More than any other section of the test, the LSAT Logical Reasoning section has a clear mandate that directly pertains to your future as a law student: to make sure you can understand the ins and outs of argumentation. For that reason, one of my favorite LSAT Logical Reasoning tips—indeed, one of the first LSAT Logical Reasoning tips I share with all of my students—is to think of the Logical Reasoning section not as a hurdle you have to jump to get to law school, but as part of your essential preparation for law school. Read more

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.

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On Inference questions, we take what we’re given and, based on it, find the answer choice that is most supported by it (or that “must be true” or “must be false,” or other iterations of these). This is a very different task than the one we face on Assumption Family questions in which we are looking for problems in the given text. On Inference questions, we are explicitly not looking for problems or gaps or holes. We’re taking the text as given—as 100% true, unquestionable. Then, based on all of that unquestionable text, we figure out what’s most likely also true—whether that’s the sentence in (A) or (C) or (E). Here are five different ways of thinking about this same idea.

1. It’s all premise. On Assumption Family questions, we identify the premise(s) in order to accept it/them as true; we don’t question their validity. In this sense, on Inference questions you can think of the entire given text as “premise.”

2. Even opinions are facts. If you see a blatant opinion like “tomatoes are the best food on the planet,” on an Inference question you must take it as fact. In other words, for the purposes of this question, tomatoes are the best food on the planet.

3. Don’t look for assumptions between stated claims. If you are told that “tomatoes are the best food on the planet,” and the next sentence of the given text reads, “Therefore, Annie should love tomatoes more than anything else,” you might be inclined to focus on the gap: just because it’s the best food doesn’t mean it necessarily should be her favorite…maybe she has unusual preferences! On an Assumption question, this would be an excellent strategy on your part. On an Inference question, you’re misguided; because you’ve been told that Annie should love them more than anything—word for word—and you accept this as true, it’s true. Don’t worry that the transition from the previous sentence was jumpy.

4. Smaller is better (or bigger is not better). Sometimes when I ask students why they didn’t choose the right answer to an Inference question, they tell me that “it seemed too close to what was already said.” This is a good thing; small inferences are what you want, while large ones are what you don’t. Don’t make big leaps away from it in order to feel like you’ve adequately “inferred.”

5. Think list of bullet points, not story. Here’s a little secret. I like to think of the sentences in the given text of an Inference question as bullet points rather than as a story or argument with an arc, even if it reads as a narrative. This allows me to treat every stated idea as equally true and valid rather than forgetting that I’m not supposed to assess them in relation to each other (see point 3, above).

Again, these are all ways of saying essentially the same thing—that the given text on Inference questions is, for better or worse, not to be questioned. So turn off that switch and make your mental list of bullet points.

Mary Richter is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in New York City. Mary has degrees from Yale Law School and Duke. She has over 10 years of experience teaching the LSAT after scoring in the 99th percentile on the test. She is always thrilled to see students reach beyond their target scores. At Yale, she co-directed the school’s Domestic Violence Clinic for two years. After graduating she became an associate at Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP in New York City, where she was also the firm’s pro bono coordinator. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Slate, and more. Check out Mary’s upcoming LSAT classes here.