January 16, 2016

What Questions Matter the Most in Logical Reasoning?

In every LSAT class I teach, sooner or later the same inquiry pops up: “What’s the most important type of question in Logical Reasoning?” Students asking this question often remind me of an ER nurse, triaging patients based on the seriousness of their condition. Hopefully, you won’t find yourself in this predicament, having to triage your study of Logical Reasoning. But if you must, here’s some advice:

While it is difficult to say which question types are the “most important” to master, the skills you develop in attacking certain question types are often instrumental in increasing your accuracy on other, related questions. Consequently, the most important LR question types are not the ones that appear most frequently on the exam; rather, it is the ones whose mastery tends to improve your performance on most other LR questions. So, if you are short on time, make sure to focus your attention on the following:

Must Be True

The basis for all Prove-family questions, Must Be True questions are popular in both Logical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension. Approximately 75% of RC questions require you to prove an answer choice by referring to the information contained in the passage. Furthermore, Must Be True questions test and reinforce detail reading, which is critical on the LSAT and in law school.

Flaw in the Reasoning

An extremely frequent question type in recent tests, Flaw in the Reasoning questions test your knowledge of logical fallacies. But they do much more than that. By reinforcing your critical thinking skills, Flaw questions can help you achieve higher accuracy on other question types, such as Weaken and Assumption questions.

Weaken

Weaken questions reinforce your ability to quickly identify logical gaps, which is at the core of many questions in the Help-family (Strengthen, Assumption, Justify). To become a pro in Weaken questions, you absolutely need to understand how to manipulate arguments involving causation. This is inherent in many Strengthen and Assumption questions as well, not by coincidence.

Method of Reasoning

The ability to abstractly describe arguments will improve your performance on Flaw, Parallel, and Method-AP questions, and force you to think about argumentation from a structural point of view. This has the added benefit of helping you on Parallel Reasoning questions as well.

Assumption

Mastering Assumption questions is relatively easy thanks to the tried-and-true Assumption Negation Technique. Furthermore, the ability to spot a variety of assumptions will translate directly into higher accuracy on Weaken and Flaw questions.

Justify

Justify questions were added to the LR section of the test in the 1990s for the sole reason of increasing the overall difficulty of the test. Once you overcome the initial confusion with Assumption questions, solving Justify questions is relatively straightforward using the Justify Formula. Furthermore, training yourself to attack them will invariably improve your understanding of conditional reasoning—a core skill set that is instrumental in Logical Reasoning as well as Logic Games.

Main Point

While somewhat rare, Main Point questions force you to identify conclusions. This is a critical skill in Weaken, Strengthen, Justify, and Assumption questions.

So, there it is: the LR section triaged. One last caveat: we generally like to avoid going to the ER, unless absolutely necessary. The same applies to mastering the LSAT. If you learn how to attack every single question type, you will ultimately conclude that while the questions vary, your overall approach generally stays the same. Our LSAT Logical Reasoning Bible tackles these types of questions–and more–in exhaustive, awesome detail. Check it out here!

Barry
January 19, 2013 at 5:01am
I am able to get every question right in the Logical Reasoning section until I get to around question 14 – 20. I have started going to the strategy of doing the first 4 pages, then the last 2 pages, then going back to pages 5 and 6, which usually contains questions 14 to 20, give or take. These question seem rather difficult and time consuming and/or are worded strangely. I pushing 15-17 questions right on the section but when I do these particular questions, I seem to get everyone of them wrong, even if I slow down and just try to do 1 or 2 of them in the time remaining. Does anyone have an advice.

Nikki SIclunov
January 21, 2013 at 2:19pm
Barry,
The problem you’ve encountered is not surprising considering the questions do get progressively more difficult towards the end of the LR section. Occasionally, however, you will find a few relatively easier questions at the very end (24-26).
Keep in mind that harder questions don’t necessarily require longer to complete, as long as you read and understand the argument correctly, deconstruct it, and approach the answer choices with a suitable prephrase. Rushing (or, at least, the feeling of being rushed) is one of the biggest obstacles to completing this series of tasks correctly and efficiently. To avoid that feeling, try to do the first 10 questions or so in 1 min/question: due to their relative ease, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem, and will make you feel a bit more relaxed as you progress through the section. Also, make sure to examine every single question that has given you trouble over the past few months, identify the elements that made it difficult, and think if there is a more feasible approach to take. Even the most difficult questions, at their core, test fundamental concepts such as correlations/causation, conditional reasoning, deductive logic, numerically-based evidence, etc. Having a solid grasp on these concepts is absolutely essential regardless of the difficulty of the question at hand.
Good luck!

Barry Hamilton
January 21, 2013 at 3:37pm
Thanks Nikki. Since my post, I have went back and studied the conditional reasoning section of the LR Bible and practiced my diagraming skills. I have worked through this chapter twice and want to say you are right. I still don’t think I will be able to finish the entire section but I have been getting them right, with time. Can I run a couple of other things by you? Hope I can. 3 of the 5 answer choices are completely out of scope and it is when I narrow it down to the last 2. Should I start diagramming the stimulus while reading it or wait til I eliminate the out of scope answers then diagram it out. And also, I think my problem with the section is my reading speed. Would you recommend skipping the large questions in the section to compensate for this weakness. I seem to be able to, at least, try a few more. Parallel Reasoning and Parallel Flaw questions don’t seem that hard but my reading speed doesn’t seem to be fast enough. Is there a way to increase my reading speed?

Barry Hamilton
January 21, 2013 at 3:50pm
I cannot even get to the 4th game of the LG section on my practice test. I am getting 3 games completely finished with all correct answers. I diagram out the scenario and the rules, make my inferences and do question #1. I then go after the Local questions and when I find a possible solution, I circle it and put an X through any solutions that are not possible. Then refer back to them in the Global questions. When I took the Powerscore Prep course, they explained how to do the games but didn’t provide a strategy to pursue. I put this together on my own. Am I going about this the wrong way and is there another way to increase speed to complete the section. Don’ get me wrong, 18 is awesome but I have 20 days left to LSAT and want to keep improving. Note: I’ve probably done over 150 games in the last month. Try to do 4-5 games/day. Also, could I skip the last question of a game and move to the next game in order to bank time. I was told that it was the most difficult and time consuming question of the game.

Nikki Siclunov
January 22, 2013 at 4:24pm
Barry,
Let me briefly address some of your concerns:
1. When approaching stimuli containing conditional reasoning, it’s probably a good idea to read the entire argument first before deciding whether to diagram it or not. Typically, I wouldn’t diagram a stimulus containing fewer than 2 conditional statements, but it’s a matter of preference.
2. I don’t believe stimulus length correlates with the difficulty of the question. Also, the speed at which you read rarely makes a big difference in terms of your overall pace: many fast readers ultimately fail to finish their sections, whereas others who read slowly finish with a few minutes to spare. The reason for this apparent paradox is actually quite simple: close reading and critical thinking take time, but ultimately produce a much more powerful prephrase with which to attack the answer choices. This saves a tremendous amount of time, because – contrary to popular belief – the biggest timesink in LR is not reading the stimuli but choosing the correct answer choice (especially when you can’t decide between two of them). Think of prephrasing as a preventative measure against this sort of paralysis.
3. The approach to Logic Games is described in detail in the Logic Games Bible and also in Lesson 1 of our course. The step-by-step method is (with certain exceptions) as follows: read the scenario and the rules; make a diagram that properly organizes that information; put the rules together to produce inferences; then attack the questions. Whenever you have local questions, a local diagram(s) is usually required. Global questions are typically answered by referring to the main set-up. Obviously, this approach will differ if you decide to make templates from the start.
I wouldn’t necessarily pick out the local questions first, then do the global ones: I’ve never understood the logic behind this.
Finally, if you’re having trouble finishing the LG section, identifying and skipping the most time-consuming question in each game is probably a good idea. This question is often – though not always – the last question of the game.
If you have any future questions, please don’t hesitate to ask them at our Forum.

Barry
January 31, 2013 at 4:15am
Nikki,
Thank you very much for you help on theses issues. You have been a great help, especially on the LG section. I tried it your way and put myself in the mind of the test makers and there is a big advantage to doing the question in order. Thanks agoin.

Barry
January 31, 2013 at 5:58pm
I have been putting a lot of time in on the Logic games section over the last month, especially the last week. I also took the weekend Powerscore Course. In the course there was not much coverage on linear/grouping combination games. Do this mean that the odds of having one of these types of games is small. During the course, I was told that 95% of games will either be linear or grouping. What could the other 5% of games consist of? Also, I was just scanning the mapping, pattern and circular reasoning games and was wondering if I need to put in a decent amount of time on these games.

Anne Chaconas
January 31, 2013 at 7:04pm
Hi Barry! Can you please ask your question on our LSAT Forum? Here is the address: http://forum.powerscore.com/lsat. Nikki and our other instructors will be best able to assist you there.