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analogies on the exam

Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2011 5:12 pm
by cord
What is your guy's working definition of an 'analogy' for the purposes of the test?

Exam 7, section 4 LR, 21. I ignored the correct answer, A, because it says the critic used an analogy but I didn't pick up on this, because I didnt perceive the stimulus to contain one.

I know this is silly of me and I dont want to be pedantic, so anyone have a good rule of thumb to catch analogies in stimuli for the purposes of "method of argument" questions?

Re: analogies on the exam

Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2011 6:49 pm
by BillsFan9907
cord wrote:What is your guy's working definition of an 'analogy' for the purposes of the test?

Exam 7, section 4 LR, 21. I ignored the correct answer, A, because it says the critic used an analogy but I didn't pick up on this, because I didnt perceive the stimulus to contain one.

I know this is silly of me and I dont want to be pedantic, so anyone have a good rule of thumb to catch analogies in stimuli for the purposes of "method of argument" questions?

This is a very use of the term analogy on the LSAT. Look at the definition:

"a similarity between like features of two things, on which a comparison may be based."

While the word analogy has almost exclusively been used to denote a more detailed comparison (ie: learning how to perform well on the lsats is like learning how to ride a bike) it is important to keep in mind that the word can also mean a mere comparison based on two similar features.

In this case, the respondent is alleging that the present is comparable to the past.

Re: analogies on the exam

Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2011 11:10 pm
by youknowryan
Does anyone else know of analogy questions from PTs? It would be nice to have 5-10 of them to practice with.

Re: analogies on the exam

Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 9:32 am
by soj
You might want to consider drilling Method of Reasoning questions using the Traciela Grouped By Q Type LR book.

Re: analogies on the exam

Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 1:53 pm
by youknowryan
soj wrote:You might want to consider drilling Method of Reasoning questions using the Traciela Grouped By Q Type LR book.
Does that have a section with analogy based questions in it?

Re: analogies on the exam

Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 2:00 pm
by soj
No, but it has a section containing all the MoR questions from PT1-20, some of which contain analogies. And all analogy questions fall under MoR, so if you do the whole section, you'll have done all the LR analogy questions from PT1-20. I think it'll be helpful to practice questions with and questions without analogies since if you practice only those questions with analogies, then you know the answer will be "the passage uses analogies," and that won't be all that helpful. :lol: