LSAT tricks youve accumulated Forum

[theZeigs]

Here's a good one. I find that answer choices (ACs) that have "no blah blah would/should/is/will/verb blah blah blah" to almost always be wrong.

e.g. (1) Superprep A.1 # 15 AC (c): "No industry should adopt new technolgoies if the adoption of those technologies would create new ethical problems."

e.g. (2) PT 50.4 #13 AC (d): "No article about a current event treats that event as merely a repetition of historical incidents unless it uses historical photographs to illustrate that article."

These answer choices are generally wrong for some other big reason, but this is something I've found in my (albeit limited amount of) practice testing.

Hope this helps someone.

[JazzOne]

Here's a good one. I find that answer choices (ACs) that have "no blah blah would/should/is/will/verb blah blah blah" to almost always be wrong.

e.g. (1) Superprep A.1 # 15 AC (c): "No industry should adopt new technolgoies if the adoption of those technologies would create new ethical problems."

e.g. (2) PT 50.4 #13 AC (d): "No article about a current event treats that event as merely a repetition of historical incidents unless it uses historical photographs to illustrate that article."

These answer choices are generally wrong for some other big reason, but this is something I've found in my (albeit limited amount of) practice testing.

Hope this helps someone.

Be careful. Strong language like "none" usually weakens an answer choice because it's too extreme, it goes too far. But on strengthen/weaken questions, you want the answer to go as far as possible, so strong language is preferred over qualified language.

[theZeigs]

Here's a good one. I find that answer choices (ACs) that have "no blah blah would/should/is/will/verb blah blah blah" to almost always be wrong.

e.g. (1) Superprep A.1 # 15 AC (c): "No industry should adopt new technolgoies if the adoption of those technologies would create new ethical problems."

e.g. (2) PT 50.4 #13 AC (d): "No article about a current event treats that event as merely a repetition of historical incidents unless it uses historical photographs to illustrate that article."

These answer choices are generally wrong for some other big reason, but this is something I've found in my (albeit limited amount of) practice testing.

Hope this helps someone.

Be careful. Strong language like "none" usually weakens an answer choice because it's too extreme, it goes too far. But on strengthen/weaken questions, you want the answer to go as far as possible, so strong language is preferred over qualified language.

Yes, you're definitely right. The point I was trying to make is that when you don't have a conditional reasoning or a strengthen/weaken type question, these are often irrelevant answers. I wish I could find a really good example of this, I'll keep my eyes peeled as I go through PTs.

/redacted

[clouds101]

I have developed a trick for logic games. For many people the general questions are time traps. The questions that give me particular pause are the ones that contain different elements for each answer choice. For instance, a question like:

"Which of the following elements CANNOT be third in the diagram?"

A, B, C, D, or E

Now let's suppose I can eliminate A and B based on my previous work on the specific questions. In other words, I've already found solutions with A and B in the third spot, so those can't be the answer. But now I'm really having a tough time figuring out which of the remaining three it is. At this point I like to compare the remaining elements to one another. Suppose there are no clues at all about C and D, but there is a clue about E. Then I figure E has to be the right answer because C and D are indistinct. Essentially what I'm looking for is which element is different from the others. I trust this trick so much that I wouldn't even bother to "prove" that E can't go into the third spot.

Also, another pattern I've noticed on games is that the reason for eliminating one answer to a question is often the same reason for eliminating other answer choices on the same question. Once I spot a particular contradiction (or clue) that makes an answer choice wrong, I keep looking for that same contradiction (or clue) as I try out the other answer choices.

hm..does anyone have experience with this?

[941law]

I NEVER do the first question of a logic game or RC passage first. Go back after doing the other questions and you will be less inclined to make a simple mistake; more so for RC.

[Adrian Monk]

bump for sep test, any tricks that you have picked up along the way?

[JamMasterJ]

I kinda started a trend in 2011 to start LR sections at question 11, 12, or 13 because the hard part is from there till 22ish, so your brain can be relatively rested for this stuff and can chill while going through the easy 1-10 questions. I ended up getting like 50/51 and I know it worked pretty well for other people.

ETA: there's some science indicating that the more decisions you make during a day makes subsequent decisions harder to make accurately. I think that this extends to "number of decisions in a compressed time period" for which the trick would line up pretty well with the science. It presumes that you are good enough to still nail the gimme questions when a little tired though, so if you're missing 6+ per section, be careful trying to do this.

[HRomanus]

I kinda started a trend in 2011 to start LR sections at question 11, 12, or 13 because the hard part is from there till 22ish, so your brain can be relatively rested for this stuff and can chill while going through the easy 1-10 questions. I ended up getting like 50/51 and I know it worked pretty well for other people.

ETA: there's some science indicating that the more decisions you make during a day makes subsequent decisions harder to make accurately. I think that this extends to "number of decisions in a compressed time period" for which the trick would line up pretty well with the science. It presumes that you are good enough to still nail the gimme questions when a little tired though, so if you're missing 6+ per section, be careful trying to do this.

Personally I like getting my brain into a rythm with the early "gimme" questions. They're also a good confidence booster.

[Adrian Monk]

bump