Self-study
Hello!!! I need help and hopefully my explanation makes sense. I just started heavily studying for the LSAT this month. I’m currently learning LR material, specifically how to identify flaws in arguments. The only problem now is that I often feel like I see MULTIPLE flaws within one argument in a question. Is this an incorrect way to think about the arguments? Does anyone have any advice for how to zero in on the one specific flaw we’re supposed to focus on in order to answer the question?
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3 comments
I think a helpful tip for myself is to really focus on how the conclusion follows from the premises in the stimulus. After reading the question stem, the first thing I do is think "Okay, what is the author trying to say?" After that, I look for the premises.
For example:
"Okay, what is the author trying to say"
"If your dog is healthy, it is dangerous"
"Why is the author saying all healthy dogs are dangerous?"
"Because 'my neighbors dog sometimes bites when I put my hand in his mouth'"
Flaw then becomes clear: It's a unrepresentative sample. The conclusion talks about "healthy dogs", but then gives the example of a dog with rabies.
Another flaw COULD be that correlation-causation: that just because ONE dog (which is unrepresentative) is dangerous, that doesn't mean that ALL (healthy) dogs are dangerous!
So maybe that's where you might be saying that you get tripped up between "multiple flaws." But as long as you stick to the stimulus and really hug the premise and conclusion, you should be fine.
For example, if one of the answer choices for my flawed dog question above was: "confuses sufficiency for necessity"
Then you know right away that answer is wrong. By going over the argument's relationship between premise and conclusion, you know that there is one MAIN flaw (unrepresentative sample), one MAYBE/QUESTIONABLE flaw (correlation-causation), and a sufficiency-necessity flaw (although common in the LSAT) is neither of the flaws.
TLDR: my best advice is to really be like white-on-rice, clingy, critical, and sherlock holmes-esque on the conclusion and premises. Once you find the relationship out, I feel like you're already halfway there to solving the answer!
There is only one flaw as an answer choice so the fact that you're claiming to notice multiple tells me you're not grasping the question type. The LSAT writers do not create "multiple" flaws in a question - there is only one and that is not up for debate. However, that flaw can often be described in multiple valid ways, and some wrong answers will sound like flaws but don’t actually capture the argument’s central error. They are not testing how many things you can criticize—they’re testing whether you can identify the structural mistake the argument hinges on. Lastly, there are MANY types of flaws - confusing something as necessary for sufficient or vice versa, assuming correlation equals causation, reversing cause and effect, ignoring alternative explanations, small sample size, confusing quantities for a percentage, ad hominem etc. Flaw questions can be very tough and depending on where you are at with your LR studies, I would focus on flaw question types at the very end of going through your material. Good luck.
A lot of these arguments on the LSAT are exactly that: flawed! So yes, there may be more that one flaw in some of them. I'm still learning how to identify flaws myself, but my best advice would be to look for the flaws in the reasoning of an argument, i.e. the connection (or lack thereof) between the premises and conclusion. When it comes to answer choices, I find it helpful to eliminate what is descriptively inaccurate. Hope this helps!