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MEGA-list of LSAT logical fallacies

Came across an awesome Logical Fallacy Explainer a while ago:

http://www.yourlogicalfallacyis.com/

I shared it a few months back, but just in case you missed it, I wanted to give it some more attention.

Here's what it is:

A basic, well-designed overview of 24 common logical fallacies, each on a separate page. Whenever you see someone make a fallacy (on Facebook, for example), you can send them the appropriate link.

Obviously, this site isn't tailored to the LSAT in particular, but if you're new to flaws, or you need a refresher, you might find it helpful. The guy who made the site gives funny examples of each fallacy, and it's also in one place, infographic-style.

There's also a PDF of all the site's content, so you can print it on a standard printer.

***Now, just how useful is this for the LSAT?***

LSAT answer choices don't always refer to specific flaws calling them by name like "Ad Hominem."

So there are two steps to solving flaw questions:

Step 1:) Understand the flaw
Step 2:) Spot LSAC's *description* of the flaw in the answer choices.

Some questions describe flaws in the abstract, but, most do speak in terms of the stimulus topic - they'll say things like:

the arguments fails to consider...(something specific to the topic of that argument)

The key is to realize that even when they talk in terms related to argument, they're often refer to a classic flaw.

So, no matter what, it's useful to be familiar with the basic, textbook flaws. This will help you recognize such flaws when they appear, even if the language is in terms of the argument, rather than in the abstract.

I took the next step and matched these flaws to actual LSAT questions, so if you want to see what they look like in practice on the LSAT, here you go!

Big List of Logical Reasoning Flaws in LSAT Questions

Til next time,

Flaw-Spottin' Steve

Recommended Resources:

1. LSAT Courses
The best of my LSAT material with exclusive access to attend my Live Online LSAT Master Classes + Q&As, and on-demand video lessons you can watch anytime. Plus, LSAT study plans to keep you on track. Save hundreds of dollars with an LSAT course package.

2. Logical Reasoning Explanations
The explanations that should have come with the LSAT. These don't just fall back on "out of scope," but actually tell you why the wrong answers are wrong, why the right answers are right, and the easiest way to get the correct answer.

3. Logical Reasoning Cheat Sheet
Based on what I'd typically do in college: read what the professor emphasized and condense it all onto a single piece of paper. It gave me a quick reference, making things a lot less threatening and a lot more manageable.

Coronavirus LSAT Prep: Studying During Quarantine

Take advantage of this time when everything is shut down and you can't really go anywhere. This is your opportunity to buckle down and focus on mastering this exam. If you've got nothing but time, get the PrepTests available on LSAC's site in the Digital LSAT format. You can practice exactly like it's game day from home.

Everything you need is online so all the excuses are gone. If there's nothing else keeping you busy, or you have more free time than usual, sit down and focus. Block off the time in your schedule day by day, week by week, for the next two and a half months till June. Have it all plotted out so there's no ambiguity about what to be doing every single day.

My LSAT study plans will help you do it. They lay out exactly what to do every single day over the course of your prep. I talk about moving from building the foundation to the preparing for Test Day itself. And accuracy comes only after you've got pacing and endurance: pacing is individual timed 35-minute sections while endurance is for those full-length five-section exams so build up slowly, but use my plans to have the road map laid out for you.

If you're scoring low, you haven't built the foundation fully yet. And, in that case, I wouldn't focus on pacing and endurance yet. If you're still in the 130s, there's a lot of groundwork to lay down in terms of gaining basic familiarity with all the different sections and question types.

So slow down, build the foundation (spend at least a month or two on that), and then move into the other phases. June might not be enough time, but ultimately, whether you do June or July or August or October, it doesn't really matter. If you want this bad enough, you'll put in the time that you need to reach your goal.

LSAT Test Day - Getting Ready + the Morning Of

Have your gallon-size Ziploc bag ready to go. Have your pencils, erasers, energy bars, your banana, your 20-ounce water bottle, your admission ticket, your photo, your government ID with your full name, that is also the same exact name that is on your admission ticket.

If it varies even slightly, you could have a problem. So figure that out before the morning of. If there's an issue, email LSAC at lsacinfo@lsac.org

Print out your admission ticket - don't wait until the morning of when you realize your printer's out of ink or you don't have a printer. This is something you could deal with now.

On LSAT Test Day, you're going to want to arrive at your test center early. I wouldn't recommend talking with anyone else because you never know what other people will say, and sometimes strangers are crazy and stressed.

If you encounter someone you'd rather not speak with, say something like, “I'm trying to meditate and focus in my own space right now. Let's chat afterwards.” Then just be in your own zone and meditate. Do your practice problems. Go take a walk. As long as you know where the test center is, you can always circle back just a couple minutes beforehand.

They're going to have you spend take some time to confirm your basic biographical details like your name, address, and the rules. Consider this your moment of zen, and try to relax. At least this isn't the scored stuff.

One last thing - don't drink too much water or coffee before it starts. You don't want to have to go to the bathroom during the test. And make sure you go to the bathroom before you walk in there because you'll likely be nervous (which is to be expected) and not want to go again until the break.

For more, I've got an entire playlist focused on LSAT Test Day prep here -----> and several articles on LSAT Test Day prep here ----->

Should you take "Intro to Logic" for LSAT prep?

Should you take "Intro to Logic" for LSAT prep?

Most of the LSAT is informal logic - and the formal logic part is mainly basic stuff like contrapositives.

I know you're scared. Especially if you scored something like 141 (or worse) on your first practice test. A cold LSAT diagnostic doesn't mean much.

Logic (especially Logic Games) can seem like a foreign language at first.

Without any training, you probably wouldn't do too well on a diagnostic in Aramaic (assuming you don't speak it already).

Same goes for the LSAT. I'd recommend doing some serious prep before taking a serious measurement of where you stand.

There's no reason you can't eventually end up in the 160/170 range.

But there's never ANY reason to take your typical "Introduction to Logic" class in college.

Most of the formal logic these classes teach goes WAY beyond what you'll see on the LSAT. The Latin phrases (like "modus tollens") will only clutter your brain, and the formal diagramming academics use is a waste of time on the LSAT, given its time constraints.

"But what should I major in for law school?"
Whatever you want! You can major in just about anything and go to law school.

People look at charts and graphs...

and walk away thinking they should major in philosophy (or even physics) because people who major in those areas do great on the LSAT.

Question is:

does majoring in a particular subject LEAD people to score better on the LSAT, or....

are science geeks and philosophers the kind of people who are ALREADY likely to do well on the LSAT, before they even chose those majors.

Maybe it's a combination of the two. (Tons of correlation-causation issues here, for those paying attention.)

Personally, physics isn't my cup of tea, and most philosophy is way too dense for me to get through, anyway.

In my opinion, understanding the LSAT is actually MUCH easier than either of those subjects, and if you stick with actual LSAT books and courses, you'll be making a much more productive use of time and effort :)

Forever yours,

LSAT Studyin' Steve

P.S. I know some of you just want to familiarize yourselves with the LSAT without getting into LSAT-specific materials yet, so if you just want to lightly dip your toes into the shark-infested LSAT waters, here are some general non-LSAT books on logical reasoning:

* A Rulebook for Arguments
* Logic Made Easy
* Informal Logic

Recommended Resources:

1. LSAT CoursesThe best of my LSAT material with exclusive access to attend my Live Online LSAT Master Classes + Q&As, and on-demand video lessons you can watch anytime. Plus, LSAT study plans to keep you on track. Save hundreds of dollars with an LSAT course package.

2. LSAT Day-By-Day Study Plans
Preparing for the LSAT is confusing. There are dozens of prep books and practice tests out there, and 1,000+ articles on my website alone. When, and how, should you use them all? These super-specific study plans give you a clear plan of attack.

3. LSAT Checklists
All the little items and details students don't usually think of. They hold you accountable and help you make sure you're not missing anything.

Predicting Your LSAT Score

How many tests should you take to have a good idea of what your performance on test day would be approximately like? So I'll answer it by starting with a different question is, how many tests should you take overall, timed? You should take at least 10 timed exams before test day.

But if you're in the final week before your exam, I'm not saying take 10 exams in a week. (Just take one or two instead.)

If you want to know where you currently stand, what your current LSAT aptitude is, and where you would most likely score on test day if you took the exam right now, what you want to do is you want to take the average of your most recent five exams (assuming you've taken them in a fairly recent period of time).

So, let's say, maybe over the past 2-3 weeks, you've taken five exams (and these are five sections, not four). You take the average of those five exams. That's a pretty good indication of where you currently stand.

Now, LSAC has what they call a score band, which means that, let's say someone's scored a 170. This person's range is approximately 167 to 173, which is a 6-point range. So that person could one day get a 167, the next day get a 173, and LSAC would say the LSAT is perfectly valid, and this is just within our normal realm of score variation. And that comes back to the question of why scores fluctuate.

They fluctuate because each exam only has 100-to-101 questions approximately, but the LSAT tests more than 101 concepts (and they come up in a variety of ways). There are game types that come up once every 10 exams. There are logical reasoning arguments, i.e. methods of reasoning, that only come up once every dozen exams, and there are reading comp topics that come up only once, ever.

So if you respond particularly well or poorly to one of those things and it shows up on your exam, then your score will vary accordingly. If you get a circle game and you hate circle games, maybe that's your 167. If your exam does not contain a circle game and it contains your favorite reading comp topic ever, then you might get a 173, but you're still the same person. And you're probably feeling sharper some days than others.

Based on how you slept and what you ate the night before, whether the person next to you was distracting or not, all of those things make a difference. That's why we need an average. That's why we need a large data set from which to make an estimate. If you did great three days ago and your exam tomorrow goes poorly, that doesn't mean that Test Day will go poorly for you.

For more, I've got an entire playlist focused on LSAT Test Day prep here -----> and several articles on LSAT Test Day prep here ----->

LSAT Coronavirus Pandemic Relief (and Study Schedule)

From now until the coronavirus pandemic is over, I'm giving away day-by-day LSAT study schedules to anyone who makes a donation for the equivalent amount (or more) to one of the following organizations or similar:

-Meals on Wheels

-No Kid Hungry

-Restaurant Workers Community Foundation COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund

-One Fair Wage

-National Domestic Workers Alliance

How to get your LSAT study schedule:
1. Make a donation to any coronavirus relief organization of $19.97 or $24.97 (or more!) depending on which schedule you'd like.

2. Forward me the email receipt from your donation, and let me know the schedule you'd like.

3. Sit back and wait for me to email you the schedule.

You can support an important cause and get a ton of guidance for your LSAT prep at the same time.

How to overcome your fear of LSAT Logic Games

When I was studying for the LSAT, I got so obsessed that I dreamed of doing questions in my sleep. I did every Logic Game ever released, some of them multiple times! For me, this was the key to turning them from confusing puzzles into easy math-like problems.

Then, after I started tutoring, I got even MORE obsessed. I wanted to get inside the testmakers' brains - to understand how they thought.

I became friends with one of them (yeah, he's weird - even weirder than I am), but that still wasn't enough for me....

So I wrote my own Logic Games. I made it my mission to write ones even harder than actual LSAT Logic Games!!! (You can get them here --->).

If you give them a shot, try not to be frustrated or discouraged by these games.

(After all, they are some of the hardest ones.)

The real value in doing them is NOT to measure your ability - it's to learn from them.

The road to success is not a straight line (as my student Jared knows all too well).

Even if you have trouble with them the first time, you can still do fine with LG on Test Day. Think of these games as more stuff to add to your library of LG knowledge.

And, if you've done every Logic Game ever released, remember that repeating games is INCREDIBLY valuable.

The games from before the year 2000 (PrepTest 30 and below) are perfectly good practice, but, overall, remember that more recent = more relevant.

If you're looking for more practice, remember that MOST unofficial games aren't similar to LSAC-written ones. They might also even contain mistakes(!) that make them frustrating, useless and confusing.

The ones I've published (for free) have been tested on thousands of students over the past several years - they do not contain ANY errors and are very similar to LSAC's, so feel free to use those for more practice.

If there's anything you're having trouble with right now, or just want to say "hi," just reach out. I read every message myself.

Very truly yours,

Logic Gamin' Steve

P.S. If you become REALLY skilled at games, here's a fun idea --- purposely do fake games KNOWN to contain errors...and figure out what they are.

P.P.S. Warning: only do this if you become *insanely* skilled at games.

LSAT Prep Distractions and Your Reality

And so, if maybe over the past few weeks you, maybe you go out late one Friday night cause you just needed a break. You had a few too many drinks, then you go take a full length exam Saturday morning cause you feel like you should, even though you're probably not feeling that great and maybe it's not the best use of your time and you're better off sleeping a few more hours, guess what?

The test doesn't go well for you and it's because you're hungover. Your mind is cloudy and honestly you have no one to blame but yourself and I'm sorry to tell you that. But alcohol, drugs, these are not things that you have room for in your life right now if you want to achieve your maximum potential.

And we all know people who somehow are the comeback kid and somehow they're always able to roll off a binge like it was nothing, or they’re a pothead and they smoke every night and they’re still an uber-genius and can still get 175+. Those people, they're super-impressive.

I don't know how they do it. And they might not live to be 80, but most people are not that. I'm certainly not like that. And you might not be either. So what that means is that you need to take control of your mindset. Take control of your schedule. If you're studying for the exam only a few days away, these next 70 to 90 hours, whatever it is, you keep that very rigid.

Block out all the people and things in your life that are not setting you up for success. So if you have some emotionally-draining vampire friend who just wants to tell you all their problems, cut them off for the next few days. Say, “I'm busy. I've got the LSAT coming up, and I will check in with you afterwards.”

And you surround yourself with positive, uplifting people who want the best for you. And that means maybe you block all the narcissists on Facebook who are just trying to show off how concerned they are about the latest political thing. Or they're posting selfies of how great they look with their summer bod.

None of that matters right now. And you don't need to see some artificially-constructed perfect version of someone else's life. You need to sit there with your practice problems and put that positive media in front of yourself and believe me, you're not getting it on Facebook. You're not getting it on the news.

You're getting it from a carefully-curated reality that you've created for yourself (not what Facebook creates for you. You're putting something nice in front of yourself that you want to be there and it's either that, or the LSAT, or a walk in the park and that's all you do the next few days.

You are going into an isolation tank of butterflies and snowflakes. It's not going to be forever, but you need to make this your mission right now. For more, I've got an entire LSAT Unplugged playlist focused on LSAT Test Day prep here -----> and several articles on LSAT Test Day prep here ----->

"You either get it...or you don't."

"You either get it...or you don't."

That's the #1 thing I hear from students who think they don't have "what it takes" to ace the LSAT.

Now, I spent over a year studying for this damn test...and at least half was a complete waste of time.

And when I first started out, I got a diagnostic score that made me feel like a complete idiot.

But my hard work eventually paid off. Something finally CLICKED, I got the "LSAT Mindset," and ended up scoring a 175!!!

So...don't tell me you can't learn this.

If it doesn't come to you naturally at first because you're not one of those natural-born geniuses who just "gets" it....don't worry.

You're not doomed to failure. I'm living proof (along with hundreds of other students) it's possible to increase your score 20-25 points or more ----

Even if you've never studied before - or you tried other strategies and prep companies before - or you're retaking. (And even if, like a lot of my students, you've fried your brain watching reality TV for the past 10-15 years.)

You have what it takes. We all do.

Scholars have actually hypothesized that logical reasoning abilities are an evolutionary adaptation.

This means we're all born with the ability to reason (some people more than other, obviously).

No matter how much you're struggling...even if you're starting off at 141 or worse like my former student, Dan.

You can still improve significantly - I'm talking 25+ points!!!

And the benefits of getting that LSAT mindset pay off BIG time in the long term -

Because it turns out LSAT studying makes you smarter in general.

The image above is from a study demonstrating the improvements in your reasoning ability extend FAR beyond the LSAT.

They'll help you in law school and in your arguments with family, friends, and significant others :)

So keep at it. And if you're struggling with anything in particular, just reach out and let me know. I'll do my best to answer your questions in the near future :)

Very truly yours,

Steve "smarter-than-he-was-before-the-LSAT" Schwartz

Recommended Resources:

1. LSAT CoursesThe best of my LSAT material with exclusive access to attend my Live Online LSAT Master Classes + Q&As, and on-demand video lessons you can watch anytime. Plus, LSAT study plans to keep you on track. Save hundreds of dollars with an LSAT course package.

2. LSAT Day-By-Day Study Plans
Preparing for the LSAT is confusing. There are dozens of prep books and practice tests out there, and 1,000+ articles on my website alone. When, and how, should you use them all? These super-specific study plans give you a clear plan of attack.

3. LSAT Cheat Sheets
Based on what I'd typically do in college: read what the professor emphasized and condense it all onto a single piece of paper. It gave me a quick reference, making things a lot less threatening and a lot more manageable.

Fun with correlations

Correlation vs causation....

is kinda like a chicken or egg problem. We have two things that are ASSOCIATED, but we don't always know whether:

* one thing causes the other, or

* vice-versa, or

* whether they're caused by. a THIRD thing, or

* whether it's just a big coincidence!

We come across this issue all the time when we try to make inferences about causality, or question those inferences...in other words, trying to figure out why things happen.

We see this in attempts to....

* link teen violence to soda consumption

* figure out why city kids are more likely than rural kids to have food allergies

* even to claim that girls who post more Facebook photos value their appearance more!

Obviously, some claims are stronger than others.

My favorite example is this study claiming that coffee drinkers may live longer, since it avoided many typical Logical Reasoning flaws...

and because I like to drink coffee :)

So, read these studies carefully. The LSAT Logical Reasoning section makes lots of them :)

-Skeptical Steve

P.S. Reach out and send me the best article you've come across lately featuring correlation/causation issues. I'm always looking for more examples :)

Want to increase your LSAT score? Get my free Easy LSAT Cheat Sheet today.