How relevant are old PT's 19-38?

UBC Hopeful

When I began studying for the LSAT I purchased two official LSAT "packs" that included LSAT's from June 1996 (when I was born) until October 2002 because they were cheaper than buying the more recent ones individually. I know that some of the old tests featured more frequent questions types that are perhaps less common, but what else? When I watched video explanations for some of the games JY would begin to talk about the format of the game and say something along the lines of "well this was a game from 97" as if its been phased out.

Any help would be much appreciated

Alex

The test has changed, so you'll want to make sure you take more recent PTs (60-80) before you sit for the exam. That said, the test hasn't changed so much as to render older tests useless. It seems to be the convention to learn/drill with the old materials and the use the newer tests (Say, PTs 50+) to use for full-timed exams.

Some would even say that the newer logic games resemble the older tests a bit more. So be sure to do as many games from the older tests as you can!

Wind-Up Bird

Old reading comprehension and logical reasoning sections might be relevant to the skills you learned throughout the core curriculum (e.g. active reading, parsing the structure of stimuli, etc.), but some of the question types are fully irrelevant. That's why J.Y. picks out specific questions from PTs 1 - 36 to learn relevant key concepts. As @"Alex Divine" said, PTs 60 - 80 will be a more accurate representation of how you'll do on test day, but you may as well work through PTs 36+ if you have the time.

That being said, some of the unique, "non-traditional" logic games appearing in newer PTs have resembled very, very old games (e.g. the infamous virus game in PT79 was supposedly similar to a game in the early 1990s). If you're looking to master the LG section, I would definitely recommend drilling some of the more difficult/unique games in early PTs.

Cheers from a fellow Canadian!

ajcrowel

The September Virus Game was very similar to the Beakers game from October of 1994! So the old tests are valuable and it's good to use them as experimental sections and for drilling practice. They're also good for taking full timed practice tests as the question stems can be worded slightly different, making you a stronger test taker when you're exposed to those linguistic nuances, additionally, LSAC is bringing back more non-stereotypical games and 2-for-1 stimuli (where one stimulus has two questions) could return at any time. So there is a lot of value in the early tests. Taking those will make you a stronger LSAT taker.
The only caveat, the curves for 90's were particularly generous (that's not just my opinion either, there's data to back it up (I've seen a meta analysis of the curve breakdown over time I just can't find it now ugggg). So because of the nature of the curve (remember back in 96' because people had few materials to prepare from and narrower dissemination of those materials people probably didn't study as much) so to be fair if you take a tests before 2003 subtract 4 points off your raw score.

ppcoelho1

its helpful to drill on old tests. the differences aren't too great in my opinion but you also have access to the june 2007 test for free, so maybe use that to assess for yourself how much of a difference there is. To me the main change has been the addition of comparative passages to the RC sections.

Good luck!!

MrSamIam

19-35: Relevant enough to drill.
36-38: Relevant enough to use as full-length practice tests.

Cant Get Right

@"UBC Hopeful" said:
When I watched video explanations for some of the games JY would begin to talk about the format of the game and say something along the lines of "well this was a game from 97" as if its been phased out.

@"Alex Divine" said:
Some would even say that the newer logic games resemble the older tests a bit more. So be sure to do as many games from the older tests as you can!

A few years back when most of the LG videos were made, you could pretty much write off those weird early games. Things are different now though and we expect to see at least one bizarre game on every test that does not fit into a standard game structure. This lends increased value to those games. When we see them, we don't necessarily immediately know what we need to do to solve them. If it's an in/out game or something, nothing else really matters, we just solve for an in/out game and fill in that template with the details of the specific game. With many of these early games, we just can't do that, and we have to figure out how to approach the game on the fly. This practice is what is so uniquely valuable about the early games. We may not even be likely to see those types at all, but the skills learned by working them will apply when we see new games on future tests.

Sprinkles

@"Cant Get Right" said:
We may not even be likely to see those types at all, but the skills learned by working them will apply when we see new games on future tests.

For suuuuuure.