All my new LSAT work is at LSAT Hacks.
Here are the main resources:
The articles on LSAT prep 180 are still valid. They’re what I thought when I made this site back in 2011. They may actually have some unique value, since I was still learning and so these posts are closer to the mindset of a student.
I’ve got a new LSAT website. LSAT Hacks has free explanations for LSAT preptest 68 and LSAT preptest 69. I plan to keep adding free explanations to the site.
I’ve also got pdf versions of the explanations. You can get full explanations for LSATs 29-38, and 66-68 as downloadable pdfs, which you can use offline or print.
For labor day weekend only, they’re 46% off. You can get explanations for 1300 LSAT questions for $37!
I won’t really be updating LSAT Prep 180, but you should go check out LSAT Hacks!
Master LSAT logic games by repeating them
I started working for 7Sage LSAT. I’ll write more about them in a future post. One of the reasons I was so excited to work for them is that they share my philosophy on logic games.
As an LSAT tutor, I got much better at logic games by doing them over and over again with different students. Every time I went through a game again, I would learn something new, and eventually I mastered all the games in LSATs 29-38, the book we were using at the time.
Once you master some games, you’ll learn the patterns that underlie all logic games, and you’ll be able to handle new games much easier.
7Sage has put this all into a handy video.
You can find the Free LSAT Logic Games Explanations at 7Sage’s website.
I would make a slight note to this video. You don’t want to be working purely from memory. You want to be learning how to find your way through a game. Ultimately, you will memorize a game’s answers, but the goal is memorizing the process of how to find those answers.
If you repeat a game and still have EVERYTHING memorized, then it’s better to wait a bit before repeating. If you’re stuck on a game, check out the explanations:
It’s sometimes hard to keep track of all the deadlines when applying for law school. Here are the 2012 registration deadlines for the LSAT. Do yourself a favor, and register early:
Notes:
Update: Reviewing RC passages in depth can help you get a sense of their structure and reduce the need to underline. You can find explanations for RC passages to help you review here at my new site: http://lsathacks.com
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LSAT reading comprehension passages can be tough to understand. They also present a lot of facts, and it’s hard to remember everything. So many students make notes and underline their passages.
If you like making notes, and you find it helps you do better, than makes notes. But not everyone is a notetaker.
My students often ask me how they should make notes for reading comprehension passages. Many of these students did not underline their college textbooks, and didn’t take many notes in school. They’re not note-takers. But LSAT prep books have given them the impression that they must use a complex system of notes to succeed on the LSAT reading comprehension section.
Nope. Notes aren’t even necessary, though they can be a useful tool for some people.
Update: Practice makes perfect. You can find lists of Most Strongly Supported and Must Be True questions here: http://lsathacks.com/guide/logical-reasoning/questions-by-type/
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People often confuse LSAT “Must be True” questions and “Most Strongly Supported” questions. Some companies even teach that they are the same thing.
The questions are pretty similar. But they are not the same, and knowing the difference can you solve some of the tough questions.
First, what they have in common:
So what the heck is the difference? It’s all in the strength of the deduction.
Do you ever find you don’t have enough time to do LSAT reading comprehension or logical reasoning sections?
You’re probably reading too slow…but you can learn to read faster.
My students who score 167+ generally have 5-7 minutes left over at the end of each section. They’re never rushed, and they can double-check hard questions afterwards.
Learning to read faster is a critical life skill. Law school has a lot of reading. And most jobs (including law) require you to read mounds of documents.
Many words on the LSAT can be quite confusing. I’ve made an LSAT glossary to help you figure things out.
But I highly encourage you to use more than one source. You should truly understand words like “some, most, many, etc.” And there are many words that I didn’t have space to cover.
The LSAT demands precision, and knowing the full and exact definition of certain words can help you get a better score.
So apart from the glossary, what should you do? It turns out that dictionaries are surprisingly helpful. You’ll want a dictionary that lists multiple definition for each word. Generally, LSAT words use one of out many definitions. “Most”, for example, is normally used to mean “majority” rather than “largest number of”.
Update 2015: Practice makes perfect. You can find a list of principle questions + explanations for those questions here: http://lsathacks.com/guide/logical-reasoning/questions-by-type/
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In part I of this series on LSAT principle questions, I explained what a principle is.
In part II, I discussed the three main types of LSAT principle questions.
In this third and final part, I’m going to explain an example of each type of question, and then show you a list of all the principle questions from tests 29-38.
The three main types of LSAT Principle questions are:
I’m going explain an example of each type.
This explanation is for question 24 from Section III of the June 2007 LSAT. It’s the free LSAT, available here. Go take a look, do the question, then come back and read this.
Conclusion: Romantics are wrong (when they say that people aren’t evil but that institutions can make people evil).
Reasoning: The romantics don’t understand the relationship between institutions and people. Institutions are just groups of people.
Analysis: The sociologist ignores that groups can change the individuals in the group. Your body is just a group of cells, but those cells are changed because of the fact that they’re in your body.
In other words, the sociologist is ignoring the possible “whole-to-part” relationship. The right answer rules out this possibility, and therefore makes his argument stronger.
A. This only tells us how much evil people can do. It doesn’t tell us why they are evil.
B. This tells us that all human institutions are imperfect. But it doesn’t say anything about whether institutions can make people become evil.
C. We don’t know whether the sociologist or the romanticists could be considered optimistic. This answer doesn’t let us say anything about either group.
D. This completely ignores why people can be evil.
E. CORRECT. This is tricky, but it eliminates a major flaw in the sociologist’s argument. It’s possible that an institution could make people evil, even if everyone in the institution is good. Going to school changes people, working in a corporation changes people. In real life, taking part in any institution can change us.
This answer choice eliminates that possibility. Groups can’t affect their members. So if some humans in a group are evil, then they must have been evil before they joined the group.
This explanation is for question 10, from Section IV of Test 29. You can find it in The Next Ten Actual Official LSATs. Try that question, then look at this explanation.
Conclusion: Parents should not necessarily raise their children the way that experts recommend.
Reasoning/Principle: Parents are the ones with direct experience on which methods work.
Analysis: This is a pretty good argument. Parents will learn from experience, whether expert theories are right or wrong.
The right answer will depend on the personal experience of a group. The group may wish to disregard expert advice if the experts don’t have direct experience.
A. This doesn’t depend on the personal experience of musicians.
B. This is tempting, but different. Experts in parenting might be interested in giving good advice; they’re just not very good at it. And this doesn’t involve the personal experience of consumers.
C. CORRECT. The climber has direct experience with the mountain while other experts do not.
D. Here the experts know more than the farmer. That’s different. Also, this doesn’t say what anyone should do.
E. This does tell you what to do. But it isn’t talking about experts and has nothing to do with direct experience.
This explanation is for question 19, from Section I of LSAT 29. You can find it in The Next Ten Actual Official LSATs. Try that question, then look at this explanation.
Conclusion: The shipping manager is also to blame for the delay.
Reasoning/Principle: He knew the contractor is usually late and he should have planned for it.
Analysis: This is a good argument. It was foreseeable that the contractor would be late so the shipping manager was negligent for not planning for it.
A. CORRECT. The arbitrator’s argument makes this reasonable assumption. If you don’t consider foreseeable risks then you’ll have a lot of problems.
B. The manager would agree with this principle. The stimulus argues that managers should know that contractors can be late.
C. This does sound like a good idea, but it may not always be possible. The arbritrator never claimed that lateness itself was the problem. The manager failed to plan for the possibility of lateness. The main point of the argument is that the manager is to blame because the problem was foreseeable.
D. Does a manager directly supervise a contractor? Usually not, and the stimulus doesn’t say. This doesn’t help us blame the manager.
E. The arbitrator says that the contractor is also to blame.
I’ve made a list of all the principle questions from LSATs 29-38. If you don’t already have it, you can find these tests in the “Next Ten Actual Official LSATs”, from LSAC.
Test 29, Section IV, # 10
Test 32, Section IV, # 3
Test 32, Section IV, # 18
Test 35, Section I, # 7
Test 36, Section I, # 17
Test 36, Section III, # 15
Test 38, Section I, # 7
Test 38, Section IV, # 7
Test 38, Section IV, # 23
Test 29, section I, # 19
Test 29, section IV, # 17
Test 30, Section II, # 5
Test 31, Section II, # 22
Test 32, Section I, # 3
Test 33, Section I, # 18
Test 34, Section III, # 1
Test 37, Section II, # 18
Test 29, Section IV, # 7
Test 29, Section I # 22
Test 30, Section IV, # 23
Test 31, Section II, # 24
Test 31, Section III, # 4
Test 31, Section III, # 26
Test 32, Section IV, # 8
Test 33, Section I, # 21
Test 33, Section III, # 6
Test 34, Section II, # 20
Test 34, Section III, # 16
Test 35, Section I, # 2
Test 35, Section IV # 11
Test 36, Section I, # 15
Test 36, Section III, # 20
Test 37, Section II, # 22
Test 37, Section II, # 24
Test 37, Section IV, # 21
Test 38, Section I, # 3
Test 38, Section IV, # 4
Want more explantions? I’ve written explanations for every question from LSATs 29-38 and 62-75+. Have a look!
Update 2015: Practice makes perfect. You can find a list of principle questions + explanations for those questions here: http://lsathacks.com/guide/logical-reasoning/questions-by-type/
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In part one of this post on LSAT Principle questions, I covered what a “principle” is.
Now, in part II, I’m going to tell you about the main types of principle questions that appear on the LSAT.
Check out Part III for explanations to a few sample principle questions, and a list of all the principle questions from LSATs 29-38.
I don’t think questions types are very important. You don’t need to memorize these types, and learning them won’t help you very much if you’re having trouble with the underlying concepts (conditional statements, applying a rule to a situation, assessing an argument, finding conclusions, etc.)
So don’t get hung up on the technical details. That said, I think going over the questions types can be somewhat useful for two reasons:
Beyond that, I’ve rarely seen students get any results from studying questions types. So please don’t try to memorize this information.
The three main types of LSAT Principle questions are:
Strengthen questions are the most common type of principle questions. They are the simplest principle questions; they’re just like the regular strengthen questions.
The only difference is that the right answers will be principles. You must pick one that, if true, would force someone to believe the argument was stronger.
As with all questions based on arguments, it’s very important to identify exactly what the conclusion of the argument is. It’s surprisingly hard to identify conclusions correctly, and most people are bad at it.
If you find yourself unsure, pick some questions, try to find the conclusions, and then explain to a friend what the conclusion of each argument is, and why. Or post the same on a LSAT forum. This sounds silly, but it’s one of the best ways to get better at finding conclusions. If you’re not getting them 100% of the time, then don’t kid yourself: you don’t fully understand arguments, and you need practice.
All of these questions stems ask you to help the argument. You don’t need to prove the conclusion correct. You just have to make the argument somewhat stronger.
These questions are closest to parallel reasoning questions. In parallel reasoning questions, you must figure out the structure of the argument in the stimulus. Then you find the argument in the answer choices that has the same structure.
You answer parallel reasoning questions using the same process. Find the principle illustrated by the stimulus. Then find the answer choice that illustrates that same principle.
Sometimes, Principle Parallel Reasoning questions give us a situation that illustrates a principle (without stating it explicitly). We have to find out what the principle is, and then find a situation that matches.
Other times, the stimulus will explicitly state a principle, and we must find a situation where that same principle applies.
In either case, it’s the same process: identify principle, apply to new situation.
Powerscore calls these questions “Must be True” principle questions, but I have no idea why. They have nothing in common. In those questions, we make a conclusion from a set of facts (not an argument). In parallel reasoning principle questions, we have to find a situation that matches the stimulus.
These question stems don’t say the words “Parallel Reasoning”. That’s what makes principle questions so hard to classify. But if you look at some examples, you’ll see that questions with these question stems all ask you to do the same thing: find a parallel situaiton.
These questions present a situation that illustrates a principle. The answer choices list five principles. You have to figure out which one matches the principle illustrated by the stimulus.
I call these “extraction” questions because you have to extract the principle that’s within the argument.
Essentially, these questions ask you to identify an assumption made in the argument.
They are somewhat similar to necessary assumption questions, with one major difference: the assumptions in principle questions tend to be warranted assumptions, and the arguments tend to be good arguments.
Not all assumptions are errors. We make many warranted assumptions in everyday conversation. If I say “I will meet you at the cafe tomorrow”, I am assuming:
These are all reasonable assumptions, and therefore, they are warranted assumptions. In general, if everyone would tend to agree that an assumption is reasonable, then it is warranted.
Necessary assumption questions make unwarranted assumptions. Necessary assumption questions present flawed arguments.
These principle questions instead make reasonable assumptions. We have to extract the principle that underlies the stimulus.
These are the closest thing to a “pure” principle question type. The stimulus presents a situation, and then five principles. You have to choose the principle that best fits the situation. This has no parallel with other question types.
Note: Powerscore calls these “Justify” or “must be true” questions. Again, I’m not really sure why. But principle questions are hard to classify, and it’s best not to get hung up on which words to use.
The answer choices will always be principles, and the stimulus will be an argument or set of facts that illustrates a principle.
Vocabulary: Watch out for the word “conform”! It isn’t always used in the same way. Here are two question stems which use it differently:
Did you notice the difference? The first type gives us a principle in the stimulus (e.g. children should not play unless they clean their room and eat their dinner). The answer choices will be five situations involving children playing, and we have to decide which one is justified by the stimulus. That’s a parallel reasoning principle question.
The second question stem presents us with a situation, and asks which principle conforms with that situation. This is asking us to extract the principle that can be found within the stimulus.
The more recent LSATs have introduced a few different types of principle questions. They’re pretty rare, so there’s no point trying to memorize the new types. But if you want to have a look, I’ve listed a few below:
LSAT 64, section I, question 21: Flawed reasoning principle question
LSAT 63, Section I, question 18: Application Principle Question – Strengthen
LSAT 63, Section III, question 22: Application Principle Question – Sufficient Assumpton
Did that answer all of your questions about principle questions? Is there anything you still want to learn about? Let me know in the comments!
Check out Part III for explanations of sample principle questions, and a list of principle questions from LSATs 29-38.
