Beginner's Guide to LSAT Logical Reasoning
One of the most common questions we’re asked as LSAT tutors is “How can I improve on LSAT Logical Reasoning? (The next-most-common question: “How can I improve on Reading Comprehension?” Click here for a long-winded answer to that one.)
We’d love it if there was a quick, easy way to fix your problems on LSAT LR, but like so many things on the LSAT, there are no magic wands that lead to spectacular results. Instead, here’s an honest, long(!), gimmick-free guide to improving your LSAT Logical Reasoning score.
THE REAL REASON WHY YOU’RE MISSING LSAT LOGICAL REASONING QUESTIONS
In nearly every LSAT Logical Reasoning test-prep guide, a disproportionate chunk of the text focuses on specific question types. Test-prep companies spend much of their energy teaching you the logic behind, say, assumption or “resolve the discrepancy” or parallel reasoning questions.
For many LSAT students, studying specific question types can be helpful. But after tutoring thousands of students on several exams that feature Logical Reasoning-style questions, we’ve learned an unglamorous truth: logic isn’t usually the main problem. For example, you probably know exactly what it means to strengthen or weaken an argument, right? Sure, the logic itself could cause some friction on certain Logical Reasoning question types, but it’s rarely the key issue.
So what’s the real problem? Reading precision. If you misread or misinterpret the passage itself, you’re toast – no matter how good you are at understanding logic.
And I know: that doesn’t sound exciting. If you’re unhappy with your LSAT Logical Reasoning results, it’s possible that memorizing logical structures or “approaches” to specific questions could help a little bit, but it’s unlikely to solve all of your LR problems. Improving your reading precision might be the biggest thing that will make a difference.
HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR LSAT READING PRECISION
So what the heck do we mean when we talk about “reading precision” on LSAT Logical Reasoning? Consider the following passage:
Most serious students are happy students, and most serious students go to graduate school. Furthermore, all students who go to graduate school are overworked.
Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the statements above?
Let’s start by taking a look at that second sentence: “Furthermore, all students who go to graduate school are overworked.”
Now, imagine that you (very slightly) misread this sentence. Here are a few plausible ways you might have warped the conclusion:
1) Furthermore, most students who go to graduate school are overworked.
2) Furthermore, some students who go to graduate school are overworked.
3) Furthermore, many of the students who go to graduate school are overworked.
And we could go on and on. The important thing is: if you change just one or two words, you might completely change the logic of the passage. The question asks you to infer something from the statements, but inferring something from the actual statement (“all students…”) would be completely different than inferring from that first “misread” conclusion (“most students…”) or the second (“some students…”) or the third (“many of the students…”).
Those tiny turns of phrase – any little modifier that tweaks scope, strength, number, or magnitude in some way – are at the heart of LSAT LR. And if you’re struggling on LR, we’ll bet that you’re missing those little modifiers more often than you’d like.
You might be thinking, “hey, that’s dumb, I would NEVER make that mistake!” And maybe you wouldn’t blast past the word “all” in our little example. But if your Logical Reasoning accuracy is lower than you’d like it to be, we can 100% guarantee that you sometimes miss those little modifiers.
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE MODIFIERS ON LSAT LOGICAL REASONING
So what, exactly, do we mean by “modifiers”?
You’re probably very aware of certain modifiers that indicate “extreme” language: all, nothing, never, only, or always, for example. You might also be pretty good at noticing other, similar modifiers that indicate “less-extreme” language: some, usually, a lot, a few, or sometimes. Those are all pretty obvious, right?
Hopefully, you’re also noticing any language that would indicate a comparison: for example, if something is described as “the best” or “the easiest” or “a better” solution to a problem, that should catch your eye.
But English is a gloriously rich language, offering a limitless variety of potential modifiers: any little adjective or adverb (“unforeseen” or “insurmountable” or “correspondingly” or “economical”) might tweak the meaning of the passage just enough to make a huge difference.
But again, there are no magic bullets here: in the long run, your goal is to develop habits of mind that make you better at noticing the author’s EXACT language in each LSAT LR passage. So before you move on to the answer choices on a LR question, just keep asking yourself: am I paying attention to the author’s EXACT word choice, or am I putting words in the author’s mouth?
HOW STRUCTURAL THINKING CAN HELP WITH LSAT LOGICAL REASONING
If you’re 100% disciplined about paying attention to the logical structure of each LSAT LR passage, that might help you catch the key details of the author’s language. For example, if there’s a conclusion, you’ll want to be 100% clear about the author’s EXACT language. If you miss a modifier or two in the conclusion, odds are really good that you’ll miss the question.
So we recommend asking yourself the following questions whenever you do LSAT LR exercises:
1) What’s the heart of the passage? If there’s a conclusion, what is it?
2) What’s the author’s logic? If there’s a conclusion, how exactly does the author reach that conclusion?
3) Am I really thinking about the argument – and especially the conclusion – in the author’s EXACT words, or am I putting words in the author’s mouth? Is there anything I should notice about the author’s word choice? Are there any modifiers that should jump off the page at me?
As LSAT tutors, we completely understand that this isn’t nearly as satisfying as a nice mathematical formula. But if you stay 100% engaged in this process over the long haul, you’ll ultimately get much better at understanding the author’s precise logic and word choice.
WHAT ABOUT NOTE-TAKING ON LSAT LOGICAL REASONING?
We’ve offered similar advice for LSAT Reading Comprehension, but there is no single, correct way to take notes on LSAT Logical Reasoning passages. Everybody is different. Some people read more precisely when they take tons of notes, because the physical act of writing something down helps them engage in the material. Other people disengage when they start taking notes, and they actually get worse at reading.
So there’s no one-size-fits-all answer here.
The thing that matters: if you’re going to take notes, make sure that they’re rooted in the structure of the LSAT LR passage. If you’re blindly rewriting the passage without actually engaging in the logic and EXACT phrasing of the argument, your notes probably won’t be helpful.
For some people, it can be useful to write down the conclusion exactly as it's stated in each LSAT LR passage. Hopefully, the act of writing down the conclusion will help you to be 100% clear about the structure of the argument, and it will help you to catch any little modifiers that might tweak the conclusion.
And if an argument doesn’t have a conclusion, try to root yourself in the heart of the passage. If a LSAT LR passage asks you to resolve a paradox, then maybe writing down the EXACT paradox will help. If the question asks you to evaluate a researcher’s hypothesis, then maybe it’ll be useful to write the EXACT language of that hypothesis. Again, this might help you catch those little details of language that can make all the difference.
If that doesn’t seem to help, then you might be one of those individuals who doesn’t actually benefit from note-taking. Or you can try one of the many other note-taking formats out there, to see if it helps. And we don’t feel strongly about using abbreviations and symbols in your LR notes – some test-takers swear by them, and others despise them. But we’re sure of this: mindless, detail-filled notes are definitely not going to help you on any section of the LSAT.
If you’re relatively new to the LSAT, remember again that the exam is outrageously time-pressured, and you simply don’t have time to take notes unless you’re 100% sure that they’re helping you. To be fair, efficient note-taking doesn’t necessarily eat much time, and the time you invest is completely worthwhile if it helps you eliminate the answer choices more efficiently. So if note-taking improves your accuracy on LSAT LR questions, feel free to spend those extra few seconds on each passage.
But again: everybody is different. So if you feel that you need to take notes – but you’re not sure that your note-taking habits are helping – keep experimenting until you find an efficient note-taking style that works well for YOU. And if the note-taking clearly isn’t helping your Logical Reasoning performance, ditch it.
DON’T FALL IN LOVE ON LSAT LOGICAL REASONING
Whenever you do anything on the LSAT, you should always look for four wrong answers – not one right answer. If you try to take shortcuts with this process, we can promise that you’ll make mistakes, especially on relatively difficult Logical Reasoning questions.
The easiest mistake to make on LSAT LR is this: you read the question, and an answer pops into your head, perhaps because you’ve done some “pre-thinking.” You immediately notice that, say, answer choice (B) sounds like whatever you were thinking. So you choose (B), and you don’t really read (C), (D), or (E).
Meanwhile, there’s some little tiny modifier in answer choice (B) that makes it wrong. One word can completely change the meaning of a LSAT Logical Reasoning answer choice, right? But if you fall in love with (B) immediately – and fail to be disciplined with the process of elimination – you can easily make a careless error. And careless errors on easy questions can quickly ruin your day on the LSAT.
So we’ll say it again: don’t fall in love. Instead, always make sure that you’ve found four wrong answers on every LSAT verbal question, not one right answer. And yes, you’ll have to read every answer choice if you want to eliminate four of them. But that’s an investment that you absolutely need to make, on every single LR question.
YES, LSAT LOGICAL REASONING IS ABOUT READING SKILL, TOO
We unleashed a long rant about reading skill in our article about LSAT Reading Comprehension, and we won’t rehash all of it here. The bottom line is that there are no magic test-prep tricks that can compensate for shaky fundamental reading skills on the LSAT. When you’re forced to answer roughly 25 questions in just 35 minutes, you’ll need to have a knack for understanding EXACTLY what LSAT LR passages are saying – and if you consistently struggle to make sense of dense “LSAT language”, all of the test-prep strategies in the world won’t help much.
So if your underlying reading skills need improvement, be honest with yourself about it. It might be a sign that you won’t love the reading-intensive lifestyle of lawyers and law school students, or it might mean that you’ll want to invest some time in improving your overall reading skills. For advice on how to do that, check out our reading lists here and here.
HOW TO DEAL WITH TIME PRESSURE ON LSAT LR
If you’re like most test-takers, you’ll agree that time pressure is the LSAT’s most misery-inducing trait. Very few humans can comfortably complete a set of (roughly) 25 Logical Reasoning questions in just 35 minutes, and odds are good that you would absolutely love to find ways to crank through them faster.
However, the one thing you definitely can’t afford to do is cut corners to try to “speed up” on the LSAT. We’ve seen students try all sorts of shortcuts that simply don’t work on LR. For example, it might be tempting to just “read faster” or skim parts of LSAT LR passages, but if you do that, you’re almost guaranteed to misread something important.
Similarly, you might be tempted to just choose the first answer you like and move on, with barely a glance at the remaining answer choices. But again, that’s likely to lead to more unforced errors on questions that you’re perfectly capable of answering correctly.
Instead, think of it this way: as you study for the LSAT, your goal is to maximize your efficiency – not necessarily your speed. “Reading faster” might prevent you from fully understanding the passage, and then you’re more likely to waste time rereading the passage or vacillating between answer choices.
A better approach is to invest in understanding the logical structure of the passage – and the author’s specific choice of modifiers – even if it means spending a little bit more time in your initial reading of the passage. If you can optimize your first attempt at reading the passage, you’ll be far more efficient as you work through the answer choices, and in the long run, you’ll reduce your times and improve your accuracy.
DON’T GET STUCK ON LSAT LOGICAL REASONING
Whenever you struggle with an LSAT LR question, it’s remarkably easy to endlessly bounce back and forth between the passage and the final two or three answer choices. When this happens, you’re likely to be so focused that you might not realize that several minutes are draining off the clock – especially if you feel like you’re really, really close to figuring out the answer.
Remember that you can always return to LSAT questions if you have time left at the end of the section, so be careful not to obsess over any one question. If you’re not making progress after re-reading the answer choices several times, make your best guess, mark the question, and move on. If you have time left at the end of the section you can always come back and battle that tough LR question again.
Keep this in the front of your mind: no single question will make or break your law school prospects, so if you start to feel stuck on an LSAT LR question, guess and keep moving.
STICK TO OFFICIAL LSAT LOGICAL REASONING PRACTICE QUESTIONS
You’ve probably heard this before, too: every LSAT question goes through a ridiculously thorough vetting process, and it can take three or more years for a question to go from the initial writing phase to an actual appearance on the LSAT. It costs thousands of dollars to produce each official LSAT question, and even the very best test-prep companies can’t compete with that investment.
So when you’re doing practice questions, please keep the question source in mind. There are over 80 published LSAT tests available on LSAC’s LawHub, with a grand total of more than 4000 Logical Reasoning questions. This should be more than enough for even the most ambitious LSAT test-taker, so please don’t go looking for unofficial questions so that you can “save” the official stuff for later.
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