Foolproofing LR

abella123

Hey all. 3 weeks till Feb LSAT. I’ve been doing some timed PT and I find myself consistently scoring -7 to -8 on both LR sections. I’m realizing my mistakes come from parallel reasoning and sufficient assumption questions. Any advice on how to approach both these sections and hopefully improve to 3-4 missed questions per LR section? Thanks

Alex

Sadly, there's no fool proof method for LR; just drilling by type, which I highly recommend if you're having trouble with SA/Parallel reasoning questions. Those questions are best mastered by making sure you're solid on conditional logic since they both use it heavily. Part of this is committing the valid/invalid argument forms to memory.

I also practiced drilling tons of parallel questions by diagramming out the stimuli and answer choices. Then, I would practice making the incorrect answer choices correct by changing the necessary verbiage/logical indicators. This exercise worked like a charm

abella123

That last part is GOLD. I’m going to try this. Thanks so much!

Alex

@aciss038 said:
That last part is GOLD. I’m going to try this. Thanks so much!

You got it! I bet if you do 10-15 parallel questions using that drill then you'll start to see some major improvements!

sjej_jr2017

Do you have a full proof method(s) on how to address assumption type questions? Am still struggling with that portion. Thanks.

Trust But Verify

@"Alex Divine" yeah that last nugget is very interesting. Thanks.

Alex

@sjej_jr2017 said:
Do you have a full proof method(s) on how to address assumption type questions? Am still struggling with that portion. Thanks.

For assumption family questions in LR you need to be able to weed through the excess verbiage in the stimulus and identify the argument core with surgical precision, identify the conclusion first then the reasoning and figure out why the premises do not completely substantiate the conclusion (there will always be at least one reason, there has to be). If you're able to pre-phase an answer it'll make it easier for you to identify the correct answer, that said don't fall in the trap of eliminating wrong answer choices because they don't match up with the answer you pre-phased. The arguments almost always have many reasoning issues and sometimes the correct answer choice will either be one that you did not anticipate or if it is it may be worded in a different way so be cognizant of that too. Also, one important thing when eliminating wrong answer choices work from wrong to right, not vice versa. A skeptical state of mind is imperative to doing well on this test, especially when eliminating answer choices. Usually there are 1 or 2 blatantly wrong answer choices which that you can eliminate pretty quickly. Of the remaining choices, the wrong answers will often contain a quantifier/modifier like "most" that extends the scope of the argument or something, so play close attention to stuff like that, one word can make an otherwise seemingly correct answer incorrect. Come up with one reason for why an answer choice is incorrect, if you can't don't eliminate it because it could be the correct answer. If you blindly eliminate an answer choice which turns out to be the correct answer, it's going to make it that much harder for you to evaluate and address your thought process when you were answering that question.

For drilling SA/NA questions, during BR I would write out the premises + conclusion and diagram any of the conditional logic in the stim. If you can get really good at doing these things I think you will train yourself to naturally start seeing the gap or why the premises don't fully substantiate the conclusion as they are. I also practiced doing the "negate" method on NA questions during BR as well, at least when I was starting out. I think that definitely helped a bunch.

sjej_jr2017

Excellent. This makes sense. Thanks.