how the hell do some of u master lr? Forum

[paulshortys10]

I went over the bible and the atlas guide...I have done flashcards..done timed and untimed practice...andi still miss withing 3 to 7 per section..

1.a lot of my wrong answers and wasted time happens with 2 answers remaining...what words or things do u look for when choosing between the last 2?

2.tips on most supported vs inference and assumption vs justify(I miss many justify even untimed)

3.tips on improving timing?

4.any things from ur experience that automatically trigger a right answer or eliminates a wrong one..(not the basic look for alternate solution when weakening, more like certain tendencies u see in right and wrong answers)

Pardon my spelling, I'm writing frkm my cell

[motiontodismiss]

Always try to look for the assumption in the argument. And I think it's helpful to go through the stimulus with the assumption that there's something wrong with it. You see gaps in the argument more easily that way. Most of my wrong answers now are the ones where I picked between 2 and got it wrong. There's only 1 or 2 where I eliminate the wrong answer.

Oh btw on flaw questions you see this a lot "Presupposes what it seeks to establish" or "Presupposes the truth of the conclusion" or some variation. It is ALMOST ALWAYS wrong, IME. Now I just assume it is (probably a bad idea).

I went from like -15+ on LR and not finishing to the -10 range and finishing with time to spare by doing only half the Atlas guide. I have no idea how I did that.

[SilverE2]

Honestly repetition is key, once you've done every single logical reasoning problem in every single practice test, it just clicks. I finish the sections with 0 - 1 wrong per section, and time to spare, almost every time. If I have a bad day, I may miss two in a section. I don't use any special methods to answer the questions, basically at a certain point every question they ask you is more or less a variation of a question you've seen before. It really just takes grinding out LR sections day in and day out to get it.

This also helps with speed. When I was first learning LR (I used the testmasters method) applying all of their methods for figuring out the right answers took time. But over time you learn to answer them naturally without using any tricks, and that speeds you up a ton. To tell you the truth, if you asked me today what would be the testmasters way of solving an LR question, I wouldn't be able to tell you.

[Rawlberto]

Always try to look for the assumption in the argument. And I think it's helpful to go through the stimulus with the assumption that there's something wrong with it. You see gaps in the argument more easily that way. Most of my wrong answers now are the ones where I picked between 2 and got it wrong. There's only 1 or 2 where I eliminate the wrong answer.

Oh btw on flaw questions you see this a lot "Presupposes what it seeks to establish" or "Presupposes the truth of the conclusion" or some variation. It is ALMOST ALWAYS wrong, IME. Now I just assume it is (probably a bad idea).

I went from like -15+ on LR and not finishing to the -10 range and finishing with time to spare by doing only half the Atlas guide. I have no idea how I did that.

Actually one of the PTs from the 30s has a correct answer of "Attempts to establish what it presupposes" as the correct answer.

[motiontodismiss]

Always try to look for the assumption in the argument. And I think it's helpful to go through the stimulus with the assumption that there's something wrong with it. You see gaps in the argument more easily that way. Most of my wrong answers now are the ones where I picked between 2 and got it wrong. There's only 1 or 2 where I eliminate the wrong answer.

Oh btw on flaw questions you see this a lot "Presupposes what it seeks to establish" or "Presupposes the truth of the conclusion" or some variation. It is ALMOST ALWAYS wrong, IME. Now I just assume it is (probably a bad idea).

I went from like -15+ on LR and not finishing to the -10 range and finishing with time to spare by doing only half the Atlas guide. I have no idea how I did that.

Actually one of the PTs from the 30s has a correct answer of "Attempts to establish what it presupposes" as the correct answer.

Hence, the "Almost" always.

[JazzOne]

Always try to look for the assumption in the argument. And I think it's helpful to go through the stimulus with the assumption that there's something wrong with it. You see gaps in the argument more easily that way. Most of my wrong answers now are the ones where I picked between 2 and got it wrong. There's only 1 or 2 where I eliminate the wrong answer.

Oh btw on flaw questions you see this a lot "Presupposes what it seeks to establish" or "Presupposes the truth of the conclusion" or some variation. It is ALMOST ALWAYS wrong, IME. Now I just assume it is (probably a bad idea).

I went from like -15+ on LR and not finishing to the -10 range and finishing with time to spare by doing only half the Atlas guide. I have no idea how I did that.

Actually one of the PTs from the 30s has a correct answer of "Attempts to establish what it presupposes" as the correct answer.

Hence, the "Almost" always.

+1

This answer appears as an incorrect answer choice far more often than it appears as the credited response. There are very few circular arguments on past LSATs, and they are relatively easy to spot.

[JazzOne]

OP: My advice is to become very familiar with logical fallacies. If you can identify the flaws in the argument before you attempt to answer the question, you will focus on the key issues more quickly.

[floppymex]

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[Curry]

Read every single word. Try to figure out why the words that were used were put there. Especially when it comes down to the last two choices, the difference is often one word. Also, make sure to keep an eye out for many, most, some, few type words. Those are really good indicators of the validity of the response. Similarly, read the question carefully. There is a difference between stems that ask you to strengthen the argument, fill in a missing assumption, and make the argument completely valid. Once you can differentiate between those, you know what you are looking for, and it makes the test a lot easier to master.

[clouds101]

bump. reviving an old thread since I totally related to the OP. I'm also a bit concerned about LR becoming harder in more recent PTs. I am consistently getting -5 on each LR section so I get at least 10 LR questions wrong per PT (I'm in the 20's right now).

For others, does LR truly "click" after doing enough problems? How many times did you do each problem? What was your strategy for improving on LR?

[paulshortys10]

and i'm still having problems with this..

[SilverE2]

and i'm still having problems with this..

Have you taken every single LR problem known to man?

[birdlaw117]

bump. reviving an old thread since I totally related to the OP. I'm also a bit concerned about LR becoming harder in more recent PTs. I am consistently getting -5 on each LR section so I get at least 10 LR questions wrong per PT (I'm in the 20's right now).

For others, does LR truly "click" after doing enough problems? How many times did you do each problem? What was your strategy for improving on LR?

What I found to be the most helpful was to track my progress. I kept a spreadsheet of all the questions I missed and the types of questions I missed. From there, I was able to tell which types of questions I was struggling with the most. Once I identified the questions I was weaker with, I would go back and read the LR Bible for those areas another time.

Also, I would say that at some point it did "click" for me. Fortunately, that was shortly before when I took the actual exam. LR was perhaps my weakest area at the start of my studying, and it was the section on the real exam that contributed to my success the most. Good luck!

[glucose101]

Thank you for this thread!

[clouds101]

bump. reviving an old thread since I totally related to the OP. I'm also a bit concerned about LR becoming harder in more recent PTs. I am consistently getting -5 on each LR section so I get at least 10 LR questions wrong per PT (I'm in the 20's right now).

For others, does LR truly "click" after doing enough problems? How many times did you do each problem? What was your strategy for improving on LR?

What I found to be the most helpful was to track my progress. I kept a spreadsheet of all the questions I missed and the types of questions I missed. From there, I was able to tell which types of questions I was struggling with the most. Once I identified the questions I was weaker with, I would go back and read the LR Bible for those areas another time.

Also, I would say that at some point it did "click" for me. Fortunately, that was shortly before when I took the actual exam. LR was perhaps my weakest area at the start of my studying, and it was the section on the real exam that contributed to my success the most. Good luck!

thanks birdlaw117 for the tips-- greatly appreciate it! I think I'll try it out.

p.s. I love your avatar. alice in wonderland FTW

[puppylaw]

Speed: Don't linger for more than a few seconds when you're down to 2 possible responses. Just pick one and move on. Come back to the problem if you have time.

Anticipation: Try to anticipate the correct and incorrect responses before reading the answer choices. The answer choices are sometimes meant to sway you or cause doubt.

[AreJay711]

Be born and bred for success and achievement like me

[birdlaw117]

Anticipation: Try to anticipate the correct and incorrect responses before reading the answer choices. The answer choices are sometimes meant to sway you or cause doubt.

This is really important. By the time I was ready to take the exam, I would be able to have a pretty good idea what the correct answer would read before I would get to it. It also helps with speed if you can get to an answer and be 100% sure about it right away.

One of the best ways to start to develop this is by doing drills and always coming up with a plausible answer prior to looking at the 5 choices. It's not always easy to do that, so you have to train yourself, but it really is faster and more efficient.

[anewaphorist]

Can relate to the OP, at least insofar as progress on LR has been agonizingly slow for me too. The spreadsheet idea is great. I'm doing a similar variation of that for the LR questions I miss, but I've been writing out the right answer, the answer choice that I selected, and the type of question. The tactile exercise of this helps me, but Excel is wonderful too! In August, I'll go back through the LR Bible and look for any possible helpful hints on the question types I've most frequently missed...

[paulshortys10]

i'm starting to do the same thing. So far I'm recording the questions i Miss on LR most often. After a couple of PT's i'll have a good idea on what I need to be focusing on.

[Tiago Splitter]

First ten questions need to be answered in ten minutes or less. This will give you the additional time you need to think through some of the more difficult questions later in the section. If you aren't taking the test until October, I wouldn't worry about speed until at least mid-August.

[SilverE2]

First ten questions need to be answered in ten minutes or less. This will give you the additional time you need to think through some of the more difficult questions later in the section. If you aren't taking the test until October, I wouldn't worry about speed until at least mid-August.

Yep, I focused on 10 in 10 mins, 15 in 15 mins. When I took the LSAT, I consistently scored -0 to -2 per LR section.

[sinfiery]

Random question but;

How important is the logic reasoning bible to go through?

Some backstory: I would consistently miss 10 on LG and had no idea how to "attack" said games. It was the best use of time for the LSAT, ever. Almost every page was actually worth reading.



Now, I just got done with the first 70 pages of the powerscore LR bible.
It wants me to follow their format of thinking through the questions...
This was fine with LG as I had no natural way of thinking about the questions but with LG I do. I don't want it to be clouded by definitions and groupings of the problem in these specific definitions when I generally understand the concepts in my head already.

But even with that, the last 3 prep tests (Taken 4 months ago for fun, before any serious studying) I missed anywhere from 2-7 problems per section...

I guess my question is after all that, how much of a recommendation is the LR bible to go through at least once, and does it change in style significantly after the first hundred-ish pages?

[FrozenCavemanLawyer]

i'd like to know the answer to this as well. i have both powerscore bibles but i am currently studying with a tutor so i don't want conflicting approaches

[annyong]

What I found to be the most helpful was to track my progress. I kept a spreadsheet of all the questions I missed and the types of questions I missed. From there, I was able to tell which types of questions I was struggling with the most.

Also, I would say that at some point it did "click" for me.

I second this. This allowed question types to "click" for me, though I didn't use the LRB. If you aren't having moments where question types "click", IMO, you may not be 'mastering' LR even if you're getting a decent score in the section, you may be just lucky at guessing between "good" answer choices rather than realizing why one is 100% right and the others are 100% wrong, and that's going to cause the random fluctuations from -2 to -8 (been there, did that for about a month).

I also think there will be one or two difficult LR questions that will trip you up in a section, but that's not to say you can't do all that you can to master question types. On the actual test, I was seriously running out of time in my last LR section after getting snagged on a tough one that I shouldn't have stayed on (I completely endorse the 15 in 15 recommendation). Once I got to the last two questions, I had about a minute left to glance them both over once, but the right AC choice for both just stuck out at me. I got both of those right despite the time constraint because I had seen so many LR questions over months of prep. While I would never recommend only glancing at a question, it's just to illustrate that some LR can eventually seem second nature.