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General questions relating to LSAT Logical Reasoning.
 lathlee
  • Posts: 652
  • Joined: Apr 01, 2016
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#44548
Hello.

My question today is of all flawed logical errors Powerscore lists, which is approximately 30 of them in LR bible,

what would be the top 5 most frequently used logical errors by the LSAC and least 5 Flawed logic errors by LSAC?

I believe in case if a test taker doesn't know what flawed error is used in question stem but can understand answer choice means, this will give a great statistical advantage for all Powerscore users.

I like to to see this question to benefit people who use Powerscore so it would be great to answer using the Powerscore language of describing Flawed Logical errors. Haha
 Jon Denning
PowerScore Staff
  • PowerScore Staff
  • Posts: 907
  • Joined: Apr 11, 2011
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#44620
It varies a great deal test to test, so I'm not sure a "most common" list is as useful as it seems at first glance, particularly if it biases people to expect errors—literally convinces them that certain flaws are coming—rather than understanding the full set and what each looks like, since all of the ones we list are possible. In other words, if you're conditioned to think, say, cause and effect errors are going to appear on your test, that makes you more likely to ascribe causal flaws to situations where they either aren't present or where other errors also exist and are the key to solving the question. So be careful!

That said, I'll give you a few of the more common and less common ones. Keep in mind too that just because an error isn't as frequently-appearing in stimuli doesn't mean you won't encounter it routinely in wrong answer choices, so again it's crucial that people are aware of the full range of possibilities.

Common:

..... Conditional
..... Causal
..... Composition/Division
..... Evidence (particularly "evidence against taken as proving the opposite conclusion true")
..... Source

Less Common:

..... Uncertain use of a term
..... Circular
..... Internal contradiction
..... Appeal fallacies
..... Straw man

Elsewhere you encounter a fair number of survey errors as well as mistakes with numbers and percentages (these are more universal issues that appear in a number of questions beyond just Flaw).

Hope that helps!

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