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5 Likes
Ellen Cassidy's The Loophole
Andrew Alterio
Alum Member
Has anyone used Ellen Cassidy's new LR book -- The Loophole. There seem to be rave reviews on Reddit. If you have used it, is there anything revolutionary about it? Are its approaches similar to 7Sage's?
Comments
I'm reading it and I like it a lot. It's a giant book that focuses 100% on LR, and it's conversational and even a bit funny - so I just use it in the early mornings with coffee when I can't think too hard yet. I'm about 100 pages in, and so far, if there's anything revolutionary, it's a drill where she has you read a stimulus (or 50), cover it up with one hand, and then write it in your own words using bullet points with your other hand. Sort of similar to the memory method for RC. And, yes, I'd say it's a good supplement to 7Sage. Like the Trainer, it comes from pretty much the same universe.
I really love her book!! It is very complementary to 7Sage's CC and emphasizes methods to get you to consciously engage and think about the stimulus. She has a real passion for the LSAT and that seeps into every single page. Outside of 7Sage it is by far my favorite LSAT prep material. Really being able to understand and analyze the stimulus at a high level is 90% of the battle for LR and her book provides tools to really develop those skills.
I picked it up to check it out. Haven’t gotten very far yet, but I endorse what I’ve read so far and like the direction it seems to be taking.
Someone else outside of 7sage recommended this to me. I may check it out ...
I've read somewhere that the book is amazing but more helpful for those new to LR as opposed to those who are already really familiar with LR. Is this true? Considering checking it out!
I think that's true for so many alternative sources. They all have their own way of getting you familiarized with LR, but at the end of the day there's no magic method that will suddenly get you from landing -4/-5 per section to landing -0/-1 per section. I think that largely comes from repetition, improving your speed, and developing your own insights into your strengths and weaknesses.
Next to JY's 7 sage, I found this book to be the best resource I have used to improve on LR. I bought the book 2 months ago and was so impressed that I called Ellen and set up private tutoring with her. I have been using her LR approach ever since and am seeing significant improvement. 7 sage helped me to go from about -8 per LR section down to -4 or so (after about 20-30 PTs) and Ellen's book, within a few weeks, helped me to go to -2 to occasionally -1 per LR section. Most of this improvement was just from the material in the book though I have done about 10 hrs of private tutoring with her to get the fine points of her system. I am aiming to get down to -1 consistently and her approach is key to that. The last few points are the hardest to get. So, I think this book is not just for beginners. Wish I had found this book earlier. The notable things in the book are what she calls the translation drill and the CLIR drill. Basically these two drills teach you how to understand the stimulus better and how to prephrase better. Also, I love her chapter on how to spot incorrect answer choices.
^ I would echo what @rdhallan said. Ellen’s book is my favorite LR book out of all the other test prep books out there for LR. I have a pretty strong grasp of LR already, but I still found the book to be incredibly useful and a great refresher for LR. To mention, she advises students to read the stimulus first and then the question stem. Personally, I’ve found that it almost makes no difference in my score/ time as to which one I start with first (I tend to go with stimulus first, although this might change when I begin timed sections again). I’m using her book in conjunction with 7Sage’s CC.
I haven’t finished the book just yet (like 70% through), but I think I’ll post an update re: score increases once I’ve thoroughly completed the whole thing.
Thanks everyone! While on the topic, does anyone have any favorite resources for RC? I've been having trouble with the newer RC still, and though I really enjoyed Adrian Li's book, I'm looking for other sources as well. Of course, RC is so much harder to improve than LR/LG, but I was just wondering if there was a similar book out there.
I found that Manhattan prep's RC strategies book is a very good resource to add to 7 sage RC videos. They recommend a system of "reading for scale" which is helpful to keep one engaged with the passage. If you combine this with the low resolution summary approach then you get a better sense of the topic, main point, and author's viewpoint.
Thanks to everyone for their feedback
Ordered the book yesterday and thanks to Amazon prime it will be in my hands before today is over. I can't wait to dive into it.
Ellen's book is awesome! I'm only halfway through it, but so far I've picked up a lot of valuable insight and little tidbits that I didn't get from other prep material. Some things in the book, like the translation drill, were game-changing! I would love private sessions with her if I could afford it. It's a great supplement to the 7sage CC. The book definitely has my backing!
This is very interesting... I hadn't heard of the book, and after how much 7sage has been helping me, I have been very reticent to look at other resources. For example, I thought powerscore just confused me more than anything. But based on such glowing reviews, ill probably actually pick this up
I have not heard of it before reading this post, but after reading everyone's comments I am definitely going to check it out!
Update -- just got the book and read the first couple of chapters. I thought the first section on how the LSAT stimuli are designed to be hard to read was really interesting, but then kind of felt like I already knew the rest of the stuff about "relationship between premise and conclusions" etc.
I decided to put the book aside and just do a LR section (retake), and found myself getting tripped by a lot of difficult questions. Upon review, and thinking about Ellen's first chapter on grammar, I felt like a lot of what I've been feeling over many LR questions kind of clicked! Every time I come across a stimuli I have to wade through like a swamp, I get really irritated, but I never really thought about why the stimuli were so hard to get through. JY definitely mentions referential phrasing, and takes apart sentences all the time, but it was never so clear to me personally how the stimuli were designed to be so hard to parse / how I should be reading them in order to avoid misinterpretations.
I'm sure there will be a lot of review of things I already know as I go through the book, but the first chapter itself I think is a huge supplement to 7sage, and it would be great if JY eventually added a lesson on how stimuli are written in the beginning of the CC!
@BlindReviewer Thanks for the breakdown! After all the positive press from 7Sage members, I think I’ll purchase the book.
I found 7 sage and Ellen's book to be very complementary. LR is half the test and having two perspectives really helps to get the extra points. The translation drill in Ellen's book is very helpful. She also has an excellent section on how to recognize wrong answer choices quickly in LR (also helpful in RC) that really helps save time and increase accuracy. In fact, in her chapter on eliminating wrong answers, she describes a drill (called a party trick) where you eliminate answer choices without even reading the stimulus and shows that you can eliminate 4 answer choices and pick the correct one on over 50% of the questions. After reading her book, I did the drill on two sections and got 52% and 57% correct without reading the stimulus. Keep in mind that she doesn't recommend doing this on the actual test but this section of her book is very powerful. The best part of the book is still the translation (learning how to parse sentences and to translate the stimulus into plain language) and CLIR (basically a system for developing prephrasing) drill. If you combine these sections with the skill of recognizing patterns of wrong answers, you will likely see improvement on the LR sections. Still a big fan of JY's videos on LR but this book is very helpful. To the person above who said they can't afford tutoring from Ellen. I have worked with her for over 10 hrs and am happy to share what I have learned pro bono if you message me directly. Keep in mind I am not an expert but I am happy to share what I know as I am grateful to the 7 sage community.
@rdhallan Yes yes! Please, that would be great!
The Loophole in LSAT is LIFE!!!The language in the book is so simple to read and the concepts are actually fun to learn. Having fun whilst studying for the LSAT?! AMAZING!! I read one chapter and my old gears are just'a squeaking away! I'm now using concepts learned in real-life conversations and in reading. Listen, do yourself a solid, get Ellen's book; it will be your ticket to better understand the LSAT...
Would you guys recommend reading her book, if you get around -3 to -5 on LR? I quickly skimmed through it and it seemed like the book was geared towards people who are just starting to learn LR and don't know what the question types are.
I'm just about done with it and I found parts of it extremely helpful even though I'm very far along in my studies. I recommend it. She has neat ways of outsmarting the answer choices.
I agree with @2ndTimestheCharm, the book had useful sections and should help look at these questions from a different point of view no matter how far along you are in your studies. The drills in the beginning of the book are good practice for simplifying convoluted language and designing pre-phrases. I liked how she categorized the question types. She breaks down the question types into 4 categories which each require a different pre-phrase, but her method is pretty natural and intuitive (which I prefer over a mechanical approach). Another good section was the powerful/provable answer choices. Just like 7sage or any other test prep resource, you have to do the work to improve, but it can be good to expose yourself to multiple (reputable) resources to deepen your understanding.