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MBT & SA Inquiry

FiestaNextDoorFiestaNextDoor Alum Member
in Logical Reasoning 127 karma

Hey everyone, just wanted to get clarification on something. I find myself, when confronted with a MBT or SA question, immediately translating to logic. It is hard for me to find the correct answer choice otherwise. However, it does seem to eat up some time. Is there a better strategy to approach these questions? I would be very comfortable with the questions if it wasn't for the timing element, due to the formulaic nature of their structures.

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  • SamiSami Yearly + Live Member Sage ⭐ 7Sage Tutor
    10806 karma

    @cpineda813 said:
    I find myself, when confronted with a MBT or SA question, immediately translating to logic.

    So I am not exactly sure what you mean here. You have too see the logic behind these questions to get the right answer. It's possible that you are just starting out so its slower at the moment, but it will get fast with more practice.

    Maybe you can do an example that would help clarify what you mean?

  • BinghamtonDaveBinghamtonDave Alum Member ⭐ 🍌🍌
    8716 karma

    I think the issue here has two possible solutions in my estimation: 1.get substantially better at conditional logic so as to allow your set up to be quicker and more efficient, thus saving time or 2. get great enough at conditional logic to rarely need to set up the premises and conclusion at all. The second is preferable but I myself opted for the first and have done the logic quizzes on 7sage numerous times towards this goal. At last count I had done the logic quizzes in the curriculum 200 times before things started really coming together for me with logic. I also made flashcards and have found this list incredibly helpful to drill at least twice per day: https://7sage.com/lesson/conditional-indicators-drill/

    Finally, we have to keep in mind that many SA questions actually just require the linking of terms, in a way that can be done without formal logic.

    In my estimation, at bottom here, the issue you have is the trade off between timing pressures and accuracy concerns. The LSAT is permeated with these tensions for students looking to score high. The best way through these issues is a familiarization and mastery of the core concepts until they become second nature.

    I hope this helps, SA and MBT took me over 3 months to really feel comfortable with.
    David

  • FiestaNextDoorFiestaNextDoor Alum Member
    edited January 2017 127 karma

    @Sami thanks for the response. I mostly mean with MBT questions where they are not asking you to make an inference regarding an all/most/ some statement. Those are fairly straight forward to me and I'm able to get them done relatively quickly. However, some of the other MBT questions do not follow this form and instead give you many statements in the stimulus and ask you to push out an inference. With these questions, I'm wondering, is it always advisable to translate into logic in order to get it right? I struggle when there is a rather long stimulus because I know that the AC could be an inference based on one or two sentences, but still get overwhelmed with the dense stimulus. Is there a more efficient way to getting the right answer? Thanks for the insight @BinghamtonDave !

  • rafaelitorafaelito Alum Member
    edited January 2017 1063 karma

    @cpineda813 said:
    I struggle when there is a rather long stimulus because I know that the AC could be an inference based on one or two sentences, but still get overwhelmed with the dense stimulus. Is there a more efficient way to getting the right answer?

    If you are struggling with this two types of questions in particular I would suggest typed untimed drilling. The more you practice them the better you'll get. In LG I had a similar issue. What helped me there was to force myself to not draw out hypotheticals for every question and to just think through the logical steps in my mind. Granted you can't always do this but drawing hypotheticals or diagramming in logical reasoning when it is not necessary is a time sink. Sometimes you need to diagram, but sometimes you don't. If you're diagramming for ALL of these questions you are probably wasting time on the easier questions.

    Also, the approach you take would be influenced by where you are in your prep. But something someone said to me once in this forum when I asked a similar question was 'you probably don't get it as well as you think you do.' Hopefully that doesn't sound harsh but it made me regroup and break things down from the beginning so to speak with my particular issue.

    Hope that helps!

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