test, but as a law student and attorney.