Q15-25 LR - How many people make notes?

[brandeis.tilleman]

Hi everyone, I'm wondering if I can get some ideas about how to approach the harder questions in LR. I can seem to ace the first 15 questions in under 20 minutes but the remaining 10 questions are causing me problems and I think it's just because I try to rush through them and think about the answers in my brain. It occurred to me today as I was going over explanations in the forums that I could maybe make a couple notes on certain question types that are heavily convoluted - mainly that I could structure the passage quickly in point form so as to recognized flaws/missing assumptions/patterns in reasoning more easily.

What are some strategies you guys and gals use to tackle the remaining 10 questions? Does anyone take notes? write out skeletal argument structures? If there's anyone that typically gets -0, -1, -2, -3 on LR, that has struggled with it in the past, what do you do?

[tommywallach]

My go to is to do Conclusion/Premises for argument based passages, write out the contradiction/problem for any of those types, and attempt to summarize the "rule" on that type. I definitely don't do it on every question, but when I get a sense something is about to be really confusing (or if the answers turn out confusing), it's helpful. Other thoughts?

-t

[HGranger]

I have improved on LR sections from getting about 7-9 wrong when first studying in January/February to consistently getting about 2-4 wrong by the June 2016 exam. Here's how I handled it, if this helps!

After a couple of months of taking practice test after practice test and becoming frustrated with seeing no apparent improvement and remaining at a static 7-9 wrong, I started to dissect the LR sections and carefully take a look at what types of questions I was getting wrong. At this point, I was doing two timed sections a night after work every day and a full length test on Saturdays and Sundays. For all LR sections I did over the week, I would go through every single question I got wrong for each test, organize it by type (ID Conclusion, Strengthen, Weaken, etc) and make a chart of question types in the rows, sections in the columns, and organize the question numbers I got wrong. That helped me see that for a little while, I was doing a little worse with the more objective questions (ID the conclusion, ID the disagreement...) than the subjective ones (anything requiring you to analyze the argument flaw). I could also see that I wasn't doing well particularly with the Inference questions. So I focused on these question types, using the drills from the LSAT Trainer study schedule (which categorize questions by type), and also used these amazing Manhatten Prep forums for every question I got wrong or at least had trouble with even if I ultimately got the Q right to help me understand where the flaw in my own reasoning was. Like I said, I'm now prepping for the September 2016 LSAT and am still scoring 4 or below wrong on the LR sections (yay!) so that worked for me!

It sounds like your issue as you see it may be more to do with timing, or perhaps because the last 10 Qs are a little tougher (I don't know if that's really the case or not), but you may still find that this helps. Or if this specifically doesn't help, I'd suggest trying to find some way to analyze as accurately and as detailed as possible which questions you're getting wrong and why.

I do make notes throughout the sections, by the way. I pretty consistently underline the conclusion and put the reasoning in brackets. For some of the more logic heavy or convoluted Qs, I'll break down the "if...then..." in some space near the Q. Basically, I'll make whatever notes necessary to help me answer the Q as efficiently and accurately as possible. Going through the Qs by Q type may help you figure out the most efficient way for you to answer those Qs in terms of the notes you make, too.

Hope this was helpful, and good luck!

[romano.eric901]

Using Flashcards to study for LSATs helps a lot to remember harder concepts. Fo instance, the below topics must be memorized and flash cards are very useful. You can check them out on http://www.cram.com/tag/lsat

Topics:
1. Sufficient and necessary condition indicators
2. Conclusion and premise indicators
3. The Logical Reasoning flaws
4. The Logical Reasoning prevalent valid argument forms
5. The Logical Reasoning question types
6. The Logic Game types
7. The Reading Comprehension structural elements (examples, studies, causal claims . . . )
8. The common wrong answer choices for each LR question type
9. The ideal approach for each LR question type.

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