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7 Likes
What made LR click for you? struggling.
LuxxTaboo
Core Member
I take the November test and I'm still missing -12 to -15 on every LR section.
Comments
I found that quite often I was overthinking it and second guessed myself a lot, which led to some very silly errors. I also found reading the question stem first made me narrow down what I was doing in each question.
Try doing a test where you just go with your first instinct on an answer choice and see how it goes. If that just gets you the same result, then usually it’s an issue with understanding the “lawgic" fundamentals.
Keep at it, you can get there!
What helps me a lot is skipping the ones that seem extremely hard to understand or that I just don't get after 30 seconds of thinking. Most times, when I come back in the second round, the majority makes a lot more sense. I used the same system in exams and thought I'd just try it and it works out great.
I started reading for the conclusion and the whether the premises given to support the conclusion seem valid or kind of iffy (really helps with strengthen/weaken), then after reading the question stem I would do my best to prephrase an answer before going into the choices, 90% of the time I find a similar correct answer and it really helps rather than considering each option for a longer time. I went from -13 to -3 with this technique
I'm consistently at -0/-1 for LR, and I second the above answer.
Locate conclusion and put mouse over it, prephrase answer.
Read the Loophole by Ellen Cassidy! (Amazon prime has it)
Some friends with 170+ recommended it and it's a quick, helpful read. Especially if you're getting -12~-15, that probably means you're missing something fundamental with your approach to different question types or how you break apart the stimulus... Starting from the fundamentals and shifting your reading style (aka above answers of focusing on conclusion) will really help you!!
My book advice: PowerScore LR Bible. It is doubtless the most exhaustive and meticulously crafted of the bunch. Dave Killoran is a whiz (his podcast is also a great supplemental resource).
My other advice: Create a log of missed questions, broken down by question type. From there, start dissecting each question – why did I miss this? what are the argument parts? are there any strategies, principles, or methods that could be applied to future questions of this type? If this is done thoroughly, certain patterns will suddenly emerge: you'll see that all Weaken questions adhere to a set mold, that flaw questions are terribly repetitive, that certain trap answer indicators appear in almost every question, etc.
Be patient, though: at first, after all this information is put to paper, it will take some time for it to be assimilated into your test-taking mindset, your auto-pilot (so to speak). But as you go through old and new sections, these patterns, indicators, and test-maker tendencies will show themselves more readily, and you'll then start to see the score improvement you desire.
Again, don't expect immediate results; you have to play the 'long game' with LR – seldom do these supposed 'quick fixes' yield anything but frustration and a slimmer wallet. That is, you must be very methodical – excessively methodical – with the intent of investing months into the process. It becomes natural over time, but only after the foundation – these principles, techniques, etc. – have been rigorously adhered to and thus established.
I second what everyone says above but also: just go through the curriculum. A lot of the conclusions/tips/tricks outlined above will become apparent if you take time for each question type.
I actually gave myself a couple of months just to learn each question type, write a page of notes about the question stem, typical traps, what you're really doing in each, and it helped immensely. I don't really go back to my notes but writing things down on paper helps me internalize them. Also SKIPPING SKIPPING SKIPPING. I now get to the last question on LR with around 8-10 minutes to spare to go back to hard questions, and once those are done I usually have 2-3 minutes to review questions I've flagged. I tend to go -3 these days which is not perfect but a tremendous improvement over what I was going (-10/12).
What finally made LR click for me was when I doubled down on going over wrong answers. I print a clean copy of the question I got wrong. Then I break down the organization of the stimulus, identify conclusion and support and if there is a name for the argument type (like case effect argument) I label that also. I also mark all words that notate quantity like alot, many, a few, all and any exact numerical amounts and also important words that indicate frequency like never, always, and sometimes. This forces me to be VERY DETAIL ORIENTED in my reading. In the answers, I write down beside it why each wrong answer is wrong and underline any words/phrases that make the answer wrong. I mark down why the correct answer is correct and underline what words relate back to the stimulus or are equivalents to what was said in the stimulus. If there were any tricky trap answers, I write down a description carefully so I can spot the trap later if/when I see it.
The elements that I've found made LR click was paying CLOSE attention to details, spotting traps, dissecting/translating complicated arguments, and translating confusing answer choices. If you mess up on one of these, you'll probably gonna get the question wrong so make sure you're solid on all of them. On some question types (like flaw), it made it INFINTELY easier to predict the answer before I go into the answer choices and to never move to the answers till I do. You'll find that the more drills you do of LR sections, the more you'll see the same stuff over and over. You'll see the same traps, the same argument types and the same correct answer formatting. That helps stuff click in your mind, so practice a lot.
I second what everyone here has said. I'll add that I found the most improvement when I started doing extensive blind review on sections and then writing out long explanations for each question about why I got them right/wrong and why certain answer choices were right/ wrong. this is tedious but I promise you that the hard work pays off. I used to be getting -8/10 on this section but after extensive blind review i managed to pull up my average to -2
Go back through CC and analyze every question slowly.
Timed practice is stressed for LSAT practice but -10 or below on LR seems to be a lack of understanding. Go slow then go fast.
This is all great advice. Something that helped me that hasn't been mentioned yet is memorizing the 21 common flaws. Know what they're called, what it means, and most importantly: WHY it makes the argument flawed. The vast majority of LR questions deals with understanding what's wrong with an argument whether it's flaw, strengthen, weaken, NA, SA, PSA. If you can read an argument and know immediately what's wrong with it your prephrase game will be unstoppable. Was consistently getting down to -0/-1 this way.
This is an interesting suggestion, can any other people confirm if memorizing the 21 flaws is worth it for improvement? I might follow this if it has proved to work for multiple people
@Jagbirh I used this technique at the beginning when I was getting comfortable with recognizing the different kinds of flaws and it was helpful! but you'll come to realize that many are rarely used and to focus on the select few that you may not understand/not able to notice easily when reading a stimulus, it becomes second nature soon enough
Yes, it definitely helped me, if nothing else than at least for speed. If you look at a weaken question, for example, and you can instantly say "ah this makes a necessary/sufficient switch" (or whatever the case may be), then finding an answer choice that exploits that is so much quicker. You still need to be able to understand what kind of assumption/content you need, but now you've got a powerful tool to shave a few precious seconds off your average question. Plus, the more ways you can analyze those really difficult questions in their pure form, the easier time you'll have breaking them apart and getting the correct answer.
I used to be anywhere from -9 to -15 and now usually score -1 to -3, so my own advice for the general quesiton is:
1. Learn the argument flaws
2. Really dig your heels in to learn necessary/sufficiency, and some/most relationships (this also will help you in LG)
3. Spend some time looking for what the actual conclusion is, not the general context of the passage. You can't weaken/strengthen a conclusion if you don't know what the conclusion even is.
4. Practice translating the passages. Loophole really advocates for this and JY mentions it too, but IMO, this is the best way to improve your ability to quickly understand a passage, which is paramount to getting it correct.
5. Throw in some untimed excercises while you master the above. Spend as much time as you need getting the answers right, rather than just answering them on time. I think it's easier to improve by getting them all right and then speeding up, instead than going quickly and continuing to miss questions unnecesarily.
6. B.L.I.N.D R.E.V.I.E.W
I want to elaborate on the conclusion aspect, especially because other people in this thread touch on it too - let's say in a given stimulus, the general context is medicine, and the conclusion is that a certain drug doesn't work. The LSAT makers are demons so it's very cleverly hidden and not clearly visible on a quick read through. They will throw trap answers at you with the general topic of medicine, but that aren't actually relevant to the conclusion. Those are very attractive if you don't have a strong understanding of what the conclusion is. BUT, when you're able to pick out the conclusion, those trap answers become much less attractive because it's easier to see that their only relevance is to the topic as a whole, and not specifically to the conclusion. Hope this helps.
as weird as it may sound, taking a break away from it helped. i spent months studying for the lsat, and for some reason, i kept getting ~15 wrong on lr, and it felt like there was some disconnect going on. i took a few days off, focused on the other portions, and when i started doing lr again, i was only getting a handful wrong, a number that went down the more i practiced. i can't explain the methodology behind it, but not doing lr is the reason why i started doing so well on lr, and it's a decision i am still very content with. you still have a bit of time till november, and you don't want to risk overstudying or self-sabotaging, so take it easy, and best of luck my friend!
Absolutely. This is probably the most important lesson in the entire LR curriculum. Even when everything checks out okay, I still find it helpful to have an awareness of any of these areas that may be present in a stimulus.
This is absolute what made LR click for me. When I got to the lesson with the 21 Flaws and spent the time to really understand what each of them was, it was so much easier to spot wrong answer choices on all the problem types.
It helped me cut down on my wrong answer but also helped me with my timing.
Honestly, what has made LR click for me is just practicing assumptions.
I would focus on the assumption part of the curriculum, i.e. Weaken & Strengthen sections. This has improved my logical thinking about arguments, which I think is needed for LR success.
Due to LR questions being interconnected/related, what do you think the optimal way to think about a stimulus would be? (To prevent one from thinking too much on a particular question)