How to get faster at Conditional Reasoning in general?

[willmcchez]

Hey all,

So, I feel as though I understand conditional reasoning fairly well, at least as it applies to the LR sections. When conditional statements come up and I can't immediately understand them in my head (this often happens when there are chains with more than 3 statements), I resort to diagramming.

Take for example June 1995, LR 2, #26. This is actually a fairly complex chain (4 statements) and the answer choices refer to the same 4 statements, but rephrase them in different ways so that the abbreviations used would no longer be relevant.

I did this question untimed and got the correct answer, but it legitimately took me 15 minutes to complete. This is sort of a roundabout way of asking the following:

"How do I get FASTER and more accurate with Conditional Reasoning?"

I'm sure the answer is practice, practice, practice, but are there any tips or techniques that any of you all have used? I spoke with someone at some point who said that they don't even need to diagram anymore, that the diagrams just sort of appear in their head after a while. How do I get there?

Thanks -- and Happy New Year!!

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Will,

It's late in the day, so I'm going to post a reference to a reply I've written before on conditional reasoning, which is just a start here: lsat/viewtopic.php?t=15899&p=41646. Reading that will start giving you some ideas on how to see these ideas in action, which is the first step.

Most of this is about being exposed to these ideas for a while and then also being able to see how the ideas work in certain situations, which comes from experience and practice. It's like learning to drive: at first that seems really tough, but over time it becomes second nature!

Thanks!