What makes a hard logical reasoning question hard?

logan.quertermous

Hey, guys! So, I'm working through finishing the 7sage course to prepare for the September LSAT. One thing I've found myself wondering in preparing to anticipate answers for LR questions and to properly pace myself through the LR portions of the test is, "what makes a LR question hard or easy?" Is it the language and wording used in the question stem? Perhaps, the types of tricks employed in the answer choices? A combination of both of these and more?
Additionally, for me, some of the questions designated as more difficult, although, I don't have the Ultimate package so perhaps I'm not the best judge of this, are easier for me and some questions labeled as harder are easier. Is this a commonality among others or am I an anomaly? Your thoughts and insight would be greatly appreciated!

jyang72

In my opinion, sometimes LSAT writers leave 2 or 3 very similar answer choices in a LR question. The purpose is to leave you a time-sucker. Sometimes, they would make the language in the Stimulus very difficult for you to interpret. But as long as you are able to read for structure, meaning you are able to parse out this stimulus into premise, conclusion, background info, and how to conclusion is supported by the premise, you will be fine!

BinghamtonDave

From my experience, the following aspects influence how hard a LR question is to reason through:
1.Convoluted or dense language in the stimulus (I'm thinking here of PT53-Section1-Question 16)
2.A "non-cookie cutter" stimulus (I'm thinking here of PT77-Section 4-Question 20)
3. Very tricky or subtly worded answer choices (I'm thinking here of something like 54-2-18)
4. For me, any "except" question is a nightmare. hahaha!

*edit spacing

leejaylee

Usually, if a LR question is easy, there is an answer that pops out on you. All the other answers are pretty much irrelevant. The language is quite easy to understand. The wording in the question stem are pretty much alike and you shouldn't be spending more than 4-5 seconds on that anyway.

Hard LR questions on the other hand usually have:
- Hard language and stimulus that sometimes needs to be read twice
- 2 or 3 answer choices that are quite similar to each other and can be different by a few words or phrases
- REALLY difficult LR questions have 2 answer choices that both seem quite right, but one is a trap answer choice.

It may be the case that some difficult LR questions are easy for you because:
- It could be that you are familiar with the stimulus in some way (your major or personal interests)
- That type of LR question that are difficult to others, may of course, depending on how your brain works, intuitively, easier for you

Which is why I believe, people have different problems when it comes to the LSAT. You just need to drill down the questions that are hard for YOU, not for others haha.

blah170blah

In my opinion, the "difficulty" setting is more cool than it is informative. The LSAT is such a personal experience and deep dive into your own metacognition that it's hard to truly generalize "difficult" and "easy."

That being said, the above posters nailed what typically makes questions hard: particular argument types that are difficult for you to understand and answer choices that are difficult to see how they're trying to trick you.