7Sage

Logical Reasoning

lanablourtchi · 2026-08-03T19:24:23Z

Is anyone else having trouble with logical reasoning ? If anyone has any tips please let me know

When it clicks it clicks. Here are some things I wish I had implemented muchhhh earlier

At first I thought knowing the Q Types was not necessary, but once I learned them and placed them on the spectrum of support, ie. what does each Q Type need. For ex. SA can have a powerful answer (so can be more powerful in its language ie. most, all, always). whereas NA needs to be provable- so weaker (ie, some, sometimes) everything became more intuitive. This can you help you eliminate tempting ACs off the bat just by seeing one word.
Understanding Phenomenon-Hypothesis Stims. When you BR or WAJ, actually write out the phenomenon and hypothesis (or what it is asking you to hypothesize).
A lot of times I think we think the entire test is just conditional reasoning- not true! Give some love to causal reasoning (it is not as intuitive as you think) and really learn to see the chain of causal reasoning in the stimulus and flaws that often accompany it.
Always go to the ACs with a prediction, even if your prediction doesn't match any ACs, it has helped me find the gap in the stimulus almost always and identify the correct AC faster.
Just bc you can do conditional logic in your head, doesn't mean you should, pen to paper helps (and really will save you time), I don't diagram every Q but always the hard ones.
For weaken and strengthen questions, looking at the stim and asking yourself, wellll what could be an alternative explanation for this thing happening, always helps.
Idk if this is good advice, but I have started thinking of MSS as, I need to find a conclusion for this stimulus, what would the premises support? - this has led me to picking strongly supported ACs, vs getting confused.

Out of all of that, if I could pick out one general theme of advice, ALWAYS ANTICIPATE BEFORE LOOKING AT THE ACs. Untimed drills helped me with this. I would read the stim and the Q type, break it down premise by premise on paper, and write down 2-3 predictions and thennnn go to ACs. Speed comes with understanding of the concepts- so it's ok to just do untimed until you realllllyy get the concepts (esp. if you're not taking a test soon). I actually got faster (and more accurate) when I paused from timed drills and sections and just broke down every single Q type and stim type like this and learned to anticipate patterns.

I hope that helped!!!

2 comments

k13lawwwwww
Edited 4 days ago
When it clicks it clicks. Here are some things I wish I had implemented muchhhh earlier
At first I thought knowing the Q Types was not necessary, but once I learned them and placed them on the spectrum of support, ie. what does each Q Type need. For ex. SA can have a powerful answer (so can be more powerful in its language ie. most, all, always). whereas NA needs to be provable- so weaker (ie, some, sometimes) everything became more intuitive. This can you help you eliminate tempting ACs off the bat just by seeing one word.
Understanding Phenomenon-Hypothesis Stims. When you BR or WAJ, actually write out the phenomenon and hypothesis (or what it is asking you to hypothesize).
A lot of times I think we think the entire test is just conditional reasoning- not true! Give some love to causal reasoning (it is not as intuitive as you think) and really learn to see the chain of causal reasoning in the stimulus and flaws that often accompany it.
Always go to the ACs with a prediction, even if your prediction doesn't match any ACs, it has helped me find the gap in the stimulus almost always and identify the correct AC faster.
Just bc you can do conditional logic in your head, doesn't mean you should, pen to paper helps (and really will save you time), I don't diagram every Q but always the hard ones.
For weaken and strengthen questions, looking at the stim and asking yourself, wellll what could be an alternative explanation for this thing happening, always helps.
Idk if this is good advice, but I have started thinking of MSS as, I need to find a conclusion for this stimulus, what would the premises support? - this has led me to picking strongly supported ACs, vs getting confused.
Out of all of that, if I could pick out one general theme of advice, ALWAYS ANTICIPATE BEFORE LOOKING AT THE ACs. Untimed drills helped me with this. I would read the stim and the Q type, break it down premise by premise on paper, and write down 2-3 predictions and thennnn go to ACs. Speed comes with understanding of the concepts- so it's ok to just do untimed until you realllllyy get the concepts (esp. if you're not taking a test soon). I actually got faster (and more accurate) when I paused from timed drills and sections and just broke down every single Q type and stim type like this and learned to anticipate patterns.
I hope that helped!!!
3
nr
Edited 4 days ago

here are some tips that have worked for me:
-avoid answers that are extreme or contain anything remotely false
-flag questions you're unsure of and allot yourself 2 minutes at the end to review them
-know the difference between many and most
-know the difference between necessary and sufficient assumptions
-don't waste too much time on one question if it's really messing you up since they're all worth the same amount
-complete the core curriculum (I skipped it at first and then decided to do it and it was really helpful)

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