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Patterns in LR Questions

SaraFromOCSaraFromOC Member
in Logical Reasoning 148 karma

In every webinar and in most student testimonials, people mention identification of patterns as being one of the key processes to answering quickly and accurately. Are these patterns more than identifying what kind of question it is? Do they mean the structure of the questions themselves (premises, conclusions, fluff)? Or is there a formula for each question type that goes beyond any of that?

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  • Cant Get RightCant Get Right Yearly + Live Member Sage ⭐ 🍌 7Sage Tutor
    27822 karma

    I love this question and the answer is “all of the above.”

    Question type is the first pattern most people learn. The interaction between the AC’s and the stimulus is a little different for each type which is vitally important, and there are trends which certain question types follow in the type of argumentation you’re going to be looking at. Obviously, the correctness of the credited AC is also driven by what exactly the question is, so this is a really big one.

    Beyond that, there are patterns in argument structure which can pop up in just about any question type. These are things like conditional logic, the common flaws, phenomenon/hypothesis, causation, and the big picture support between premise and conclusion. Can’t do well on the LSAT without pattern recognition on these.

    And then there’s the detailing stuff which to me is the most interesting dimension of the test. Within the larger structure of the argument, there’s so much linguistic/grammatical stuff they can do to give things precise meaning in a way that has big implications. These can account both for the things many will write off as “careless mistakes” as well as questions that will drive you mad in BR. Complex noun phrases, for example, are an easy way for the test writers to generate a little extra difficulty:

    My friend from Mobile with the red hair who’s a big Green Bay Packers fan and is the sous chef at my favorite restaurant where I used to work before I decided to go to law school likes a hot beverage made from the seeds of a certain type of cherry which is native to Ethiopia that became really big in Europe during the early days of The Enlightenment after the plantation system made it widely and cheaply available.

    This just says “James likes coffee.”

    If you can recognize and isolate the two complex noun phrases, you can handle this pretty easily.

    Another important one is what I call “problem of knowledge,” though it includes a lot of other concepts like belief, intention, etc. So if a stimulus says someone knows or believes or intends something, that’s very different from establishing what actually is:

    Susan knows the store closes at 8pm.
    It’s only 6:30pm.
    Therefore, Susan knows the store is still open.

    See the problem? Knowledge messed everything up. This example is designed to be obvious, but the LSAT can present this with great subtlety.

    There’s a ton of these types of things, and reverse engineering the questions to identify and learn them should be a big part of your BR and analysis.

  • SaraFromOCSaraFromOC Member
    148 karma

    @"Cant Get Right" said:
    I love this question and the answer is “all of the above.”

    Question type is the first pattern most people learn. The interaction between the AC’s and the stimulus is a little different for each type which is vitally important, and there are trends which certain question types follow in the type of argumentation you’re going to be looking at. Obviously, the correctness of the credited AC is also driven by what exactly the question is, so this is a really big one.

    Beyond that, there are patterns in argument structure which can pop up in just about any question type. These are things like conditional logic, the common flaws, phenomenon/hypothesis, causation, and the big picture support between premise and conclusion. Can’t do well on the LSAT without pattern recognition on these.

    And then there’s the detailing stuff which to me is the most interesting dimension of the test. Within the larger structure of the argument, there’s so much linguistic/grammatical stuff they can do to give things precise meaning in a way that has big implications. These can account both for the things many will write off as “careless mistakes” as well as questions that will drive you mad in BR. Complex noun phrases, for example, are an easy way for the test writers to generate a little extra difficulty:

    My friend from Mobile with the red hair who’s a big Green Bay Packers fan and is the sous chef at my favorite restaurant where I used to work before I decided to go to law school likes a hot beverage made from the seeds of a certain type of cherry which is native to Ethiopia that became really big in Europe during the early days of The Enlightenment after the plantation system made it widely and cheaply available.

    This just says “James likes coffee.”

    If you can recognize and isolate the two complex noun phrases, you can handle this pretty easily.

    Another important one is what I call “problem of knowledge,” though it includes a lot of other concepts like belief, intention, etc. So if a stimulus says someone knows or believes or intends something, that’s very different from establishing what actually is:

    Susan knows the store closes at 8pm.
    It’s only 6:30pm.
    Therefore, Susan knows the store is still open.

    See the problem? Knowledge messed everything up. This example is designed to be obvious, but the LSAT can present this with great subtlety.

    There’s a ton of these types of things, and reverse engineering the questions to identify and learn them should be a big part of your BR and analysis.

    Thanks for providing such a thorough response! You're absolutely right; that example typifies how the LR questions are structured and it drives me bonkers. It's especially present in Flaw questions, and I do think by isolating the bricks that make up the sentence, I'll have a clearer picture of the simple meaning. LSAC is nothing if not subtle, but I suppose our job is to become human subtlety detectors, huh?

  • DanielMacTavishDanielMacTavish Alum Member
    161 karma

    @"Cant Get Right" said:
    I love this question and the answer is “all of the above.”

    Question type is the first pattern most people learn. The interaction between the AC’s and the stimulus is a little different for each type which is vitally important, and there are trends which certain question types follow in the type of argumentation you’re going to be looking at. Obviously, the correctness of the credited AC is also driven by what exactly the question is, so this is a really big one.

    Beyond that, there are patterns in argument structure which can pop up in just about any question type. These are things like conditional logic, the common flaws, phenomenon/hypothesis, causation, and the big picture support between premise and conclusion. Can’t do well on the LSAT without pattern recognition on these.

    And then there’s the detailing stuff which to me is the most interesting dimension of the test. Within the larger structure of the argument, there’s so much linguistic/grammatical stuff they can do to give things precise meaning in a way that has big implications. These can account both for the things many will write off as “careless mistakes” as well as questions that will drive you mad in BR. Complex noun phrases, for example, are an easy way for the test writers to generate a little extra difficulty:

    My friend from Mobile with the red hair who’s a big Green Bay Packers fan and is the sous chef at my favorite restaurant where I used to work before I decided to go to law school likes a hot beverage made from the seeds of a certain type of cherry which is native to Ethiopia that became really big in Europe during the early days of The Enlightenment after the plantation system made it widely and cheaply available.

    This just says “James likes coffee.”

    If you can recognize and isolate the two complex noun phrases, you can handle this pretty easily.

    Another important one is what I call “problem of knowledge,” though it includes a lot of other concepts like belief, intention, etc. So if a stimulus says someone knows or believes or intends something, that’s very different from establishing what actually is:

    **> Susan knows the store closes at 8pm.

    It’s only 6:30pm.
    Therefore, Susan knows the store is still open.**

    See the problem? Knowledge messed everything up. This example is designed to be obvious, but the LSAT can present this with great subtlety.

    There’s a ton of these types of things, and reverse engineering the questions to identify and learn them should be a big part of your BR and analysis.

    Just to comment on the "Susan knows the store closes at 8pm.
    It’s only 6:30pm.
    Therefore, Susan knows the store is still open."

    I just want to make sure I'm making the right criticism of the conclusion provided:

    Susan doesn't know what time it is currently, therefore she may or may not know the store is still open.

    Is this an accurate assessment? This would have been my "prephase" if posed with this question

  • DanielMacTavishDanielMacTavish Alum Member
    161 karma

    ^^^ ***"Prephrase"

  • Cant Get RightCant Get Right Yearly + Live Member Sage ⭐ 🍌 7Sage Tutor
    27822 karma

    @DanielMacTavish said:
    Just to comment on the "Susan knows the store closes at 8pm.
    It’s only 6:30pm.
    Therefore, Susan knows the store is still open."

    I just want to make sure I'm making the right criticism of the conclusion provided:

    Susan doesn't know what time it is currently, therefore she may or may not know the store is still open.

    Is this an accurate assessment? This would have been my "prephase" if posed with this question

    Essentially, this is correct. Perhaps slightly more accurately would be: We don't know whether or not Susan knows what time it is currently, therefore she may or may not know the store is still open.

  • ALEXAN.SALEXAN.S Alum Member
    108 karma

    @"Cant Get Right" said:

    @DanielMacTavish said:
    Just to comment on the "Susan knows the store closes at 8pm.
    It’s only 6:30pm.
    Therefore, Susan knows the store is still open."

    I just want to make sure I'm making the right criticism of the conclusion provided:

    Susan doesn't know what time it is currently, therefore she may or may not know the store is still open.

    Is this an accurate assessment? This would have been my "prephase" if posed with this question

    Essentially, this is correct. Perhaps slightly more accurately would be: We don't know whether or not Susan knows what time it is currently, therefore she may or may not know the store is still open.

    I had a somewhat different take. Even if Susan did know the current time, she doesn’t necessarily know that the store is open. She may believe that it is open, but as you pointed out earlier, knowledge is different than belief; the store may have closed early. That being said, this interpretation probably wouldn’t work for something like terminal velocity or the boiling point of water.

  • Cant Get RightCant Get Right Yearly + Live Member Sage ⭐ 🍌 7Sage Tutor
    27822 karma

    @"ALEXAN.S" said:
    I had a somewhat different take. Even if Susan did know the current time, she doesn’t necessarily know that the store is open. She may believe that it is open, but as you pointed out earlier, knowledge is different than belief; the store may have closed early. That being said, this interpretation probably wouldn’t work for something like terminal velocity or the boiling point of water.

    This actually touches on a really interesting philosophical debate over the nature of knowledge.

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