The LSAT is very much a test of critical reasoning. It wants to know if you just accept what you’re told, or if you’re able to look at facts given and still argue against conclusions. Read more

Each week, we analyze a movie that illustrates a logical fallacy you’ll find on the LSAT. Who said Netflix can’t help you study? 🎥📖

Described on Wikipedia as a “neo-noir crime-thriller film”, with each of those terms hyperlinked to a relevant page, Gregory Hoblit’s 1996 film Primal Fear introduced the world to Ed Norton and made the world forget about Richard Gere’s turn as Lancelot in First Knight, among other things. Read more

Each week, we analyze a movie that illustrates a logical fallacy you’ll find on the LSAT. Who said Netflix can’t help you study? 🎥📖

Since we covered Gravity a few weeks ago, we figured we should also cover its sequel, The Martian. Read more

Each week, we analyze a movie that illustrates a logical fallacy you’ll find on the LSAT. Who said Netflix can’t help you study? 

Before Dawson’s Creek, The Following, and Scream 2, Kevin Williamson forged a name for himself with the classic horror film, Scream. Read more

If you go on one of those windsurfing web sites where the seasoned pros give advice to newbies, you see a lot of conversations like this:

Newbie: “I want to learn how to windsurf. I found someone selling a Ten Cate Sprinter windsurfer for $100. Is this a good board for a beginner?”

Pro: “No! That thing is over 30 years old. It will be too hard to learn anything with a board like that.”

So, there I was a few weeks ago, a total beginner who had never windsurfed before, paddling out into the Chesapeake Bay on an old Ten Cate Sprinter windsurfer. Why? Read more

Each week, we analyze a movie that illustrates a logical fallacy you’ll find on the LSAT. Who said Netflix can’t help you study? 

2013’s Gravity, also known as Neil Degrasse Tyson’s Film Fact Check, is a science fiction thriller from the mind of Alfonso Cuaròn. While not as scientifically rigorous as his earlier film, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (NDT said, and we quote – “I have never seen a film with such obvious attention to scientific detail.”), Gravity did receive plaudits from the astrophysicist for the many things it got right.

Sadly, logic wasn’t one of them. Read more

Every week we bring you a new movie that teaches us about a logical fallacy you’ll find on the LSAT. Who says Netflix can’t help you study? 

Wait a minute, Matt – don’t tell me there’s a logical fallacy in Return of the King!

Read more

Every week we bring you a new movie that teaches us about a logical fallacy you’ll find on the LSAT. Who says Netflix can’t help you study? 

Originally scripted by Rod “I don’t have a nickname because you should know who I am” Serling, Planet of the Apes is the tale of when a group of astronauts stop being polite and start getting killed by walking, talking apes.

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You’re several minutes into the logical reasoning section and on question five. It’s a necessary assumption question. Great! You know how to do those. You read the argument and boil the core down to:

Premise: Richie hates snails.

Conclusion: Richie will stomp on that snail over there.

You are relieved to spot the assumption immediately: If Richie hates something, he will stomp on it.

Reading through the answer choices, you look for one that matches. You get rid of C, D, and E easily. A and B remain, and they both look pretty good because they’re both about stomping and hating snails. Luckily, you know what to do at this point: Negate each answer to see what happens. If negating (making it untrue) wrecks the argument, that means it’s necessary, i.e. your answer!

But wait. B reads, “If Richie hates something, sometimes he kills it.”

You’re at a loss on how to negate that. Do you say, if Richie doesn’t kill something, he doesn’t hate it? Or if he doesn’t hate it, he’ll kill it? Or if he does hate it, he won’t kill it? How do you negate an “if” statement?

To negate a conditional, negate the necessary clause. Leave the conditional clause (the “if” clause) alone. In this case the correct negation would be the third one above: If Richie hates something, he won’t sometimes kill it (or he’ll never kill it, same thing).

What happens to our argument when we put it that way? Destroyed! Answer choice B is correct.

Come back to the blog next week for Part II of Advanced Negation Techniques.

The other day I was working with a student on an Inference question (PrepTest 57, Section 3, Question 13) and as I was describing the strategy for this question type, she said, “Oh, so it’s like Reading Comp!”

Well, isn’t that true.

In this particular question, the LSAT tells us a few things: that still-life painting is best for artists whose goal is self-expression, that this is because the artist can “choose, modify, and arrange” the objects, and that therefore the artist has “more control over the composition” than she would in painting a landscape or portrait. From this we’re asked to infer what’s most likely to be true. In other words, we’re basically being asked what’s most reasonably inferred from the stimulus. That does sound a lot like Reading Comp.

Moving through the answer choices, I then noticed that the wrong answers were, indeed, wrong for Reading Comp-like reasons:

(A) “Most” isn’t supported = TOO EXTREME
(B) “Only” = TOO EXTREME
(C) “Nonrepresentational painting” = OUT OF SCOPE
(D) Correct Answer.
(E) “Rarely” and “background elements” = UNSUPPORTED

These are, of course, also often reasons why answer choices are incorrect to Inference questions. Certainly the comparison between Reading Comp questions and Inference questions in Logical Reasoning isn’t anything extraordinary (or even all that surprising to some of you), but it does seem worth noting for those of you for whom the Inference question strategy still hasn’t entirely clicked. Try treating them like an Identification or Inference question on Reading Comp. They’re essentially the same thing.