Questions for "Naturals" Forum

[dnptan]

I played professor layton games

[QuentonCassidy]

I just skimmed through this thread after the recent bumps and I must say that I am very skeptical of non-"naturals" looking to things that "naturals" do for advice. I scored a 174 on a cold-diagnostic (proctored, timed, only thing I knew about the test was that it was required for admission to LS). I eventually got a 180 on the real thing having taken less than 5 PTs. For the most part, people who are "naturals" at the LSAT are just naturally-good test takers, the kind of people who got close to 2400 on the SAT (or 1600 if you're older) and 36 on the ACT without struggle. There may be some sort of correlation of outside activities or circumstances with people who naturally score highly on the LSAT, but I think it is highly doubtful that replicating them would give anything more than slight gains on the LSAT, and doing actual LSAT prep would almost certainly be more worthwhile. My friends used to ask me for help on taking standardized tests in high school until we all realized that I was completely useless at helping them, and my strategies/practices were counterproductive for them. I am pretty confident that someone who is not a "natural" test taker and who had to work and study to master the test would be a much better teacher/role model for someone in that situation. As one last overkill example, I have never diagrammed a logic game, and would have no idea how to teach someone to do so, and as such, my LG habits would work out terribly for most people trying to emulate them.

tl;dr: The people who go from a low diagnostic to a high score on the real thing are the actually impressive ones, and in all likelihood are the people who non-"naturals" should be trying to emulate.

[mukol]

tl;dr: The people who go from a low diagnostic to a high score on the real thing are the actually impressive ones, and in all likelihood are the people who non-"naturals" should be trying to emulate.

TCR.

[Hikikomorist]

Natural for LR please chime in: how do you approach these problems? I think everyone can agree that LG eventually get much easier and can definitely be learned, but I still can't seem to find this with LR.

Had one section of LR -0, the other was -3 I think. Flaws I think I lucked out in my upbringing, and have always had a good grasp on types of fallacies. Finished sections of LR before the 5 minute warning.


If you know your fallacies, flaw questions are easy. You know what the answer should be for 95% of questions before you even read the answer choices.


Weaken is equally simple, just assume everything you read in the stimulus is true and then say "all thats true, but what if __________ ?" Plug the answer choices into the blank space. If you feel like you saying that would drunk on someone you're good and thats the right answer. If you feel like they would reply "Okay? How is that relevant?" then it isn't tcr.


Stengthen is a little more awkward, but again assume eveything in the stimulus is true and then say "Oh, and ______ ." Again plugging answer choices, and if you feel like someone would say "Cool story, but how is that relevant" it isn't right, but if in your head you feel like a hype man backing up his bro in an argument said it, that's tcr.


Must be true, seems to normally invole a bit more actual logic rather than plug and chug to me. Just know the foundations of symbolic logic (which you do without realizing it from logic games). And undersand the relationship between some and most.


NA and SA....see must be true above? Understand assumptions? I can't explain these, they just feel right or don't.

Parallel reasoing I think it's helpful to ignore the words and focus on the structure. If you're doing parallel flaw you need to understand the flaw in the little paragraph thing, and find one that makes the same flaw in the same way. Not rocket science, but can be time consuming to read. Pretty sure I saved those for last.



I can't remember anymore question types off the top of my head.

This is the best I have to offer. It isn't necessarily how I think through it when I do it, but it's how I explained it to my brother now that he's getting ready to take it. I obviously know how my bro thinks, so that's how I explained it to him, but you might think differently.

Generally agree with QC, but I think this is really good. Honestly, just frequenting an online forum and watching all the dumb arguments is pretty helpful.