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How important is it to learn the question types? Almost all prep courses or books break down LSAT questions into question types, how much of that is really necessary to memorize?

Also, a penny for your thoughts...

Top scorers....what is your thought process like when you approach a typical LR question, do you guys think like the Bibles say to do? I.E Argument/Set of Facts? Premises, Conclusion? Good or bad argument? Bla Bla Bla

I need some advice from our 170+ scorers?

I am thinking that after practicing on all the previous questions, and going over the right and wrong answers, you get to a point, where you see patterns and similar questions and mastering that should be sufficient?

But do I also need to know all this stuff that the Bibles and TMs guys teach?

Can't really call myself a top scorer since I haven't taken the real thing yet, but I've been averaging PTs in the upper 170's for the last month or so.

Learning the question types is very important if you're first starting out simply because familiarity increases your success rate. WIth that being said, I don't think it's necessary to memorize everything the bibles say about certain question types because, after enough practice, everything will become automatic to you (including detection of premises, conclusions, question types, common flaws, etc.).

I've been studying on and off since May and my thought process for a typical LR question hasn't changed that much since I first started: read the stimulus (and automatically pick up the argument's elements), read the question stem, think of what the correct answer will sound like, and then POE. Whether or not the argument is sound has become pretty intuitive to me and I don't have to spend extra time thinking about it. You'll find that the whole process really feels natural after enough practice and the tips from the LRB will be ingrained into your thinking pattern so that you don't have to worry about consciously applying them.

I guess what it comes down to is practice. When you start out, you should be looking to do what the LRB says (identifying argument parts, etc). But after awhile, if you follow the methods consistently, you will automatically apply many of the strategies the LRB advocates without even realizing it.

Pretty much what he said. ^

I never bothered with the categories (group 1-4) that the bible talks about but I understood the concepts they were getting at... i.e. one you take the answers as truth and the stimulus is suspect and vice-versa.

That being said, understanding what the question is asking you to do is instrumental to being successful and to me that meant knowing what the question type was.

i.e. weaken except
4 incorrect answers weaken the argument
1 correct answer does not weaken or strengthens the argument

or knowing the difference between strengthen, justify, assumption etc

Paraphrasing answers helped me a lot and that was only possible by knowing what I was being asked to paraphrase. *works better for some question types then others

This worked for me and I scored in the upper 170's -- with practice it comes naturally and you will realize what you are being asked the second you read the stim+stem. Identifying the conclusion can be pretty important and again with practice it gets easy. I mean it is the answer to main point questions... if you learn to actively read and hold that information in your head then you can shave off serious time.

Makes perfect sense, thanks guys! My strategy will be thus:

Go through all the powerscore/testemasters steps when approaching a question now and hope to master these steps to the point where it will come automatically after some time of practice!


Thanks again!

I never learned question types or strategies and just did what came naturally. I scored in the mid 170s but there's no way of knowing what score I would have gotten if I had done all of that stuff... maybe it would have been better, maybe it would have been worse.

zanda wrote:I never learned question types or strategies and just did what came naturally. I scored in the mid 170s but there's no way of knowing what score I would have gotten if I had done all of that stuff... maybe it would have been better, maybe it would have been worse.

Same here. I was a self-studier, no courses or guided studying or anything like that. I tended to operate on "feel" quite a bit in both practice and on the real thing.

My opinion is that it depends on the type of learner you are. If you like structure and are very good about methodology and detail, then I'd venture that you might be better off memorizing question types. On the other hand, for me, I worked better by simply getting in a lot of reps and getting a good feel for how questions generally were trying to set me up. This ended up working especially well on the LG and LR sections, I think because you tend to operate with limited information a lot of the time and the more difficult questions on the test don't always seem to fit so neatly into categories. With that being said, like most things involving law school, it depends on what you're comfortable with.

If you are smart enough you don't need to know the question type.

Desert Fox wrote:If you are smart enough you don't need to know the question type.

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Der...what are questions?

I really didn't bother learning the question types, though I know it helped some people I know. I could intuitively conclude what each question was asking for and felt that memorizing all the different types of questions would be a waste of time. Especially because I have a terrible memory, and I'd probably black out on test day and then freak out if I relied way too much on just remembering the question types. I took it one question at a time and that worked best for me. It's really a matter of personal preference though.

3|ink wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:If you are smart enough you don't need to know the question type.

--ImageRemoved--

Der...what are questions?

IB ban for posting a pic of DF

calicocat wrote:

3|ink wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:If you are smart enough you don't need to know the question type.

--ImageRemoved--

Der...what are questions?

IB ban for posting a pic of DF

IB? DF?

This picture is clearly manufactured (i.e. not real).

3|ink wrote: IB? DF?

This picture is clearly manufactured (i.e. not real).