How to improve, master LR

[interestedintacos]

Quick question: Using justify the conclusion/sufficient assumption questions as an example, despite the fact that many of those questions can be broken down into their formal logic components, would you say a person who intuitively gets most of them correct without making the formal logic explicit (diagramming or otherwise drawing out the exact relationships in the argument) should keep using his/her intuition or switch approaches?

Would it be worth it to spend the time and effort to change approaches, possibly causing more time to be spent on each question, but perhaps getting eventually a higher rate of accuracy?

What would you say based on experiences with many students?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Good question, and the answer depends on when you're taking the LSAT. If you're taking it tomorrow, no way! If you're taking it in June or possibly October, then I would suggest that you master conditional logic. It is the most useful tool I have in the LR section. I use it not just on Sufficient Assumptions but also on the following question types:

Inference
Must be False
Principles
Sufficient Assumptions
Necessary Assumptions (occasionally)
Identify the Flaw (occasionally)
Match the Reasoning/Flaw

It's just too important to ignore...

Good luck with your prep!

[interestedintacos]

I have a good understanding of conditional reasoning. In fact, that means I'm usually able to analyze it in my head without drawing a diagram and putting the relationships on paper. For logic games I of course put it on paper, but it doesn't seem to help very often to put it on paper in LR, aside from a few questions. Are you drawing out diagrams all the time on those questions?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

No, not at all. I draw out representations for some LR questions, but only 3-4 per section. That means that for the other 21-22 questions I'm not using any notational device to assist with finding the correct answer.

That said about 5 questions per LR section test conditional logic. While that doesn't sound like a lot, that's the most frequently tested concept in LR and makes up about 20% of LR questions - so it's important to be comfortable with it.