Breaking Down the LSAT: Logical Reasoning

The LSAT’s Logical Reasoning is all about arguments and the test taker’s ability to evaluate them.  You’ll be given a short passage and a question stem.  It’s your job to select the right answer from five possibilities.

Law school students and lawyers make, evaluate, deconstruct, and refute arguments.  The LSAT’s Logical Reasoning is your introduction to this usage of critical thinking skills.  With time and practice, you will learn to identify and understand arguments, evidence, and conclusions.

Specifically, you will have questions about inferences which logically follow a passage:

• What would strengthen or support the argument?

• How is the argument flawed?

• What would weaken the argument?

• Would additional evidence affect the argument?  If so, how?

• What reasonable deductions or analogies stem from the argument or lead to the conclusion?

• What is the author’s assumption or reasoning?

While you can often use the process of elimination to whittle away some wrong answers, you should be aware that the remaining possibilities may be very closely worded.

Tips:

1. Reading the question stem first can serve as a road map for when you read the passage.
2. Think A.C.E.  As you read the passage, it is helpful to label the relevant parts "A" for argument, "C" for conclusion, and “E” for evidence.
3. Reread the question stem and try to deduce the correct answer.
4. Peruse the possible answers for the closest match to your deduction.

Given this section’s complexities, you will need to study for a substantial amount of time before your LSAT test date.  As an LSAT tutor who teaches LSAT prep courses in Chicago, I caution prospective law students that it is not possible to cram for the LSAT.