Choosing Practice Tests to Use?

EmergingAttorney180

Hey guys, I'm currently in the latter stages of the 7sage course and I'm getting ready to start taking practice tests regularly in preparation for either the December or February LSAT. Up until this point, I've only taken a few practice tests intermittently throughout the course. My first question is, how do you guys go about choosing which practice tests to use and which to drill individual sections with? I was thinking about purchasing the Cambridge Logical Reasoning Question Sets, which use problems from LSATs 1-38 for drilling logical reasoning. I would then take the remainder of the practice tests as simulated LSATs in chronological order. That would leave me with hopefully more than enough preptests to review with. If I use the earlier tests (1-38) exclusively for drilling, though, I obviously lose some of the benefit of taking them as simulated LSATs should I ever choose to.

My other question is: how relevant are the problem sets on the older LSATs in respect to the modern tests? I am wondering if exclusively drilling problem sets from old LSATs might cause me to miss out on recent changes. I also have heard that some of the logic games on the older tests are quite different from the ones used today, and may not be worth drilling.

LSATisland

Hey EmergingAttorney180!

Your approach seems good. I would only point out that the recent tests are a bit different. Specifically, RC is harder, and there are one or two new types of questions in LG. You should include a couple of these recent tests in the earlier stages of test prepping. You don't want to get close to the dates, only to encounter unfamiliar and more difficult questions -- you don't want the pressure to learn these additional features close to the LSAT deadline.

The older tests are slightly different. But they are good for drilling. Besides, if you are balancing drilling with recent full tests, you will be exposed to both types. So you will be fine.

A few logic games types have not been found on recent tests, so they may not be as helpful as the others. That being said, they are still useful. All the deductions and analyzing will mostly be present in them, and those patterns are what you need to absorb. Also, you never know when LSAT writers will choose to re-insert one of them back in the present LSATS.

EmergingAttorney180

LSATisland,

Thanks for the response. I'm glad to hear that the old LSAT questions are still useful, even the old logic games. You also make a good point when you suggest incorporating some more recent practice tests into my early stages of test prepping. I'll definitely make sure to do that.