Background in logic/philosophy necessary Forum

[cause8191]

I have no background in either, although last year I did read some of Walton's books and recently skimmed through some logic books from the library. I have been having terrible times in my short three weeks of prepping trying to sort through information, sub-analyze it, and intuitively find holes in the arguments. Like most everything I do, I am overthinking this and I just realized this. My strategy now is to find patterns in the stimuli and answer choices, without reading them three times through with no solid understanding. Is it possible to have success in LR (I am talking no more than -5 on both sections) without any prior knowledge of logic/philosophy?

[boblawlob]

Yes.

[rinkrat19]

Yep. Never took a logic or philosophy class in my life (or even read any books).

[09042014]

I have no background in either, although last year I did read some of Walton's books and recently skimmed through some logic books from the library. I have been having terrible times in my short three weeks of prepping trying to sort through information, sub-analyze it, and intuitively find holes in the arguments. Like most everything I do, I am overthinking this and I just realized this. My strategy now is to find patterns in the stimuli and answer choices, without reading them three times through with no solid understanding. Is it possible to have success in LR (I am talking no more than -5 on both sections) without any prior knowledge of logic/philosophy?

Philosophy is totally unnecessary. You have to understand logic though, but you gotta be pretty stupid to not understand basic logic.

My strategy now is to find patterns in the stimuli and answer choices, without reading them three times through with no solid understanding.

What the fuck are you talking about? Just read the fucking question, it asks a straight forward question, then you answer it.

[hichvichwoh]

What the fuck are you talking about? Just read the fucking question, it asks a straight forward question, then you answer it.

[suralin]

I have no background in either, although last year I did read some of Walton's books and recently skimmed through some logic books from the library. I have been having terrible times in my short three weeks of prepping trying to sort through information, sub-analyze it, and intuitively find holes in the arguments. Like most everything I do, I am overthinking this and I just realized this. My strategy now is to find patterns in the stimuli and answer choices, without reading them three times through with no solid understanding. Is it possible to have success in LR (I am talking no more than -5 on both sections) without any prior knowledge of logic/philosophy?

They can and often do help, but by no means are they necessary.

[jselson]

Knowing the major logical fallacies seems to be the best thing - look for charts online, there are a ton of them available, and most you've probably already heard of. Identifying term shifts as you read a passage helps, too, just takes some practice.

And I only have to use formal logic abstractions (ie., A is B if not C, like in the cat/dog/fish question) on 1-2 questions on average per test, so the logical fallacies are really what matters for LR.