How to perfect LR? Forum

[beaglelegal]

Hi,

I just got my score back and am considering a retake since I missed 7 in LR and I am shooting for a 173+. My question is though, how does one perfect LR? I already have a grasp of the basics of the whole test (got a 171) and I don't think that a course or going through an intro prep book would help me too much - but what else do I do to improve LR? Is it possible to drill this? Is there anyone who sells LR questions by type?

Thanks!!!

[texasellewoods]

Hi,

I just got my score back and am considering a retake since I missed 7 in LR and I am shooting for a 173+. My question is though, how does one perfect LR? I already have a grasp of the basics of the whole test and I don't think that a course or going through an intro prep book would help me too much - but what else do I do to improve LR? Is it possible to drill this? Is there anyone who sells LR questions by type?

Thanks!!!

The powerscore bible helped me SO MUCH and then I drilled using the free games from Cambridge. I went from half wrong to getting 0 or 1 wrong per game, I and didn't miss any on this LSAT! Honestly with these things its just practice and familiarity, I did the super old ones too so I was used to different game types. Good luck!!!

[beaglelegal]

Hi,

I just got my score back and am considering a retake since I missed 7 in LR and I am shooting for a 173+. My question is though, how does one perfect LR? I already have a grasp of the basics of the whole test and I don't think that a course or going through an intro prep book would help me too much - but what else do I do to improve LR? Is it possible to drill this? Is there anyone who sells LR questions by type?

Thanks!!!

The powerscore bible helped me SO MUCH and then I drilled using the free games from Cambridge. I went from half wrong to getting 0 or 1 wrong per game, I and didn't miss any on this LSAT! Honestly with these things its just practice and familiarity, I did the super old ones too so I was used to different game types. Good luck!!!

Not sure if you misread or what - I am talking about logical reasoning, not games! I also started out horrible at LG and got -0 LG on this lsat, I lost all my points on LR which is why I am asking this!!!

[texasellewoods]

Not sure if you misread or what - I am talking about logical reasoning, not games! I also started out horrible at LG and got -0 LG on this lsat, I lost all my points on LR which is why I am asking this!!!

Oops yes I totally did - in that case I got nothing for ya my LR is what got me haha sorry!!!

[beaglelegal]

Not sure if you misread or what - I am talking about logical reasoning, not games! I also started out horrible at LG and got -0 LG on this lsat, I lost all my points on LR which is why I am asking this!!!

Oops yes I totally did - in that case I got nothing for ya my LR is what got me haha sorry!!!

Same situation then ( I don't even know how to study better for next time if I do retake!! We can be bummed out together.

[GospelLeague]

Same here, problems with LR. But I would miss 5-7 on every section of LR.
So I'm drilling the Cambridge bundle.
Right now can't tell you whether it works, as I haven't taken another full-section practice yet. But you can try

[The Abyss]

Hi,

I just got my score back and am considering a retake since I missed 7 in LR and I am shooting for a 173+. My question is though, how does one perfect LR? I already have a grasp of the basics of the whole test and I don't think that a course or going through an intro prep book would help me too much - but what else do I do to improve LR? Is it possible to drill this? Is there anyone who sells LR questions by type?

Thanks!!!

Cambridge has PTs 1-38 LR broken down by question type available. They also have a difficult questions packet that can help. Drill those packets untimed, and while doing so make sure for each question you are 100% sure you got the CR, and 100% sure the 4 other ACs are wrong. Take as much time as you need, and you will start to see the patterns for each question type.

[beaglelegal]

Hi,

I just got my score back and am considering a retake since I missed 7 in LR and I am shooting for a 173+. My question is though, how does one perfect LR? I already have a grasp of the basics of the whole test and I don't think that a course or going through an intro prep book would help me too much - but what else do I do to improve LR? Is it possible to drill this? Is there anyone who sells LR questions by type?

Thanks!!!

Cambridge has PTs 1-38 LR broken down by question type available. They also have a difficult questions packet that can help. Drill those packets untimed, and while doing so make sure for each question you are 100% sure you got the CR, and 100% sure the 4 other ACs are wrong. Take as much time as you need, and you will start to see the patterns for each question type.

Thank you so much for the response I am pretty sure I already know which question types are the killers for me - definitely parallel reasoning and the questions where two of the damn answers are basically exactly the same. I could even feel it as I was taking the test this time.

[BlueprintJason]

Hey beagle,

Sorry to hear you shot under your goal, and I'm glad you are thinking a retake (there is very little downside to retaking if you scored under your goal).

LR was my hardest section initially and took me the most work to perfect.

What helped me was drilling, drilling, drilling by question type. I really think this is the best way in a general sense.

More specifically, as I'm drilling, I'm constantly refining my approach and defining my strategies. Normally, I do this by giving myself a step-by-step approach that I can follow and focus on following those steps until it is so second nature that I don't have to think about it. I know it sounds simplistic (especially someone like you who has some solid skills built), but it really helps to go back and nail the basics at this point.

For example:

Flaw:
1. Prompt=match a flaw to an answer choice
2. Read stem; there is going to be a bad argument here.
3. ID the conclusion
4. Find relevant premises supporting the conclusion
5. Paraphrase the gap between the conclusion and its support. How could the premises be true but somehow the conclusion ends up being false?
6. Moving to the answer choices there is a two part test: 1) Is the author logically committed to the claim in the answer choice? If so, then 2) is that claim describing a error in the author's reasoning (i.e. a gap between a conclusion and a premise that the author uses to support it)?

The other thing to focus on that really helped me is looking for patterns of wrong answer choices and improving elimination skills. The more questions you do--particularly when you drill by question type--you start to see the little patterns they use like using language that is too strong and doing things like strengthening or weakening premises without affecting the support/conclusion relationship, for example.

The last thing is to come up with a solid strategy for timing in LR. My rule of thumb is 10 min first 10, 10 min for the last five, and 15 for everything in the middle. When I do timed sections, I don't let a question that is throwing me for a loop in the middle mess up my pace. Sometimes it's best to just cut a hard question and look for the lower hanging fruit, especially because if you come back to it at the end it's most likely going to jump out at you.

HTH, and if you need any further help with LR please come post over in the Blueprint Extravaganza thread and I'll do my best!

[texasellewoods]

Same situation then ( I don't even know how to study better for next time if I do retake!! We can be bummed out together.

Ugh right?? I feel like I did all I could in terms of learning, I guess I could have done more PTs just to become more familiar but idk how much that will help. Plus I just reviewed my wrong answers for this LSAT and it made me want to punch someone in the face...

[LifeGoals]

LR is my strongest section (I usually perfect LR/LG). If you're missing less than ~5 per LR section I think you need to do some statistical analysis and determine what TYPE of LR questions you usually miss, because this section varies a lot. For instance, I found that over 50% of my LR misses were parallel reasoning, so I got an LSAT by Type packet and drilled Parallel reasoning. Some of the LR question types (Assumption Questions, Parallel Reasoning, some others I'm forgetting) aren't quite perfectly logical and require you to understand how LSAC writes those types of questions and selects a best answer to perfect them.

My timing is pretty simple: Keep practicing until the section takes you 20 minutes as a whole, and after every question, mark the difficulty. My system was checkmark for certain, one question mark for uncertain, and two question marks for DEFINITELY LOOK AT THIS ONE AGAIN. Then use your last 15 minutes to review; This is critical for me and usually lets me catch 2-3 wrong answers, which equates to like 5 lsat points.

[beaglelegal]

LR is my strongest section (I usually perfect LR/LG). If you're missing less than ~5 per LR section I think you need to do some statistical analysis and determine what TYPE of LR questions you usually miss, because this section varies a lot. For instance, I found that over 50% of my LR misses were parallel reasoning, so I got an LSAT by Type packet and drilled Parallel reasoning. Some of the LR question types (Assumption Questions, Parallel Reasoning, some others I'm forgetting) aren't quite perfectly logical and require you to understand how LSAC writes those types of questions and selects a best answer to perfect them.

My timing is pretty simple: Keep practicing until the section takes you 20 minutes as a whole, and after every question, mark the difficulty. My system was checkmark for certain, one question mark for uncertain, and two question marks for DEFINITELY LOOK AT THIS ONE AGAIN. Then use your last 15 minutes to review; This is critical for me and usually lets me catch 2-3 wrong answers, which equates to like 5 lsat points.

You are definitely right that I need to zero in on the question types. I just didn't have time to do this before this LSAT since I was intensely focused on LG. Did you use the Cambridge packets, or is there another resource that you would recommend? Did you find any 7sage kinds of resources to help explain stuff when you are drilling and you just don't get why something is working the way it is?

[beaglelegal]

Same situation then ( I don't even know how to study better for next time if I do retake!! We can be bummed out together.

Ugh right?? I feel like I did all I could in terms of learning, I guess I could have done more PTs just to become more familiar but idk how much that will help. Plus I just reviewed my wrong answers for this LSAT and it made me want to punch someone in the face...

If you haven't revisited this thread, check out the replies I got because they are super helpful!

[beaglelegal]

Hey beagle,

Sorry to hear you shot under your goal, and I'm glad you are thinking a retake (you absolutely should if you are under your goal, there is literally 0 downside).

LR was my hardest section initially and took me the most work to perfect.

What helped me was drilling, drilling, drilling by question type. I really think this is the best way in a general sense.

More specifically, as I'm drilling, I'm constantly refining my approach and defining my strategies. Normally, I do this by giving myself a step-by-step approach that I can follow and focus on following those steps until it is so second nature that I don't have to think about it. I know it sounds simplistic (especially someone like you who has some solid skills built), but it really helps to go back and nail the basics at this point.

For example:

Flaw:
1. Prompt=match a flaw to an answer choice
2. Read stem; there is going to be a bad argument here.
3. ID the conclusion
4. Find relevant premises supporting the conclusion
5. Paraphrase the gap between the conclusion and its support. How could the premises be true but somehow the conclusion ends up being false?
6. Moving to the answer choices there is a two part test: 1) Is the author logically committed to the claim in the answer choice? If so, then 2) is that claim describing a error in the author's reasoning (i.e. a gap between a conclusion and a premise that the author uses to support it)?

The other thing to focus on that really helped me is looking for patterns of wrong answer choices and improving elimination skills. The more questions you do--particularly when you drill by question type--you start to see the little patterns they use like using language that is too strong and doing things like strengthening or weakening premises without affecting the support/conclusion relationship, for example.

The last thing is to come up with a solid strategy for timing in LR. My rule of thumb is 10 min first 10, 10 min for the last five, and 15 for everything in the middle. When I do timed sections, I don't let a question that is throwing me for a loop in the middle mess up my pace. Sometimes it's best to just cut a hard question and look for the lower hanging fruit, especially because if you come back to it at the end it's most likely going to jump out at you.

HTH, and if you need any further help with LR please come post over in the Blueprint Extravaganza thread and I'll do my best!

Wow, thank you for the super thorough answer!!!! I really appreciate it - super helpful!!! I know that I'm especially weak with parallel reasoning questions, for example, though the procedure that you outlined above is basically how I approach flaw questions. Do the Blueprint prep materials include these step by steps for all the question types? Is there somewhere else I could find them?

[LifeGoals]

LR is my strongest section (I usually perfect LR/LG). If you're missing less than ~5 per LR section I think you need to do some statistical analysis and determine what TYPE of LR questions you usually miss, because this section varies a lot. For instance, I found that over 50% of my LR misses were parallel reasoning, so I got an LSAT by Type packet and drilled Parallel reasoning. Some of the LR question types (Assumption Questions, Parallel Reasoning, some others I'm forgetting) aren't quite perfectly logical and require you to understand how LSAC writes those types of questions and selects a best answer to perfect them.

My timing is pretty simple: Keep practicing until the section takes you 20 minutes as a whole, and after every question, mark the difficulty. My system was checkmark for certain, one question mark for uncertain, and two question marks for DEFINITELY LOOK AT THIS ONE AGAIN. Then use your last 15 minutes to review; This is critical for me and usually lets me catch 2-3 wrong answers, which equates to like 5 lsat points.

You are definitely right that I need to zero in on the question types. I just didn't have time to do this before this LSAT since I was intensely focused on LG. Did you use the Cambridge packets, or is there another resource that you would recommend? Did you find any 7sage kinds of resources to help explain stuff when you are drilling and you just don't get why something is working the way it is?

I got a set of packets from a friend, pretty sure they are the cambridge ones. I use 7sage for logic games but for drilling LR/RC I actually used the Manhattan Test Prep forums. Look up any hard question from any PT and they always have people debating and explaining it. This is even more critical because while in LG wrong answers are objectively wrong, there are often really subtle subjective reasons an RC or an LR answer is wrong. Those forums and being super diligent about why I missed every single question were super critical in getting me from PTing ~175 to an actual 180.

[The Abyss]

The Manhattan LSAT forums have explanations for nearly every LR question. I've found it to be a very helpful resource.

[Clearly]

Just keep practicing and really focus on analysing the few you're getting wrong. I just wanted to post because my beagle has been referenced to as the legal beagle so your name is awesome.

[BlueprintJason]

Hey beagle,

Sorry to hear you shot under your goal, and I'm glad you are thinking a retake (you absolutely should if you are under your goal, there is literally 0 downside).

LR was my hardest section initially and took me the most work to perfect.

What helped me was drilling, drilling, drilling by question type. I really think this is the best way in a general sense.

More specifically, as I'm drilling, I'm constantly refining my approach and defining my strategies. Normally, I do this by giving myself a step-by-step approach that I can follow and focus on following those steps until it is so second nature that I don't have to think about it. I know it sounds simplistic (especially someone like you who has some solid skills built), but it really helps to go back and nail the basics at this point.

For example:

Flaw:
1. Prompt=match a flaw to an answer choice
2. Read stem; there is going to be a bad argument here.
3. ID the conclusion
4. Find relevant premises supporting the conclusion
5. Paraphrase the gap between the conclusion and its support. How could the premises be true but somehow the conclusion ends up being false?
6. Moving to the answer choices there is a two part test: 1) Is the author logically committed to the claim in the answer choice? If so, then 2) is that claim describing a error in the author's reasoning (i.e. a gap between a conclusion and a premise that the author uses to support it)?

The other thing to focus on that really helped me is looking for patterns of wrong answer choices and improving elimination skills. The more questions you do--particularly when you drill by question type--you start to see the little patterns they use like using language that is too strong and doing things like strengthening or weakening premises without affecting the support/conclusion relationship, for example.

The last thing is to come up with a solid strategy for timing in LR. My rule of thumb is 10 min first 10, 10 min for the last five, and 15 for everything in the middle. When I do timed sections, I don't let a question that is throwing me for a loop in the middle mess up my pace. Sometimes it's best to just cut a hard question and look for the lower hanging fruit, especially because if you come back to it at the end it's most likely going to jump out at you.

HTH, and if you need any further help with LR please come post over in the Blueprint Extravaganza thread and I'll do my best!

Wow, thank you for the super thorough answer!!!! I really appreciate it - super helpful!!! I know that I'm especially weak with parallel reasoning questions, for example, though the procedure that you outlined above is basically how I approach flaw questions. Do the Blueprint prep materials include these step by steps for all the question types? Is there somewhere else I could find them?

Absolutely! Happy to help!

Yes, the Blueprint materials from both the online course and live course have a quasi step-by-step approach. (They go through it in more detail and don't actually put numbers, but I teach my students to do the numbering thing that I did for you above once they get the basic idea so they really "own it" for themselves. It's also just good review and you can customize it for things you personally need to keep track of.)

For parallel and parallel flaw, there are a few issues I see that students normally get into. Once they are pointed out and practiced, this is usually ones my students really nail for some reason.

The biggest thing is knowing the difference between parallel reasoning and parallel flaw. For parallel, it's all about matching EVERY little element. You have to match logical force, type of conclusion (you can usually eliminate multiple ones on just this), same number and types of premises, etc. This one really works in process of elimination. A couple of common traps are wrong answer choices that are really close logically and deal with the same topic (ex. Stimulus is about albatross wingspan length and the trap wrong answer choice is about bird beaks or something closely related). This is usually the wrong answer; I would have to be really sure to pick it, it happens but is rare so just stay flexible on stuff like that. You pick up little things like that after you do 50 of these. Another one they do is rearranging things (i.e. order of premise and conclusion) between the stimulus and the conclusion, even though it is logically equivalent. This is usually not that hard but under timed conditions it can throw you off. The answer is still right even if they change the order.

For parallel flaw, they trap you in a different way. You ONLY have to worry about matching the flaw, NOT the conclusion type, number of premises, etc. Sometimes it works out that both are matched, but the harder ones will have a trap with the wrong flaw but identical construction as to writing and logical flow. Here's a super-simple example to show you what I mean:

Stem: If A, then B. B, thus A. (this is the fallacy of the converse).

(A) If P, then Q or R. R, thus P. (even though the premise has two elements, it still has the same converse fallacy--so it's correct).
(B) If Y, then Z. Not Y, thus Z. (this looks much more similar because the number of elements is the same, BUT the fallacy is different--it's the inverse. I've seen this trap before in this question type almost verbatim I believe).

HTH

Post in the Blueprint thread if you have any specific parallel ones you want me to break down!

[texasellewoods]

Same situation then ( I don't even know how to study better for next time if I do retake!! We can be bummed out together.

Ugh right?? I feel like I did all I could in terms of learning, I guess I could have done more PTs just to become more familiar but idk how much that will help. Plus I just reviewed my wrong answers for this LSAT and it made me want to punch someone in the face...

If you haven't revisited this thread, check out the replies I got because they are super helpful!

wow that was helpful, thank you!!!

[Manhattan Prep Matt]

You are definitely right that I need to zero in on the question types.

The one piece of advice I would add here is that, while you need to zero in on question types in order to perfect your process and fix the bigger problems at first, there's usually a point where that approach is no longer the most useful. The closer you get to perfection, the less likely there's a specific question type that you're weak at and the more likely there's a specific logical flaw that you keep making, which can show up across question types.

This usually manifests in answer choice selection, and so once you get to the point where you're only getting a handful wrong and you can't figure out what the specific issue is, since they're from a variety of question types, it's time to shift gears.

At this point, I usually recommend keeping a log of questions you got wrong (or weren't 100% sure on)*. Make sure to write out the right answer and wrong answer you selected, on top of the question stem. Also, write out a paraphrase of the argument/important information, and, if it's an assumption-based question, your version of the assumption. Keeping this long enough should help you notice patterns to the incorrect answers you're selecting, which should let you know what trap they're getting you to fall for/what logical flaw you're committing in your thinking.

*Well, I recommend keeping this the whole time you're prepping, but it's particularly helpful as you approach perfection.

[beaglelegal]

You are definitely right that I need to zero in on the question types.

The one piece of advice I would add here is that, while you need to zero in on question types in order to perfect your process and fix the bigger problems at first, there's usually a point where that approach is no longer the most useful. The closer you get to perfection, the less likely there's a specific question type that you're weak at and the more likely there's a specific logical flaw that you keep making, which can show up across question types.

This usually manifests in answer choice selection, and so once you get to the point where you're only getting a handful wrong and you can't figure out what the specific issue is, since they're from a variety of question types, it's time to shift gears.

At this point, I usually recommend keeping a log of questions you got wrong (or weren't 100% sure on)*. Make sure to write out the right answer and wrong answer you selected, on top of the question stem. Also, write out a paraphrase of the argument/important information, and, if it's an assumption-based question, your version of the assumption. Keeping this long enough should help you notice patterns to the incorrect answers you're selecting, which should let you know what trap they're getting you to fall for/what logical flaw you're committing in your thinking.

*Well, I recommend keeping this the whole time you're prepping, but it's particularly helpful as you approach perfection.

I am so excited about the possibility of drilling by question type since I had a ton of success learning LG that way, but I really appreciate the info about how this is different. The log is a great idea - I'm not going to get serious about studying again for a couple of weeks but I will definitely do this once I do. THANKS!!!

[BlueprintJason]

You are definitely right that I need to zero in on the question types.

The one piece of advice I would add here is that, while you need to zero in on question types in order to perfect your process and fix the bigger problems at first, there's usually a point where that approach is no longer the most useful. The closer you get to perfection, the less likely there's a specific question type that you're weak at and the more likely there's a specific logical flaw that you keep making, which can show up across question types.

This usually manifests in answer choice selection, and so once you get to the point where you're only getting a handful wrong and you can't figure out what the specific issue is, since they're from a variety of question types, it's time to shift gears.

At this point, I usually recommend keeping a log of questions you got wrong (or weren't 100% sure on)*. Make sure to write out the right answer and wrong answer you selected, on top of the question stem. Also, write out a paraphrase of the argument/important information, and, if it's an assumption-based question, your version of the assumption. Keeping this long enough should help you notice patterns to the incorrect answers you're selecting, which should let you know what trap they're getting you to fall for/what logical flaw you're committing in your thinking.

*Well, I recommend keeping this the whole time you're prepping, but it's particularly helpful as you approach perfection.

I think MPM is spot on as to there being a point where going over question types and their strategies ad nauseam is less useful. Once you are nailing questions and are regularly going -2, -1, -0, etc. then yeah I wouldn't keep going over question types strategies because you've already got that down. It's mainly just to get you back running with the right focus and not building (or reinforcing) any bad habits before pillaging PTs.

[Manhattan Prep Matt]

The log is a great idea - I'm not going to get serious about studying again for a couple of weeks but I will definitely do this once I do. THANKS!!!

If you want a copy of my (Excel, non-branded) log, shoot me a PM and I'll send it your way. Offer open to anyone.

[jetsfan1]

This is all really great so I only got one thing to add/emphasize. During my prep, I learned LE through review. It was by far the best time investment I made during my prep. For each section/drilling set As I was going through timed would circle the questions I wasn't 100% sure on. (This came from a prep company, think it was 7sage but not certain. I apologize if I'm wrong here).

Afterwards came the review. For each circled question I would literally write out the argument structure, then go through each answer choice and write out exactly why it was incorrect or correct. Sometimes this was in the form of a diagram, sometimes even a paragraph, and for some that weren't even close just a couple of words. At the start of my prep, I would normally have 8-12 circled in a section, an my review of that section would take at least an hour. But by the end I was circling at most 3 per section and review would take less than 15 minutes. It's definitely a huge time investment and there were times I dreaded review, but IMO it's time well spent.

Just one more reflection: the process of going through every answer choice and explaining why it is right/wrong is complex and takes a significant amount of time. But by doing it consistently and writing it out, you become much quicker at it to the point where on every question you will be able to do this under times conditions- albeit in a somewhat condensed way. And I think that's when you really have LR timing down- not just when you can finish the section, but when you can finish the section having fully thought through each question and answer choice.

ETA: sorry for typos on my phone