The PowerScore 2018 LSAT Bibles: Changes and Updates

I didn’t realize the 2018 books were available and I’ve already ordered the 2017 Bibles, they should arrive tomorrow. However I still need to get the workbooks, if I have the 2017 Bibles, will I be able to work from the 2018 workbooks?

Hi Rachel,

Thanks for the question! First, here is an explanation of the differences of each book:

https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid/279283/the-lsat-bibles-vs-the-lsat-…

As covered there, what you have is:

The LSAT Bibles: These books explain the concepts that underlie the section, and detailed techniques for solving each question. They are the foundation for learning how to approach each section.

The LSAT Bible Workbooks: These books provide more drills and questions, and are based on the material in the LSAT Bibles. They help cement the ideas contained in each LSAT Bible.

The LSAT Training Type Books: The books provide extended practice for each type of question, and allow you to repeatedly practice applying the techniques in the LSAT Bibles.

So, the Bibles lay out the strategy, the Workbooks give you practice working specifically with the ideas in the Bibles, and then the Training Types provide hundreds and hundreds of actual LSAT questions where you can really apply the ideas and see them all in “live” action.

We do recommend buying them all together, mainly because they are designed to work as a team of sorts to improve all areas of your LSAT skills. Our Self Study Plans use them together, as well:

http://students.powerscore.com/self-study/index.cfm

Please let me know if that helps explain all this, and if not, let me know and I’ll try to explain in more detail.

Great, so glad I could help! If you have any questions about anything, just let me know. I am here to help 🙂

Hi Rachael,

Thanks for the question! I’m specifically referring to changes made to the PowerScore books (and in that instance, to a change in how we diagram certain rules). I get asked very frequently about which versions are still valid, and so I was trying to specifically address that. The LSAT changes too, but our books tend to change faster so I try to keep students updated.

Please let me know if that helps.

Hi Elizabeth,

Thanks for the question! This is a pretty common problem to have, and so we’ve talked about it a fair bit in various places. The gist of that advice comes down to: it all comes down to how well you understand the argument and what the test makers are looking for. Note that this doesn’t reference questions types–in our courses and books we start with argument analysis, and then move to types to talk about specifics. And difficulty isn’t limited to certain types of course, so solving harder problems is about your analysis. Let me start by providing some links for you to check out:

https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/jumping-from-165-to-173-the-last-mile-i…

https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/retaking-the-lsat-what-to-do-differentl… (this mentions retaking, but it applies equally well to someone looking to add points at the top end of the scale)

https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/my-lsat-prep-regiment-part-1 (Marvin’s approach here is one I’ve talked to him about a lot, and I asked him to write these series since it’s better to hear it from the student as far as the hard work required; but this is the model outline for getting better).

That’s a start, and please let me know what you think after reading those.

Hi Jay,

Thanks for the question! I’ve said elsewhere that anything more than a year old probably needs to be upgraded, mainly;y because I add content to each new version, and reshape the text in a number of places to reflect changing emphases by the test makers. As a comparison:

2016 LRB is 682 whereas the 2018 LRB is 716 pages.

2016 RCB is 456 whereas the 2018 RCB is 488 pages.

2016 LGB is 698 whereas the 2018 LGB is 722 pages.

I’ve placed them in order of greatest change so if you decide to only upgrade one or two, start with the LRB then move down.

Please let me know if that helps.

Hi Evan,

Thanks for the question! I’ve really answered this the best I can above by talking about specific differences in each book, the broad ideas of what changed, etc, and the answer is always going to be: it depends on the person, and even the LSAT you take. That may seem an unsatisfactory answer, so let me use an example to show what I’m talking about.

The problem here is that I can’t predict which changes I made in the books from 2016 to 2018 will then come up on the test. For example, the older versions of the book talk about the construction of “some people/scientists/researchers/etc claim that…” In the past, this was always followed by a statement that the author then disagreed with. that disagreement was the conclusion of the author’s argument. Well, somewhere along the lines, LSAC read the LRB and realized they’d fallen into a pattern, and so on recent tests they’ve stopped making the conclusion the opposite of the claim. Will you get tested on that? I don’t know, but the prior idea that that always occurred is no longer true. That’s a small but good example of the types of changes I make when updating the books each year. the changes we make are in response to changes in the test, but even so I don’t know what LSAC will feature each time.

If it was a perfect world, all the old versions would disappear, but I can’t make that happen. Largely things are similar, but at the edges is where the change occurs, and it’s the edges that are usually the difference on the harder questions. That means what’s crucial for one person may not be for another.

I hope that helps at least a little.