I'm spending too much time on conditional logic... help! Forum

[greenapples]

Hey guys, I'm currently studying for the September LSAT. I'm not taking any prep course because 1) it's far too expensive for me, 2) I wanted to first try doing the book work.

I'm about mid-way studying through logical reasoning, and I find that I'm torn whether to diagram the conditional logic for the assumption questions, or just notate conclusion and premise. I found myself spending too much time on one question when I tried doing the logic diagram.

For those of you that are more veteran than I am, which method did you find more useful/? would diagramming get better/faster as I push through drilling?


Thanks, and good luck to everyone who's prepping for the September LSAT.

[ntx]

I was doing this for a while until I started reading the question stems first.

I spent way too much time always trying to find some sort of conclusion inside of each stimulus. So much time wasted at the beginning of my preparation.

I don't think people will recommend this, but I tend to only need to jot down anything on sufficient assumption questions. I have a hard time finding the "missing link" without jotting down information.

I also noticed that I would go into the problems expecting conditional logic every single time. Honestly, questions involving CL on newer preptests usually involve just a handful of Logical Reasoning questions. When I say handful, very few. I've noticed the older tests use them a lot more. Are you using old Prep Tests?

I've started to break away from my habit of using conditional logic by reading the question stem, figuring out my task, reading & eliminating obviously wrong answer choices. If I'm left in the dust, I'll start jotting down information. On 'Matching the Reasoning' -- my brain goes into overload and I have to "diagram."

Have you read 'The Trainer' --? Seems like I have broken this 'habit' after reading his guide.

Oh -- and I also learned that most of the time the stimulus didn't even have conditional logic -- and I was trying to diagram the stimulus. We've all done this.

[greenapples]

ntx, thanks for your reply!

Yes, I'm using the old prep test. I wanted to drill through PT 1-38 while doing the bookwork. (I purchased Cambridge bundle sets so I've been using that to drill by question types)

I realized too, that ever since I've been through the conditional logic chapter, I'm always on the look out for diagramming/spotting logic which keeps my focus away from the real deal.

I'll definitely check out 'The Trainer.' Is it on this forum?

[ntx]

It's a guide by Mike Kim.

Actually, I really only find it useful if you have already been exposed to Prep Tests. He moves pretty fast inside the guide.

By all means, keep doing the old PTs. Apparently some of the question stems have been phased out -- or are no longer used (validity check?) -- but I have learned a ridiculous amount of conditional logic from the questions.

It seems that there are usually 3-4 questions that use them heavily on old Preptests. The newer -- I occasionally hit a section that doesn't require it at all. I learned my CL through LR; I'm hoping to apply everything to the LG once I start that section. I have been out of school for three years (teaching), and I forgot what it was like to read excerpts about 'British Common Law' and 'Organicism' --

Still trying to get back into the groove of everything.

[Louis1127]

Yes old questions will actually be super helpful because they have more formal logic than the newer tests, and this is one of the few true differences between old and new PTs.

However, formal logic is still on the LSAT today, and one thing that helped me was just doing lots of problems. I used to make all kinds of mistakes diagramming, but now I am very good at it and rarely miss any formal logic questions, even if they are high in difficulty.

As far as time, this probably won't help you much, but at least for me, the answer is: problems that involve formal logic and diagramming that are high in difficulty are supposed to take a long time. You gotta get through other questions more quickly. Once again, this is how I view it. Other people may view it differently. I just don't see how you can diagram 3 statements that really take a lot of thought and then go through answer choices all in a small amount of time.

[brooklynboy]

As far as time, this probably won't help you much, but at least for me, the answer is: problems that involve formal logic and diagramming that are high in difficulty are supposed to take a long time. You gotta get through other questions more quickly. Once again, this is how I view it. Other people may view it differently. I just don't see how you can diagram 3 statements that really take a lot of thought and then go through answer choices all in a small amount of time.

I agree with that 100%. When I first started studying for this test I read the PowerScore bibles, which emphasize that you have, on average, 1:20 to spend per LR question and 8:45 to spend per game. While that is technically correct, I think it's a horrible way to conceive of timing. The varying difficulty of the questions and games makes it silly to think about "average" time. At first, I would freak out when I spent 2 minutes on a question, and rest easy when a question took me only 45 seconds. But I now realize that neither of those responses was sensible. Some questions are designed to be solved in 30-45 seconds, and others take 2+ minutes. The most difficult conditional logic questions (although again, you'll see maybe 1-2 per section on the more recent tests, if that) often fall into the latter category.

Although you probably don't want to spend significantly more than 2 minutes on a question (unless you have a whole bunch of time left and you are just returning to one question that you found difficult), my advice is not to worry at this stage about how much time you're spending. First focus on feeling comfortable with the process, then keep drilling those problems and your timing will naturally speed up.