Thoughts on NA

nathanieljschwartz

I am by no means a master of this test BUT i had located a recurring question type that i struggled with.. NA, and i am proud to say that i have conquered it!!!
How? With intense drilling.
I took all the NA questions from PT 1-20 and broke them into small digestible groups of 5s
I then did them at random times through the day for a week.
NA is the strangest question type for me bc it asks for something that is so obvious that my brain fills in the information for me.
By becoming sensitive to the kind of "in your face" obviousness that the question is asking for, makes the AC stand out like a sore thumb.
If anyone else has success stories or methods of slaying the beast (lsat), i would love to hear them

Rigid Designator

For me NA really clicked when I grasped J.Y.'s point that NA answer choices are often extremely weak claims. I feel this gives you the edge with them in terms of speed.

Alex

@nathanieljschwartz said:
I am by no means a master of this test BUT i had located a recurring question type that i struggled with.. NA, and i am proud to say that i have conquered it!!!
How? With intense drilling.
I took all the NA questions from PT 1-20 and broke them into small digestible groups of 5s
I then did them at random times through the day for a week.
NA is the strangest question type for me bc it asks for something that is so obvious that my brain fills in the information for me.
By becoming sensitive to the kind of "in your face" obviousness that the question is asking for, makes the AC stand out like a sore thumb.
If anyone else has success stories or methods of slaying the beast (lsat), i would love to hear them

Honestly, my success story comes after I was truly able to understand what it meant for something to be sufficient or necessary for the argument. I truly think that is the most effective way to have a breakthrough with NA questions. I find these seem to be the type of questions that we students like to look for tricks for solving like negating, bridging, or looking for weak claims. All are tools that can help us get to the right answer, but nothing is better than the feeling of truly understanding what you're looking for and why before you even hit the answer choices.

nathanieljschwartz

Nice!!! @"Rigid Designator" i am waiting for that "click" with SA lol. Been waiting 6 months not sure its gonna happen

nathanieljschwartz

Totally agree @"Alex Divine" but it took me some drilling in order to untrain my brain from making those assumptions and in the heat of the timed moment, to not gloss over those AC's

Maximus4

I too have this problem with the NA questions, but have not conquered it yet. Glad to hear that it is doable though. Any suggestions on things to look for or patterns that you have picked up on ?

nathanieljschwartz

@Maximus4 i suggest drilling 15 or 20 back to back. This is when i really started noticing how similar they are. Its hard to actually explain. But you start to see how the correct AC is something that will wreck the answer if negated. Also negate every single answer choice regardless of if you needed to, at least during drills.