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August 3, 2016

The Most Common Logical Reasoning Question Types

The Most Common Logical Reasoning Question Types

If your LSAT is fast approaching, you’re inevitably wondering how to best prioritize your study efforts. A good place to start is figuring out which Logical Reasoning question types to focus on. To that end, here’s a dissection of released LSATs from June 2013 to June 2015. Let’s see exactly what the test makers have emphasized and what they’ve relegated to a back shelf. After all, if you know what your fellow test takers have faced, your own test day holds a lot less mystery. You can find further analysis on tests from October 2015 through December 2016 and those LR frequencies (and notable trends) here.

13 Question Types

To start, there are thirteen question types that we recognize, listed in rough order of historical appearance frequency:

  1. Must Be True
  2. Flaw in the  Reasoning
  3. Strengthen
  4. Assumption
  5. Weaken
  6. Justify the Conclusion
  7. Method of Reasoning and Method-Argument Part
  8. Parallel Reasoning and Parallel Flaw
  9. Main Point
  10. Resolve the Paradox
  11. Point at Issue and Point of Agreement
  12. Cannot Be True
  13. Evaluate the Argument

Each of those types describes a unique relationship between the stimulus and the answer choices. Each relationship dictates how to attack the problem at hand. An Assumption question is solved much differently than a Weaken or Parallel question and those distinctions are crucial to performing well on such a variable test. Without a proven strategy for addressing each, the test makers’ unpredictability becomes increasingly insurmountable.

Question Types by Appearance

So what, given the guarantee of variety, are you liable to encounter on test day? Let’s take that same list of thirteen and parse it out numerically over the two years of LSATs we’re considering. In that time frame there have been seven released LSATs consisting of 356 Logical Reasoning questions. Here’s the breakdown (by my count), reordered by appearance:

  1. Flaw in the  Reasoning – 57 questions; 16%
  2. Must Be True – 51 questions (tie); 14.3%
  3. Strengthen – 51 questions (tie); 14.3%
  4. Assumption – 34 questions; 9.6%
  5. Parallel Reasoning and Parallel Flaw – 29 questions; 8.1%
  6. Weaken – 26 questions; 7.3%
  7. Method of Reasoning and Method-Argument Part – 24 questions (tie); 6.7%
  8. Main Point – 24 questions (tie); 6.7%
  9. Resolve the Paradox – 22 questions; 6.2%
  10. Justify the Conclusion – 20 questions; 5.6%
  11. Point at Issue and Point of Agreement – 7 questions; 2%
  12. Evaluate the Argument – 5 questions; 1.4%
  13. Cannot Be True – 3 questions; 0.8%

What Does This Mean?

While our rough estimation of question frequency isn’t far off, notable (divergent) trends emerge. For one, while Must be True questions are undeniably at the heart of the LSAT, they’re no longer the principle focus of LR. Flaw in the Reasoning questions wear the crown and deserve a proportionate degree of attention. Fortunately, students in our courses see significant time spent on Flaw questions and will find their emphasis welcome news. Secondly, Strengthen questions appear nearly twice as often as Weaken! Despite the similarities–helping and hurting are closely related, after all–your time would be better spent assisting arguments than assailing them. Finally, keep in mind that trends are merely that. Observable patterns that hold true at present, but may prove dismayingly inadequate at predicting a long-term trajectory. We plan to update this post as we include more data, as this is subject to change over time. 

This is undoubtedly one of the most intriguing aspects of this LSAT. How in the world does some obscure, enigmatic committee decide your fate? What are your thoughts? 

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Posted by Jon Denning / Logical Reasoning, LSAT Prep / Logical Reasoning, LSAT Prep Leave a Comment

  • Oumou Ly
    June 25, 2018 at 4:51pm

    Does this still hold true, more or less? I plan to take the test in September. Will you all due a crystal ball seminar for that test?

  • Jon Denning
    June 25, 2018 at 6:20pm

    Hi Oumou! Miss seeing your name in the Participants List in class 🙂

    This for sure holds true! The numbers have shifted slightly since I wrote this–as discussed in that webinar Dave and I did–but on the whole these stats are still extremely relevant.

    The “biggest” changes I see above are that the Method, Main Point, and Justify stats have dropped a bit, and Point at Issue, Weaken, and Resolve have gained some ground. The big four however are still standing firm!

    My thoughts on September (both the test and another prediction webinar): we’ll want to see precisely what occurred in June before speaking too definitively, but my expectation is that we’ll see precisely what we predicted! The early feedback also seems to confirm this. We’ll know this Friday for sure, but assuming that test contains the elements we anticipated then everything we stated about it will hold perfectly for the September test!

    I hope that helps!

About Jon Denning

Jon Denning is PowerScore's Vice President and oversees product creation and instructor training for all of the exam services PowerScore offers. He is also a Senior Instructor with 99th percentile scores on the LSAT, GMAT, GRE, SAT, and ACT.

Jon is widely regarded as one of the world's foremost authorities on LSAT preparation, and for the past decade has assisted thousands of students in the law school admissions process. He has also created/co-created a number of PowerScore’s LSAT courses and publications, including the Reading Comprehension Bible, the In Person, Live Online, and On Demand LSAT Courses, the Advanced Logic Games Course, the Advanced Logical Reasoning Course, and a number of books in PowerScore’s popular LSAT Deconstructed Series.

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