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General questions relating to LSAT Logical Reasoning.
 swani
  • Posts: 2
  • Joined: Feb 15, 2019
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#62706
I'm encountering questions where the question gives you a new information and determine what is the correct answer choice. The type of question is reasoning Beyond the text so I assume you need to extrapolate from stimulus and somehow factor the new info to find the answer.
Any technique or strategy that can help me solve this type of q's correctly?
 Adam Tyson
PowerScore Staff
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#62716
I'm assuming that you are talking about questions like this oldie-but-goodie from way back on PT #2, the infamous Danaxil question:

lsat/viewtopic.php?t=8679

Here, the question stem added new facts for us to consider in analyzing the answer choices. If that's what you mean by the question going beyond the text, swani, then the strategy for dealing with them is to treat the stem and stimulus as a single unit. The new facts in the question stem are just part of the overall facts to be considered in your analysis and prephrase. For example, if the stem says "if all of the above claims are true, and if the administrator does implement the new policy, then which of the following must also be true?", then just add to the facts of the stimulus that the administrator implemented the policy. Does that trigger a conditional statement, or a causal one? Does it prove that something else did, or will, or cannot occur? Consider all the facts provided as a single fact set, and proceed from there.

Other than that, all the usual strategies apply, like diagramming conditionals, considering alternate causes, looking for flaws and assumptions, etc.

Do you have any specific examples of Beyond the Text questions that we could look at with you? If we don't already have thread in place for it, we could of course start a new one. Happy to help!
 swani
  • Posts: 2
  • Joined: Feb 15, 2019
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#62788
One of the questions was stated like this: Which of the following underlying reasons for the practices described in the passage is the most reasonable?

The other was written like this: In 1904, a recently appointed first lord of the admiralty attempted to improve the preparedness of the navy despite strong opposition. One could infer from the passage that the reform proposals focused on

So what questions types are considered Reasoning Beyond Questions? (Inference, Assumption, Must be True Q's, etc?)
Which Family Info Model do RBT question types fall into?
 James Finch
PowerScore Staff
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#62801
Hi Swani,

The first question sounds like a Most Strongly Supported type (was it from a Reading Comp section?). The second is a Must Be True. The key difference between the two types is whether the correct answer choice could conceivably be incorrect, ie it makes sense but may be factually wrong, or whether it absolutely has to be true/may be inferred based on what is present in the stimulus or passage. These are both First Family question types that require referring back to the stimulus/passage to "prove" the correct answer: in both cases there will be textual support, but in one that support will necessarily lead to an inference, while in the other there may or may not be an inference, but there should be one answer choice that is much more likely than the others.

Hope this helps!

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