We focus a tremendous amount of time and attention in our courses and books emphasizing the importance of inference making in Games: determining the truths of the relationships between variable sets. In making inferences, what we’re really focused on is establishing notions of what I’ll refer to here as positive and negative certainty. That is, determining what must occur in an absolute (consistent) sense, and what cannot occur in an absolute sense. So we focus on establishing truths like “X must be selected 4th,” or “X cannot be in Group 3,” and we concern ourselves less with uncertainties like “X could appear in any of the first five spots.” The reasoning behind this is really two-fold:
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The LSAT Experimental Section
Nov 16th, 2011
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The experimental section on the LSAT—the unscored section used to pretest questions and equate test forms—was extremely consistent in its placement on the exam for the first sixteen years of the “modern era” of the test (June 1991 to the present). That is, up until the June 2007 LSAT, the experimental section number was the same for every test taker (for example, on the December 2006 LSAT every test taker in the country had section 1 as their experimental), and the experimental was always one of the first three sections on the test.
The Fundamentals: Prephrasing Part II
Apr 7th, 2011
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I began “Part I” of this discussion with the following text, and I’ve repeated here to really drive home the reason that prephrasing is such an important part of a good test taker’s arsenal:
If you’ve spent much time with Logical Reasoning on the LSAT, one thing you’ve no doubt recognized is that the answer choices, right and wrong, are masterfully crafted. The test makers are unbelievably skilled at disguising correct answers, and making the incorrect options look extremely attractive. Fortunately there’s a step in the question-attack process designed specifically to help you navigate through the answers: Prephrasing.
The Fundamentals: Prephrasing Part I
Apr 1st, 2011
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If you’ve spent much time with Logical Reasoning on the LSAT, one thing you’ve no doubt recognized is that the answer choices, right and wrong, are masterfully crafted. The test makers are unbelievably skilled at disguising correct answers, and making the incorrect options look extremely attractive. Fortunately there’s a step in the question-attack process designed specifically to help you navigate through the answers: Prephrasing.
Quick Thoughts on Game #3 from December 2010 LSAT: Management Skills Conference
Jan 11th, 2011
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While there seemed to be a near-unanimous feeling among December test takers that the second game (often referred to as the “Stained Glass” game) was the most challenging game on the test—some people even going so far as to cancel their scores based on that game alone—I strongly believe that the toughest game on the December 2010 LSAT was actually the third game, which I’ll call “Management Skills Conference.” Let’s take a quick look at Game 3, why I feel it was the most difficult, and the inferences necessary to conquer it.
Quick Thoughts on Game #2 from December 2010 LSAT: Stained Glass Windows
Jan 7th, 2011
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This game caused problems for many test takers last December, but upon review it turns out that if you caught a couple of powerful (and common!) inferences the game itself really wasn’t all that difficult. Let’s take a look at those inferences and hopefully you’ll see that this game—like EVERY game—can be destroyed if you’ve got the right strategies.
Question Type Relationships: Must be True and Weaken
Aug 31st, 2010
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When approaching Logical Reasoning on the LSAT, I think most students clearly recognize the importance of (1) understanding the unique properties of individual question types, and (2) having dedicated strategies to consistently apply when faced with a particular type of question. That is, the value in knowing how to recognize, say, a Parallel Reasoning question, and then understanding the proper approach to take when attacking Parallel Reasoning. And make no mistake about it: the ability to distinguish different types of questions from one another is crucial to success on test day. However, as important as it is to identify what makes one question type different from another, it is also extremely important to understand the similarities between question types, and that is what I want to discuss here.
Logical Reasoning – Arguments vs Facts
Aug 12th, 2010
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One of the most important tasks facing test takers in the Logical Reasoning section is the ability to accurately identify the presence of argumentation. “Argumentation” can be roughly summed up as an author’s attempt to persuade the reader to believe that the author’s opinion is correct, and, while that seems simple enough, it’s not always that easy to spot.
