Kaplan LSAT 180

Rating:
Summary: Useful for perfectionists who want extra practice
Review: As the authors would readily admit, LSAT 180 is not a typical test preparation book. There are no full-length practice tests, and the questions are more difficult than average LSAT questions. You should only use LSAT 180 if you have taken plenty of timed practice LSATs (preferably real ones from recent years) and received high scores. The questions in this book are difficult, and they will do little to improve your score or your confidence if you are having trouble with easier questions. Also, you should not use this book if have not yet mastered time allocation on the LSAT. The writers suggest that you can allow "extra" time to solve these problems because they are so difficult, but this could generate bad habits if you are already having trouble finishing sections in the time allowed. Due to the absence of practice tests in this book, you'll have to learn LSAT time management elsewhere.

LSAT 180 could be a useful book for people who have mastered all of the basic LSAT skills, and who want to be confident that they can handle anything that the LSAT can throw at them. I don't think that anybody really NEEDS this book to do well on the LSAT, but it probably won't hurt you as long as you also get plenty of practice elsewhere. It contains types of problems that I had not seen in other test preparation books (such as the "Time Warp" Logic Games, which have not appeared regularly on LSATs for several years, according to this book's authors). Preparing for rare problem types is probably a waste of time for most people, but a perfectionist might sleep easier knowing that he or she has seen everything there is. It can't hurt to do these problems, as long as you maintain a correct sense of perspective about their importance, and they may help improve your logical skills. I would recommend that after you use this book, you take some regular, timed LSATs before the real test just to remind yourself that most problems are not as difficult or time-consuming as those in LSAT 180.

Kaplan offers a "Higher Score Guarantee" for LSAT 180 (at least in the edition I have). If you do not get a higher score or you are otherwise not satisfied, you can return the book with a receipt within 90 days and get your money back (minus sales tax and shipping costs).

Rating:
Summary: Very Helpful!
Review: I took Kaplan's LSAT course, and the instructor actually recommended this book to the class, which really got my attention because I was bored in the class (I was ahead of most of the students there as far as understanding the basic material the course teaches). But because of many of the negative reviews written here on the book, I decided not to buy it. I kept practicing on real LSAT questions and tests and eventually reached a point, particularly on Logical Reasoning, where I felt stuck. I knew I didn't want a 180 (mainly because I probably wouldn't get one anyway), but I knew the purpose of this book was really not necessarily literally to get a 180 from it but to help push your score as high as it could go! After having some people continue to recommend the book to me to help me out of my rut, I decided to order it.

I received this book and immediately started studying the Logical Reasoning section (this review is mainly going to pertain to this section because I really didn't need help with the others!). Based on my studying, here's what I believe:

Most of the people who complain about this book are either just Kaplan haters (and there are quite a few who really just hate Kaplan even if they have limited or no experience with it)...or are basically complaining due to the Logic Games section (which is the section most people seem to have a problem with/want to strengthen their skills on and, thus, look for supplemental materials on)...or are people who seriously bought into the title literally. If you're already scoring in the 170's, I really don't see what this book (or any book) can do for you, and, to me, there's nothing wrong with that. If you're in the 160's, you're missing enough questions for the book to possibly be of some use...but it depends on what you need help with.

The questions in the Logic Games section that I have studied honestly didn't seem too bad in terms of how much they differ from the real questions or being impossibly hard. My take on if you are looking for something for Logic Games is that if you don't want to spend time doing problems that are unlike the ones on the LSAT (like the rare/outdated ones) or are too hard, then you probably don't need to buy this book. I mean, the point of this book IS to do some really, really tough questions--don't buy the book, then complain when it delivers just that. If that's not what you want, or if you are solely looking for a book that will help you master the Logic Games section, you might be better off checking out Powerscore's "Logic Games Bible."

As for the Logical Reasoning section, I think the book is great. I don't see how the questions differ too drastically or are impossibly hard here, either. In fact, I felt like the questions in this section were basically like the hardest ones you actually do see on the Logical Reasoning sections. I did miss some questions, but reading the explanations and the tips they offered proved very helpful to me because questions that were similar in structure did show up subsequently in the book and on practice tests I took (not to mention I immediately recognized that these questions were like ones I had done and found difficult on practice LSAT's before). Other times, I looked at questions and thought, "They think THIS is a hard question??" I guarantee that if you study this book (the LR section, at least), you will think that at some point...and it will make you feel good, which is what many people told me--at the very least, this book helps by building confidence!

This book DOES give tips that other books tend to leave out. And what they do is anticipate the types of Logical Reasoning questions that students usually consider the hardest and present those for you to do...then give techniques for handling them, basically, when they explain the correct and incorrect answers. I agree with the question types they mainly focus on--Formal Logic (mainly in the form of Inference questions), Parallel Reasoning, Statistics/Numbers, Surveys/Studies and then a mixture of questions from all other categories (but the ones that tend to be of the tougher variety in those categories). But, for example, on the Formal Logic sections, you kind of already need to being fairly knowledgeable on formal logic to have any kind of chance at these or, even, some of the Parallel Reasoning questions! This is where studying more basic guides beforehand like Nova's "Master the LSAT" comes into play!

I like that the Reading Comprehension section of this book presents a chapter devoted to the Science passages, as, again, the writers have correctly anticipated that these are the type that freak a lot of students out the most. Again, I didn't pay a lot of attention to this section because what I really needed was something for Logical Reasoning, but I believe that this book definitely has something to offer to those having trouble with RC, as not only does it present Science passages but also those kinds of passages that are difficult solely by being boring or complex through language/topic despite not being Science passages.

Honestly, if you need help and are stuck, you have nothing to lose by giving this book a try. I was desperate and decided to try it despite bad reviews, and I'm glad I did. If you do happen to be one of those people who feels this book has ruined your score or thinking, you can probably get back into your normal groove by working on practice tests from LSAC before taking the real thing! As far as the money goes, you can always just sell it to someone and get some of your money back!

Rating:
Summary: Unlike any real question
Review: I've used this book for a week, and I've found numerous weak points in this so-called book for advanced students.

The weakest part of the book is that it does not use any real question -- all of the questions in that book are "imagined" by kaplan staff who will never have a chance to write a real question for a real test.

Among all the dissimilarities of three types of questions, LR questions have the most similar materials to the real ones, because kaplan staff did not invent any "new" types of those lr questions. They just changed contents in real questions without ruining the overall logical structures.

Games questions are so ridiculous that you will never have one-millionth chance to see any of SIMILAR ones even if you take the lsat in the rest of your life( let's say 50 times). They are out of scope of real questions.

For reading, they excerpted some philosophy essays or so called plain tough articles from law documents or academic research magazines. They call those articles hard because no layman can possibly understand it without any peripheral assistance. That is totally opposite to LSAC reading principle that you do not need any further assistance to understand the passages. Those passages in the book are not similar to the real ones not only in contents, but also in strutures. They usually do not contain any argumentative elements which prevail in real ones.

I did not raise my practice score after I had finished this book. Instead, I raised my practice score from 165 to 175 after I had gone over all the tests I had done.

Therefore, I think if you really wanna achieve a high-170's in the real one, you should focus on real tests only. Kaplan will waste time of any high-score achiever.

Rating:
Summary: Depends on Your Learning Style
Review: Overall

In this book, Kaplan includes the "extra tactics" to obtain an even higher score. Why weren't those tactics included in Kaplan's regular LSAT book? Good question.

Anyhow, this book focuses on some of the rare and difficult LSAT question types and how to do well on those. The book provides a great mental workout, but, since the questions covered are indeed rare, will studying this book necessarily help out your score? Perhaps. You may find the regular LSAT question types easier after hammering away at this book. On the other hand, you may find that you've actually hurt your score by focusing on questions which don't appear much, and neglecting those that do appear often. Hard to say what will happen. It depends on how you learn.

Methods

Good, but you've got to be familiar with Kaplan's methods and terminology, which, if you aren't already, don't take too long to figure out.

User Friendliness

Well-written, easy to follow.

Who Should Buy This Book

Advanced students (those with practice test scores above 165) who have completed at least thirty of the former LSAT exams, have no issues with timing, are at a plateau, and feel that learning a bit more will help them out of their rut. However, if you are at this point, you're probably at your saturation point and it's unlikely that this book will help much. We suggest another approach instead. Find someone who's scoring low ?135 to 150 - and provide free tutoring for them. You'll be likely be amazed at how much teaching the exam will help you understand it and your own test-taking skills better.

...

Rating:
Summary: Questions not really the flavor of those on the real LSAT.
Review: The book gets an E for effort, but the questions are lacking in flavor from what you'll see on an actual LSAT.

For example, in many of the questions in the games section, you can solve the entire question by appealing to only one of the rules of the game. This is a rarity on the LSAT, and certainly doesn't make for a particularly hard quetion. Much more often, you'll have to combine several clues, and the complexity of the deduction is what makes for a hard question.

Another example -- In the arguments sections, a key feature on the LSAT is the verbatim repeating of several key phrases from the passages to the answer questions -- it is this key rephrasing that greatly helps in choosing the right answer among several answer choices that appear to be of similar quality. This book is, in some cases, much looser with how it repeats phrases, which loses the LSAT flavor, and also makes the arguments questions hard, but not for the same reason that the hard LSAT questions are hard.

The techniques given in the book are all valid, but on the other hand, they're not earth-shattering, and the likely audience of the book (those that would already score at least in the mid 160s or higher) probably already have a good grasp of them.

This book, therefore, probably won't get you from the 165-170 range to the near-180 range. You're better off getting one of the Official LSAT books with explanations (these are good because it gives you insight into how the test-makers think) -- or Kaplan's 2 LSAT's explained. Even though a top-flight test taker won't miss more than a dozen or so questions in the first place (thus limiting the set of explanations that actually would tell you something you didn't already know in the first place), it gives you a set of explanations for the tough questions from which you can derive tactics for getting these quesitons right on test day.

Rating:
Summary: Questions not really the flavor of those on the real LSAT.
Review: The book gets an E for effort, but the questions are lacking in flavor from what you'll see on an actual LSAT.

For example, in many of the questions in the games section, you can solve the entire question by appealing to only one of the rules of the game. This is a rarity on the LSAT, and certainly doesn't make for a particularly hard quetion. Much more often, you'll have to combine several clues, and the complexity of the deduction is what makes for a hard question.

Another example -- In the arguments sections, a key feature on the LSAT is the verbatim repeating of several key phrases from the passages to the answer questions -- it is this key rephrasing that greatly helps in choosing the right answer among several answer choices that appear to be of similar quality. This book is, in some cases, much looser with how it repeats phrases, which loses the LSAT flavor, and also makes the arguments questions hard, but not for the same reason that the hard LSAT questions are hard.

The techniques given in the book are all valid, but on the other hand, they're not earth-shattering, and the likely audience of the book (those that would already score at least in the mid 160s or higher) probably already have a good grasp of them.

This book, therefore, probably won't get you from the 165-170 range to the near-180 range. You're better off getting one of the Official LSAT books with explanations (these are good because it gives you insight into how the test-makers think) -- or Kaplan's 2 LSAT's explained. Even though a top-flight test taker won't miss more than a dozen or so questions in the first place (thus limiting the set of explanations that actually would tell you something you didn't already know in the first place), it gives you a set of explanations for the tough questions from which you can derive tactics for getting these quesitons right on test day.

Rating:
Summary: Very Helpful!
Review: Whatever you do, don't purchase both the Kaplan LSAT 2004 book AND the Kaplan LSAT 180 book. Amazon and other online retailers even encourage this by offering a special price if you buy them both, but more than half of the material is repeated. I say forget Kaplan all together and purchase the 10 Official LSAT Preptests book instead.