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Seeking advice for MBT Questions
Bailey M
Member
I know that this is one of "easiest" question types (and it is really the foundation for many other elements on the LSAT) but I am missing these constantly. I do not have an issue with identifying the question type nor do I have have an issue with conditional logic (though I could practice more). I go into the choices thinking "what absolutely has to be true no matter what" and I always come down to 2 choices and pick the wrong one. This is happening consistently and are about 50% of my wrong answers on LR. Any advice?
Comments
I wouldn't necessarily say that they are among the "easiest" question types. They can be straightforward at times, but not always.
Make sure that you are distinguishing between MBT questions and MSS questions. What are some examples of MBT questions that you have gotten wrong? Are there any patterns to the wrong answer choices that you pick?
I have not noticed any major patterns yet. I have only taken two prep tests so far but even with the section MBT it was a struggle. Some specific examples are:
PrepTest 1 S3Q4 I narrowed it down to C and D but chose the wrong answer
PrepTest 2 S2Q24 I narrowed it down to C and E but chose the wrong answer again.
I used to have a lot of issues with MBT and this was the best way I've come to understand it:
1)find the related statements: There will be multiple statements in the stimulus and they will be talking about something in common. There is usually a term linking those statements together and through that term we can make an inference.
2) Think about the kind of reasoning of that those sentences contain. Alway be on the look out in MBT for conditional, causal, and quantitive language (implying some sort of comparison)
Conditional logical is 75% of most MBT questions. See what you can link up and what the contrapositives are. Most of the MBT questions will involve some sort of chain.
Comparisons make up 19% of MBT questions. These involve language like percentages, "more than". They are usually comparing two different things at any point in time. EX. the population of city D is more dense than city E. Or they compare ONE thing over two points in time. Ex. City D is more dense today than it was 10 years ago.
Causation make up 15% of MBT questions. Tend to be the most rare but still can occur. Look for that causal language "as a result" "causes" etc. You will often see a causal chain in the harder questions trying to confuse you.
3) Anticipate the answer choices. Now that you have made your inferences you can move on the questions.
4) Go through the answers. usually go from wrong to right. Here lets try to eliminate the trap answer choices:
-Out of Scope / Speculation and can't be supported by the stimulus.
-Unsupported relationships: these are mistakes in Logic like Mistaken Reversals/ Negation or just trying to link up two unrelated things in a way that can't be supported. Usually connecting random terms. There is also Contradictions and answers that just provide Premise Support
-Degree: Too strong
I find that the toughest MBT are those that take a single sentence from the paragraph long stem and base the correct answer around that. So, while it might sound dumb and time consuming, the best course of action is to take each answer choice you believe to be probable and circle back to the stem with it in mind.
Overall, I tackle such questions by asking myself the obvious: which answer must be true. The way I got about it is by reading actively and critically in the aim of understanding and comprehending what I read from the stimulus.
With experience, you get to see how some the statements from the stimulus work; moreover, you get to see how the correct and incorrect answer choices are worded...
You should do process of elimination while timed, and, when down to two answer choices, you should do process of selection. However, when time is not involved, then you should really explain in detail why the answer is correct and the others incorrect. Here is an example of what I am talking about, check out the link below and look for my comment.
https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-70-section-1-question-24/
Cheers,
It can be the case that just part of the stimulus is a MBT answer choice. Also adjust your mindset - there is only ONE right answer choice always and forever
pm me if ya need more help
Try the negation test! If something must be true, it cannot be false. So if you negate your answer and the argument falls apart, then that is your correct answer, bc it must be false in order for the argument to stand!
TBF, I haven't developed a general approach, but I was literally attempting PT 1 S3 right now and teaching my mom as I went lol! I see that you had a doubt about Q04, so pertaining to that, I'll try explaining what steps I chose to come up with the answer. I found options A and C to be fairly similar. The "only if" in option A connected to C saying that C also showed the fear of retaliation as the only reason for not retaliating. However, I was quick to eliminate C as there may be many reasons why a nation does not attack.
This is why I eliminated C, now why I chose D :
- I paraphrased D as: "a nation with a lot of power that doesn't want war should show other nations its power."
- This seems like the right choice as the original passage could be read as "theory of military deterrence = show your power to avoid war."
- So, for someone to avoid war, it follows that they should show their power (when following the theory of military deterrence).
- Finally, connecting this to D, it became a nation that has power should show it. D is ideal because it does not negate other possibilities. Ex. It does not negate countries that don't have power from pretending like they do.
That's super long I'm sorry, but to sum it up, I eliminated C as it was overly specific and chose D because it directly related to the passage as well as didn't hone down on anything.