- Anatomy of a Logical Reasoning Question
- Plan of Attack for a Logical Reasoning Section
- Plan of Attack for Logical Reasoning Questions
- Logical Reasoning Question Types
- Practice Logical Reasoning Questions
- Answers and Explanations
Plan of Attack for Logical Reasoning Questions
Now you know how to deal with the Logical Reasoning sections as a whole. Here are the steps to go through for each of the Logical Reasoning questions within each section that you decide to attack:
- Read the question stem first to determine what type of question you are dealing with.
- Then, make a decision to attack it now or skip it and come back to it later.
- Once you determine that it makes sense to attack a given question, you need to make sure that you understand the question. Paraphrase it if necessary. When you paraphrase, picture a high school or middle school student who you might know, and think of breaking the question down for him or her to understand.
- Once you are certain that you know what is being asked, read the stimulus argument, identifying the evidence presented and the conclusion, if one is stated.
- Look for any missing evidence. Remember that assumptions are unstated evidence (also known as suppressed premises).
- Next, if you can, predict an answer to the question posed, and scan the available choices to see if it is there. If you find an answer choice that matches your prediction, mark it, and move on to attack another question. The probability that you successfully predicted one of the incorrect choices (known as distractors) is fairly remote.
- If you cannot predict an answer, or your prediction is not there, you must fall back on the tried-and-true method known as the process of elimination.
Yes, it will take tons of practice to be able to accomplish all these steps within a minute or two for each question. Remember that speed is the last piece of the LSAT puzzle to fall into place. You will naturally get faster with repeated exposure to the various question types.