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LR and choosing the attractive wrong answer instead of the correct answer

lsat2019lsat2019 Member
in Logical Reasoning 70 karma

For almost every LR question, I can narrow it down to the trap most popular answer and the correct answer. I usually select the trap answer. How do you go about selecting the correct answer instead? Did anybody come across these issues during studying? How did you deal with it and overcome it?

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  • BlindReviewerBlindReviewer Alum Member
    855 karma

    If you're talking about the hardest couple of questions in a section, I'm usually okay narrowing it down to two and just gambling from there (it's unlikely I'm going to figure it out anyway, so time is better spent on other questions). But for questions that I come through on a second pass, I tend to really focus on the mechanics of the question type (NA, SA, etc.) and then kind of take the argument apart slowly like I would in Blind Review.

    In general, though, it's best to figure out these traps through thorough BR, because you'll come to see a lot of commonalities between them. I think one of the most frequent ones is when a trap answer is open ended, leaving it up to you to push the answer choice in a way that weakens the argument but it's actually based on your own assumption.

  • parkeunyparkeuny Alum Member
    162 karma

    I think I'd agree with the above comment about thorough BR. What I do every once in awhile is make a personalized problem set with questions I've missed, and do them untimed. Usually, I'll get a good amount of them right the second time because I've watched the solutions and I understand them now. However, there'll be some that I miss again. And again. So I'm going to do this until basically I'm down to none. And if it's any consolation, I still have questions that I've missed maybe 4 times and still, when I solve them, it feels like a guess. I try to write out my reasoning or "solving" process if it can be mapped out, and am trying to pinpoint exactly where the gap is between what I do and don't understand. I think the more difficult the question, the harder it is to pick out where exactly in the process you're going astray. It's very time-consuming, but I've found it to be worthwhile if you're aiming for a score where you can't afford for any misses you can prevent/learn. I hope this helps a bit!

  • Michael.CincoMichael.Cinco Member Sage ⭐
    edited April 2019 2116 karma

    If you are selecting the trap answer choice i can see a number of problems.

    1. You are entering the ac's without a full grasp of the stimulus , the conclusion premise etc.

    2. You are glossing over important words in the stimulus or acs such as modifiers on the conclusion.

    3. Your understanding of question types may not be 100% and thus you are not eliminating certain answer choices as thoroughly and quickly as you should.

    Hard to really diagnose without more context but thats what pops into mind. A thorough br process as suggested above helps as well as br'ing with others.

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