How to approach a really long MBT/MSS stimuli

lsnnnnn0011

hi guys,

so when you have a SUPER long inference Q, how do you approach such questions?
I know that for argument type questions, we MUST understand the relationship between the support and the conclusion before moving on to the answer choices.
But since inference questions are just statements, not arguments, do you move on to the answer choices even if you don't fully understand the stimuli?

LSATcantwin

It is important to understand the stimuli the best we can no matter what we are doing. In the case of long stimulus for MBT and MSS questions it actually might be more simple than you think. In many cases the correct AC falls between two premise that are linked for MBT, or two statements in MSS. This leaves a lot of the stimulus as fluff. The hard part is identifying where. What I like trying to do when I'm reading the stimulus is to see if I can gain a "so what" between two statements.

All dogs are apples. (So what? well then some apples must be dogs...)

Then when I go to the AC I am at least some what aware of what I could see

Alex

@lsnnnnn0011 said:
hi guys,

so when you have a SUPER long inference Q, how do you approach such questions?
I know that for argument type questions, we MUST understand the relationship between the support and the conclusion before moving on to the answer choices.
But since inference questions are just statements, not arguments, do you move on to the answer choices even if you don't fully understand the stimuli?

I don't think you need to approach them any different from shorter inference questions. Like @LSATcantwin said above, there is often a ton of fluff in these longer ones, and that can make it hard to see what's important. I find that if I approach MSS questions similar to MP questions, I can see where the conclusion should be and likely where the correct answer choice will fit.

I always, always try to make sure I understand the stimuli before moving on the answer choices. The reason is that the test makers rely on trap answer choices that sound really good if you lack a strong understanding of the stimulus.