Posted on January 21, 2013 by Anthony Ritz
A few months ago I wrote some words about qualifiers. These little words — words like “some,” “many,” “most,” “few,” “maybe,” and “probably” — somehow manage to be both often-critical and often-overlooked on standardized tests like the LSAT, the GMAT, and the GRE. I discussed spotting these words and went on to point out the existence and importance of hierarchies among the various qualifiers.
There’s one more twist, though, that we have yet to address…
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Tags: Formal Logic, GMAT, GRE, Logical Reasoning, LSAT, Qualifiers
Posted on August 13, 2012 by Anthony Ritz
Building off the formal logic posts of the last two weeks, today we’re going to discuss the LSAT logic game found at PrepTest 58, Section 3, Questions 7-12 (10 New LSAT, page 241).
This is a fairly simple In-and-Out game (also known as a Selection game). Such games often involve heavy doses of arrow diagramming, and this one is no exception. Take a quick read of the setup and then let’s turn our attention to the rules.
The rules of this game can be diagrammed in straightforward fashion as follows:
1. R→M
2. M→T
3. !S→V
4. !R→L
5. T→(!F and !V)
Let’s turn to the questions now.
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Tags: Analytical Reasoning, Complete and Accurate Lists, Counting (In-and-Out), Formal Logic, In-and-Out Games, LSAT, Question Analysis
Posted on August 6, 2012 by Anthony Ritz
Last time, on Formal Logic:
* We learned that formal logic is an important part of the LSAT.
* Arguments were broken down into propositions, which were shorthanded by capital letters and manipulated using operators.
* Finally, negation and arrow diagrams burst onto the scene, leading to a shocking revelation: A→B says nothing about what happens in the “not A” case!
But what other arrow diagram is equivalent to A→B? How can arrow diagrams be combined? Will we ever finally see an LSAT question example? Does Anthony have his umbrella?
These questions and more will be answered… tonight.
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Tags: Analytical Reasoning, Formal Logic, Logical Reasoning, LSAT
Posted on July 30, 2012 by Anthony Ritz
The facts are the least important part of the LSAT.
It’s one of my favorite refrains, because it challenges students to rethink their approaches to the test and create real change in their results. And sure, it’s a slight exaggeration — the facts do matter, at least in some ways — but it’s more true than you might think. A successful approach to the LSAT starts with consideration of logical structure and runs through qualifiers, connecting words, and question types before ever arriving at the sort of fact-based considerations by which too many test takers live and die.
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Tags: Analytical Reasoning, Formal Logic, Logical Reasoning, LSAT