Manhattan LR and the LSAT Trainer

cmb_1992

Hello all!

I went through the 7Sage curriculum last year from September - October. I was going to take the Dec test but have decided to push back. I'm trying to score at least a high 160s but preferably in the 170s. 7Sage helped my LG immensely. I was losing a ton of points on RC and missing around 5-7 on each LR section. I haven't taken a PT since around November/December, and have gone through some PowerScore books. I am desperately trying to get my LR score down to as close to -0 as possible. I don't have a ton money to throw at books right now, but I have decided to get one of these: Manhattan LR or LSAT Trainer. I have heard so many things about how the Trainer has been a God-send, and I have recently been seeing several posts on different sites about how Manhattan LR is king for LR, etc etc.

For those of you who have used one, I'd like to get your thoughts on the one you used, or, if you used both, I'd like to know which order you would suggest using them or which you liked better and why.

Thanks for your help!!

aaabbbccc

I have both of them and am more than happy to share my thoughts on them!

The Trainer helped me tremendously in terms of how to identify flaws. Rather than providing a list of tons of different flaws, the Trainer divides flaws broadly. Personally, rather than many different flaw types, a list of only a few different flaw types helped me immensely.

The Trainer still discusses different types of LR question types, but I would say Manhattan LR (MLR) explicates every LR question type with more details. And my impression was that MLR delves more into how to attack Assumption Type questions (known as Identify Flaw, Strengthen, Weaken, PSA, SA, NA).

Overall: The Trainer discusses flaws more broadly than MLR (and you will be able to identify flaws like the way the Trainer teaches you!) and MLR provides you a detailed explanation of how LR-argument-type questions work. The more you get used to identify flaws in a way the Trainer teaches you, the faster you will be able to identify flaws and attack questions. MLR does not talk about flaws like the Trainer does, but with details, it teaches you a good way to attack Assumption Type questions.

If it is possible for you to buy two books, I strongly recommend both. I have the most recent MLR edition, but there is no need to for you to purchase the most recent one! I read the old edition as well, but there is nothing significantly different (Probably no difference at all). On Amazon, the 3rd edition (newest one) is 30 while the 2nd one is 11. No need to pay $19 more for the new one! Hope this helps!

jdawg113

Disclaimer: I read the trainer in the beginning of prep & haven't had a chance to fully reread it yet and have yet to read Manhattan(past first 2 chapters)

Both are very highly regarded and for a reason. The trainer is especially recommended later in prep (as a reread) as it tends to reaffirm fundamentals and really help things click with people. Now is it better than MLR? Not sure, The Trainer is more broad so if you want more LR specific help the Trainer might be slightly behind. I have only read the first 2 chapters of Manhattan LR (Amazon has an online sample) and it looks like a very solid book. I would suggest trying to get both. Manhattan LR is available (newest version) on Amazon Kindle for only $10 so if you have a tablet or something that you can download the Kindle app (or a Kindle) you can do that to spend much less money for the same thing and possibly be able to get both

cmb_1992

Thank you both so much for the help. I think the best thing for me to do is to get both. I think I may go with the Trainer first to get that broader sense, and then go for the Manhattan LR. I think that both are probably must haves and it's not an either/or type of situation. Thanks for your insights!!!