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I just wanted to get some quick feedback from some of you high-scoring test takers out there. I'm trying to improve LR and am wondering if it is beneficial or detrimental to diagram most questions, on occasion, or rarely.

Apologies if this topic has been posted before.

The issue is what's going to work for you. But, from my experience working with folks scoring near or above the 99th percentile, there are probably ~ 3 questions that get diagrammed. For me, that's mostly parallel reasoning and tough conditional logic. There's definitely a lot of over-diagramming happening out there.

For recent tests, that seems reasonable. There's usually at least one or two formal logic questions and one parallel question.

mottainai wrote:For recent tests, that seems reasonable. There's usually at least one or two formal logic questions and one parallel question.

By formal logic, are you referring to assumption questions?

I diagram parallel reasoning, and that's usually it.

depends on how much time I have. I usually skip Q's where I think I may benefit from diagramming until the end. If I have 15 mins for 6 Q's, I may diagram them all. If I only have like 10 mins for 6 Q's I may diagram just 2-3. You're only over diagramming if it's causing you to run out of time.

I think it varies from person to person. My LSAT tutor was a big fan of diagramming, but it doesn't really work for me. It turns Logical Reasoning into Logic Games, which I hate (too much like math). In practice, I would try to diagram the really difficult questions, but on the actual LSAT, I did no diagramming. I was -2 in LR (which was the upper end of my practice range).

3|ink wrote:

mottainai wrote:For recent tests, that seems reasonable. There's usually at least one or two formal logic questions and one parallel question.

By formal logic, are you referring to assumption questions?

Depends on the prep company I suppose. By formal logic, I mean the stimuli that only have statements like, "All..... Some.... None...."

I'm surprised that "never" is on top.

mottainai wrote:I'm surprised that "never" is on top.

I'm not. I never diagrammed. It worked for some people though.

mottainai wrote:I'm surprised that "never" is on top.

I don't even know what it means to diagram. Guess that comes with no prep.

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By diagramming are we including or not including simple notations like conclusion, premises, etc.?

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I guess I'm surprised because it seems that most prep companies emphasize diagramming and most people who post questions in the LSAT forums tend to ask, "how do I diagram this?"

Personally, I only diagram maybe two or three questions and I thought I was underdiagramming. I guess that's not my problem with LR.