LR Cheat Sheet Part 1

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• 4 Likes

  alexroark5 Alum Member Inactive ⭐

  April 2015 812 karma

  LR Cheat Sheet Part 2
  
  Cause and Effect Reasoning
  
  General:
  • Causality occurs in either the conclusion (reasoning is then flawed) or causality occurs in the premises (no causal reasoning error exists, although argument may be flawed in some other way)
  • Two scenarios that often lead to causal conclusions
  o One event occurs before the other
  o Two (or more) events occur at the same time
  • When causality occurs in the conclusion, the author is assuming that there are NO OTHER possible causes that produce that particular affect!
  
  Attacking Causal Conclusions (weaken questions):
  • Find an alternate cause for the stated effect
  • Show that that even when the cause occurs, the effect does not occur
  • Show that although the effect occurs, the cause did not occur
  • Show that the stated relationship is reversed
  • Show that statistical problem exists with the data used to make causal statement
  Supporting Causal Conclusions (Strengthen Questions)
  • Eliminate any alternative causes for the stated effect
  • Show that when the cause occurs, the effect occurs
  • Show that when the cause does not occur, the effect does not occur
  • Eliminate the possibility that the stated relationship is reversed
  • Show that the data used to make the causal connection are accurate or eliminate possible problems with the data
  
  
  Strengthen Questions
  
  General:
  • Focus in on the conclusion
  • Many strengthen questions require students to find the missing link between a premise and conclusion. Often correct answer choices will help address these gaps between premise and conclusion
  • Strengthen questions that contain analogies or use surveys that rely upon their validity. Answer choices that strengthen them are usually correct
  • Correct answer can strengthen the argument either a little or a lot, this is what makes these questions difficult at times
  
  Incorrect Answer Types:
  • Opposite answers
  • Shell Game Answers
  • Out of Scope Answers
  
  
  Sufficient Assumption Questions (Justify The Conclusion)
  
  General:
  • Requires you to select the answer choice that logically proves the conclusion of the argument
  • Apply Justify Formula: Premises + Answer Choice = Conclusion
  • Stimuli almost always contain conditional logic to allow for certainty in validity of conclusions once the correct answer is combined with the premises
  • Stimuli are formulaic and questions can frequently be solved mechanistically by identifying the elements that appear in the conclusion but not in the premises
  • Follow these rules:
  o Any “new” element in the conclusion will appear in the correct answer. If the new element is not in the premise then it must be in the correct answer choice
  o Elements that are common to the conclusion and at least one premise NORMALLY do not appear in the correct answer
  o Elements that appear in the premises but not in the conclusion are USUALLY the correct answer
  
  Necessary Assumption Questions (Assumption)
  
  General:
  • Two types of assumptions:
  o Supporter Assumption: link together new or rogue elements in the stimulus or fill logical gaps in the argument
  o Defender Assumption: eliminate ideas or assertions that would undermine the conclusion
  o Employ the assumption negation technique to double check answers
  
• 3 Likes

  alexroark5 Alum Member Inactive ⭐

  April 2015 812 karma

  LR Cheat Sheet Part 3
  
  Resolve the Paradox Questions
  
  General:
  • Most stimuli do not contain a conclusion and will contain language of contradiction
  • The correct answer must conform to the facts of the stimuli
  
  Incorrect Answer Types:
  • Explains only one side of the paradox
  • If the stimulus contains a paradox where two items are different, then an answer choice that explains why the two are similar cannot be correct and vice versa
  • Answer choices that do not conform to the facts of the stimulus
  
  Method of Reasoning Questions
  
  General:
  • Identify the logical organization of the argument
  • Employ the Fact Test: if an answer choice describes an event that did not occur in the stimulus, then that answer is incorrect
  Incorrect Answer Types:
  • New element answers: answers must be based on the info in the stimulus so new or rogue elements that did not occur in the stimulus are incorrect
  • Half right, half wrong: often answers will start out well by describing something that happened in the stimulus, but they will end poorly. These answers are always wrong
  • Exaggerated answers: these answers exaggerate the situation described in the stimulus
  
  Flaw in the Reasoning Questions
  
  Common Flaw Types:
  • Uncertain use of term or concept: the author fails to use each term in a constant coherent fashion as the argument progresses
  • Ad Hominem: attacks the person or source rather than the argument itself
  • Circular Reasoning: “this essay is the best because it is better than all the others” in these cases the premises and the conclusion are identical in meaning
  • Errors in conditional reasoning: mistaken negation/mistaken reversal (confusing necessary and sufficient conditions)
  • Mistaken cause and effect- assuming causal relationship
  o On the basis of sequence of events
  o Assuming causal relationship when only a correlation exists
  o Failure to consider alternate causes
  o Failure to consider events may be reversed
  • Straw man: author attempts to attack an opponent’s position by ignoring the actual statements made by the opposing speaker. Distorting or refashioning the argument, making it weaker in the process
  • Takes for granted that a hypothesis has not proven to be true is proof that it is flase
  • Internal contradiction: occurs when the author makes conflicting statements “everyone should join our country club, after all, it is an exclusive group”
  • Appeal fallacies:
  o Appeal to authority: uses the opinion of an authority to persuade the reader
  o Appeal to popular opinion/appeal to numbers: states that a position is true because a majority believe it to be true
  o Appeal to emotion: emotions or emotionally charged language is used to try and justify the conclusion
  • Survey errors:
  o Survey uses a biased sample
  o Survey questions are improperly constructed
  o Respondents to survey give inaccurate responses
  • Exceptional Case/Overgeneralization: takes a small number of instances and treats them as if they support a broad, sweeping conclusion
  • Errors of composition and division: involve judgments made about groups and parts of a group
  o Includes part-to-whole errors and whole-to-part errors
  • False Analogy: occurs when the author uses an analogy that is too dissimilar to the original situation to be applicable
  • False Dilemma: Assumes only two courses of action are available when there may be others
  • Errors in the use of evidence:
  o Lack of evidence for a position is taken to prove that the position is false
  o Lack of evidence against a position is taken to prove that position is true
  • Time shift errors: assumes that conditions will remain constant over time and that what was the case in the past will be the case in the future
  • Numbers and percentages errors:
  o Increasing percentages automatically lead to increasing numbers
  o Decreasing percentages automatically lead to decreasing numbers
  o Increasing numbers automatically lead to increasing percentages
  o Decreasing numbers automatically lead to decreasing percentages
  o Large numbers automatically mean large percentages, and small numbers automatically mean small percentages
  o Large percentages automatically mean large numbers, and small percentages automatically mean small numbers
  
  Parallel Questions
  
  General:
  • These questions can be time consuming so don’t freak out
  • Elements that DO NOT need to be parallel
  o Topic of the stimulus
  o The order of presentation of the premises and conclusion in the stimulus
  • Elements that DO need to be parallel
  o The method of reasoning: type of reasoning must be paralleled, for example: causal or conditional reasoning, then immediately look for causal or conditional reasoning in the answer choices
  o The validity of the argument: stimulus is valid, answer must be valid; stimulus is not valid, answer must be not valid
  o Conclusion and premises: the certainty level or intent of the conclusion and premises must match. Pay close attention to modifiers (most, all, some)
  • If all else fails, rephrase the stimulus in simple, general terms
  
• kclubs323 Alum Member Inactive ⭐

  April 2015 275 karma

  @alexroark5 This is great! Thanks for sharing.
• nicole.hopkins Inactive Sage Inactive ⭐

  April 2015 7965 karma

  Nice, nice—also happy to see evidence of your synthesizing Trainer/7sage/maybe a liiiiiittle bit of Powerscore Sometimes those of us who started with the Trainer/PS speak a slightly different LSAT dialect than those who are pure 7sagers
• justrandom Alum Member

  April 2015 343 karma

  This is awesome! Muchas gracias!
• inactive Alum Member

  April 2015 12637 karma

  Moved to the cheat sheet sub-forum. Good job
• 1 Like

  emli1000 Alum Member Inactive ⭐

  April 2015 3462 karma

  Good stuff on here.
• mc_meatt Alum Member

  April 2015 123 karma

  Nice. Can someone post a cheat sheet for LG?
• alexroark5 Alum Member Inactive ⭐

  April 2015 812 karma

  @nicole.hopkins actually a significant amount of thati information is from powerscore
• shine.on.me Alum Member

  April 2015 463 karma

  Thank you, this looks very helpful. I can see the PowerScore influence.
• nicole.hopkins Inactive Sage Inactive ⭐

  April 2015 7965 karma

  @alexroark5 well you seem to have synthesized the pitfalls and shortcomings right out of it
• gstar2015 Alum Member

  April 2015 68 karma

  Thank you !
• emli1000 Alum Member Inactive ⭐

  April 2015 3462 karma

  @mc_meatt PM me your email and I can send one to you.
• jsperling Free Trial Member

  June 2015 31 karma

  Sent you a message @emli1000
• Nanchito-1-1 Alum Member

  June 2015 1762 karma

  this is amazing, thank you.
• hrjones44 Alum Member

  June 2015 323 karma

  @alexroark5 Excellent! i will look at this further if i find out i have to re test in December.. right now i'm putting all my LSAT study materials up for a few weeks, my desk has been covered in papers and printouts everywhere, time to clean up! even though i'm like having LSAT withdrawals i dont even know what to do !
• GordonBombay Alum Member

  June 2015 456 karma

  Seriously thank you for posting this !! I have been wanting to make flash cards containing info like this for awhile now, but haven't gotten around to it. You sir just made my life a lot easier.
• LoraxMan Alum Member

  June 2015 180 karma

  @alexroark5 said:
  When you have conditional reasoning in the stimulus and a Weaken question, immediately look for an answer that attacks the necessary condition (show that the necessary condition does not need to occur in order for the sufficient condition to occur)
  

  Another way of expressing how to attack the necessary condition is that you can show the necessary condition need not occur when the sufficient occurs (S & ~N). I think this varies -slightly- from the language you've used, which more generally follows the S -> ~N format.
  
  
• The 180 Bro_OVO Alum Inactive ⭐

  June 2015 1392 karma

  absolutely clutch.