Customer Reviews

LSAT 180, 2004 Edition (Kaplan LSAT 180)

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This is not a good place to start with your LSAT studies unless you have a Bachelor's degree (or higher) in Computer Science or Philosophy (or both).

However, if you have spent a few weeks, or even months, already studying for the LSAT and find most of the questions on any given previously released test fairly easy, this is a good book to take you to the next level. Kaplan 180 shows you how to read a little bit closer, analyze formal logic, and interpret complex statements so that you can wade through the questions that suck up your time and leave you ambivalent.

If you can get through the 20 Logic Games provided in this book in under 9 minutes per game, getting most of the answers correct, then you should be able to handle any game on the actual test with ease.

The Logical Reasoning portion of this book I find somewhat weak, as most of the "difficult" example questions presented in Kaplan 180 were fairly easy for me to knock down. Though the questions weren't excruciating, the explanations for them are thorough and provide insight that will give you an edge on test day if you pay attention closely.

I haven't gotten much into the Reading Comprehension portion of the book, but from what I have seen, the passages they've chosen are particularly dense and will help with your ability to understand what the real LSAT Reading Comp passages are getting at.

Keep in mind that none of the questions in this book are actually from real LSATs, so some of the wording and subjects in the questions are peculiar and confusing (but not because they're necessarily difficult).

Overall, I recommend this book as an ancillary resource to "The Next 10 Actual LSATs" "10 More Actual LSATs" and "10 Actual LSATs." Furthermore, make sure you pick up the Logic Games Bible and Logical Reasoning Bible by PowerScore. I personally am taking TestMasters and, if you have $1250 lying around, highly recommend this course as your primary preparation.

Good luck!

This book is meant for the high-scorers. The Arguments section is very useful. The Reading Comprehension section passages and the Games section are not very LSAT-like, but still useful. If you already own the GMAT 800, be aware that the Critical Reasoning (Arguments) sections are virtually the same.

LSAT 180 is a great companion to the Kaplan LSAT preparation material. I used it in conjunction with Kaplan's 2004 LSAT Prep book and multiple Official Tests from LSAC. LSAT 180 really puts you through the paces, making the normal questions seem easy. I would definitely recommend it, but I think it's important to use it with the more general preparation material as the LSAT 180 has less information regarding techniques and approaches than the Kaplan 2004 LSAT Prep book. Using these books together with a number of official tests is a great self administered course in LSAT preparation. It definitely raised my score.

I originally purchased the Kaplan 2003 LSAT Prep Book to prepare for the test, but due to circumstances beyond my control I needed to push my test date back a year. I was completely disheartened to see the amount of questions which were recycled in the 2004 LSAT 180 book from the 2003 book I studied from previously. Basically they took at least 1/3 of the questions in this book from their previous publications and simply relabeled them "difficult" to go along with the title of the new book and expectations of the reader. While the format of the book is quite nice, each sub-type of question has its own section, this in no way makes up for the sheet Kaplan tries to pull over the readers eyes by labeling the questions "tough".

I also used Nova's LSAT prep book. I loved it! The problems were explained in depth whereas with LSAT 180 you are left in the dark. LSAT 180 is good for practicing hard questions but if the book doesn't tell you how to work through them what good is it?