Struggling with "comprehension" of LR stimulus

[TootyFrooty]

It just looks like a bunch of jargon some of them. any tips?

[Dave Killoran]

That's actually how they want you to feel! So your goal has to be to both decode and understand what all their terminology means. Some of that is straightforward--as you read, try to rephrase what they say into terms you understand. For example, when they say, "The economics of the city's plan fail to take into account the prior adverse outcomes," you turn that into "the city's plan doesn't include past failures." Simplify everything into terms you understand while at the same time not changing the meaning.

The other part is to learn how certain words they use have "loaded" meanings. For example, words like "only," "unless," "sufficient," "cause," and so on are used by them to convey very specific logical concepts (and there are many other similar words). Once you lock in to when they use those terms, it becomes much easier to understand what they are up to.

When you combine to the two pieces above, it all starts to make a lot more sense and feel a lot less like you are reading an encyclopedia

Please let me know if that helps. Thanks!

[TootyFrooty]

This is very helpful thanks. You’re right it does feel like an Encyclopedia.

Are you saying to pause after every sentence and reword in my head?

Is there a list of these logical words I can find in one simple place? I’ve already reviewed the Bible’s except for last 4 chapters of LR.

[Jeff Wren]

Hi TootyFrooty,

I'd recommend pausing after each sentence and rewording it only when necessary.

While there are certainly some sentences on the LSAT that require simplifying, there should also be many sentences that are fairly straightforward and do not require rewording/simplifying. Having to pause and reword every sentence would be both very time consuming and unnecessary.

For example, many (but not all) of the first 10 questions in the LR section are on the relatively easier side and generally are pretty straightforward. As the section goes on, the questions and the language get more difficult and usually require more time.

As for the many words to know for LR, they appear throughout the LR section and throughout The Logical Reasoning Bible based on the particular topic. For example, there are lists of premise and conclusion indicator words, conditional indicator words, causal indicator words, formal logic words, flaw descriptions, etc..

The best thing to do is to study these words as you cover them in each section/topic as they make more sense in the context in which they are discussed.

There is a glossary in The Logical Reasoning Bible which you can go through (after finishing the book) just to make sure that you're familiar with these terms.

[TootyFrooty]

This is very helpful thank you. I got the entire list do you mind listing what else comes after etc? Like conditional causal and then what other ones? Just so I make sure I cover every single one of them.

[Dave Killoran]

Those lists can be found in our courses and LSAT Logical Reasoning Bible, so please refer to those for full lists on each item. There are others on probability and certainty, for example, and all sorts of other argument indicators, but it's beyond the scope of what we can do here to go through the entire book and re-write out each list.

Fwiw, those terms/lists are critical because they are the "road signs" that you can use to understand what is coming next in the argument.

Thanks!

[TootyFrooty]

Ok thanks for emphasising the importance of them.