are earlier preptest LR sections tougher than present day? Forum

[itachiuchiha]

I have heard that they are tougher, but what do you guys think?
So far in my studies, I have ONLY used earlier tests and the LR sections are sort of tough, I still have to transition to using more recent tests.

[Nova]

The old ones are way more wordy, and often left me with "wtf" moments.

The new LR is cookie cutter logic, which I greatly prefered.

[Cobretti]

Ya, the old LR is much less formal logic, and a lot more just wordy messes that you gotta make sense out of. However the biggest difference between the old tests and the new ones is RC. RC in the old ones is an absolute joke compared to the more recent ones (50+), so get ready for that transition.

[Sweetlady75]

I feel they are alot harder. For the old LRs, I usually get about 6 wrong. But, for the newer ones, just 2 or 3. I think for me it's the inferences that throw me off.

[ws81086n]

I bet there is not a whole lot of variability between old and new LR scores for most people. I would say that the stimuli in the old LR is a little harder, whereas in new LR there are more attractive wrong answer choices. All things being equal they are a fantastic practice tool. Not sure I agree that old RC is a joke. It is easier, but certainly not a joke. There are still a decent number of hard sections. Super Prep RC is a joke, but other than that, I don't think so.

[manofjustice]

My rough sense is that earlier LR is more formally complicated, but less subtle, and the later LR is the reverse.

What does that mean?

What cracks earlier LR is usually some formal structure of deduction (e.g. a hypothetical syllogism, a quantifier) combined with others, much like a "conditional" logic game. Newer LR is a bit less complicated in that way, but the predicates--i.e. what is the question talking about, rather than how is it talking about it--are subtler. It's all logic, one way or another, but when the question is subtler, you have to make a highly probable assumption about the predicates to chart the formal structure of the question; when the question is not subtle at all, you can exchange the predicates with symbols, so that you don't need to make any assumptions about the predicates, and then chart the former structure of the question. Earlier LR is closer to the latter; later LR is closer to the former.

In this way, later LR is much more like a law school issue spotter than earlier LR.

That said, the LSAT retains some LR questions that are not subtle at all. It's important to pick up on that. When I took the LSAT, an LR question that was over half a page long turned out to not be subtle at all, by my definition above, and despite its indulging at length in the nature of the predicates, it was cracked by the implicit quantifier in the first sentence.

It was one of those, after four grueling minutes, "ohh of course!" and then followed immediately by "fuck you, LSAT!" moments. I'll remember it forever. I might be weird.