So, I was driving on my way to a student the other morning. After having listened to Miley Cyrus play for the 3rd time in a span of what was probably about 23 minutes, I noticed the radio station abruptly switched to an ominous piece of background music. This was going to be serious.

“Cover up. A description far more familiar to other countries. Until now. When questions arose about what he and his government knew about torture in Afghanistan, Stephen Harper shut down parliament. Why doesn’t he want to face parliament? What is he covering up? What does Stephen Harper know that he doesn’t want other Canadians to know? For more, go to Liberal.ca.”

http://www.liberal.ca/en/newsroom/liberal-tv/fyU_Y52ro_c~cover-up

You can probably imagine what my first reaction to this happened to be:

“Who’s Stephen Harper, and why is he interrupting precious radio airtime that could otherwise be productively used for playing songs about partying in the USA?”

Once I got past my irritation with the radio station’s misplaced priorities however,  I naturally got to thinking about the questionable reasoning employed here. Because that’s what us LSAT folks enjoy doing.

Now, the conclusion that the advertisement is heavily implying here is that Stephen Harper shut down parliament in order to cover up involvement in, or knowledge of, torture in Afghanistan. On the basis of what?  The apparent fact that the shutdown was timed with when questions began to arise regarding the matter. But, we know better than that, don’t we?

The only real pieces of evidence the argument established here are that there was a particular correlation between two events (questions arising, and Stephen shutting parliament down), and that the former event could arguably cause the latter. This is essentially the most basic of causal flaws. A correlation between two things does not mean causation. There could be any number of reasons that Stephen decided to shut down parliament — the fact that this happened to coincide in terms of timing provides pretty shaky grounding for such a strong implication.

Perhaps he was trying to cover up an affair with an intern?

– Yoni

Yet even taking all that into account, the Law School Admission Test is still by far the most important single event shaping your success in the admissions process. Unless you’re aiming for McGill; you might have caught a break there. Otherwise, this single half-day test will be weighed by law schools almost as much as your entire undergraduate career (in some cases, more). Those countless all-nighters spent ensuring you clinched those A’s in your courses, fueled by little more than rock-solid perseverance and a steady supply of Red Bull, could potentially all be sabotaged by little more than four hours and an unfortunate pattern of answers on a Scantron. To say that the LSAT is a high-stakes test would be an understatement, and a severe one at that.

Interestingly enough, the LSAT doesn’t actually test any knowledge whatsoever, which can be both good news and bad news. The good news is that you don’t have to spend countless hours cramming for this test the few nights before. The bad news is that you can’t spend countless hours cramming for this test the few nights before. This has led to a myth that the LSAT is an aptitude test – one that people are either ‘naturally’ good at, or not. This couldn’t be further from the truth, however. Well, it probably could be, but it’d take some work and likely involve leprechauns. Regardless, the LSAT tests for a very narrow and particular set of skills – skills that, although they take time to develop, are learnable. Most, if not all, people already possess these skills to some extent, but need to further develop and hone them to perform on the LSAT.

Think of it as basketball – even as a horrible player, you can probably dribble and throw the ball around (albeit with questionable accuracy). There’s probably no amount of practice that will turn you into a good player overnight, or even over a week. But give yourself a couple of months and a solid practice routine, and you could probably outplay most people out there. The LSAT is pretty similar – it tests for a skill set that can be developed. Unfortunately, far too many people simply don’t give themselves enough time to thoroughly develop the skills required.

So, how long should you devote to studying for the LSAT? In my personal experience, I’ve found one to three months to be a pretty ideal time frame for most people, so long as you’re able to regularly devote time to studying (at least 10 hours a week). Of course, this will vary with some requiring more and some requiring less, but three months of dedicated study are sufficient for the vast majority. That said, you don’t want to rely on it being ‘probably’ enough time for you, so make sure you have a backup in terms of test dates. The LSAT is administered four times a year, in February, June, September/October, and December. The absolute latest test law schools will take for the following year is the February test, but a significant number of seats are already filled by that point so you generally want to avoid this last ditch effort. The December test is the last one for the following year that will still keep you competitive. Thus, you generally want to either take the September/October test, or even the prior June test; this way, should worst come to worst, you always have at least one test date to which to defer.

Finally – how does one study for a test that requires no knowledge? Find a solid approach and practice. Sounds simple, but both should be done very meticulously. For a solid approach, there are numerous resources available from printed commercial books, online discussion boards, classroom courses, and private tutors (the latter two of which, in terms of shameless promotion, HarvardReady does an excellent job of providing). In terms of practice, make sure to clock plenty of hours; every minute spent on theory should have countless hours spent on practice, which should be accompanied with very careful analysis of every mistake you make.

It’s an arduous process, but with time and effort, the LSAT can be thoroughly beaten; approached properly, it can often turn an application that is mediocre at best, to one that is highly competitive.

- Yoni

Of course, that doesn’t last long and, almost instinctively, you skip over to the next question that doesn’t take up approximately half the page. I mean, it makes sense right? Why bother reading what could pass off for a small country’s entire constitution, when in that time, you can run through at least two or three of the next questions? Maybe even take a short nap?

Well, actually… yeah – that does make sense. Well, minus the nap, that’s just not a good idea — at all. But Parallel Reasoning questions do tend to be time consuming, and if you’re in a crunch for time, skipping them over (even if only to come back to them later) actually could be a wise use of what little time you do have. All that said though, Parallel Reasoning questions aren’t necessarily harder, and with the right approach, they can actually be quite simple.

Let’s first go over the basics. Parallel Reasoning questions require you to… well, parallel the reasoning. This means that logically speaking, the correct answer choice must reach its conclusion in the exact same manner. That means it must rest on the same kind and same number of premises, which are then linked to whatever intermediate conclusions may be there in the same way, which will always lead to the conclusion by the same process. What the correct answer doesn’t have to do is state everything in the same order, so avoid letting that throw you off.

So what now? Well, we start eliminating. What I find to be the most efficient criteria for these questions is to first go by their respective conclusions. We know that the right answer has to reach its conclusion in the same manner, but we also know the right answer has to reach the same kind of conclusion. That means the force and form of the correct answer’s conclusion must match that of the original argument. That means that if the original argument stated ‘Therefore, Jerry must have visited the convenience store’, answer choices (C) and (E), which respectively concluded that, ‘Therefore, Robin is most likely to draw a picture of a dinosaur’ and ‘Therefore, Robin must have drawn a dinosaur, else she drew nothing’, are both wrong.

This process will usually kick off at least one answer choice, but quite often as many as two or three (if you’re lucky, an occasional four), and it will do it relatively quickly. The rest of the way, you’re probably going to have to do some work. From here on out, you’re essentially looking to set out how the argument specifically reached its conclusion, and knock off any answer choices that don’t exactly match that method. Just keep in mind, the ordering of the statements does not have to be parallel, so that’s not a reason to knock off an answer choice. On the easier questions, it will be, but on the harder ones, there’s a good chance it won’t.

Let’s put this to the test. See what you can do with this, and see below for a breakdown:

The only known distributor of Pokémon cards happens to be ‘Distribu-City’. As a result, considering the fact that Belinda only collects Pokémon cards, it’s highly improbable that she’ll ever collect any cards that weren’t originally distributed by ‘Distribu-City’.

Which one of the following arguments is most similar in its reasoning to the argument above?

(A)    The ‘Intensity’ room at ‘Extreme-Gym’ has quite a few ‘Super-Training’ machines available. Because Jeremy would never exercise using any other machine at ‘Extreme’, Jeremy will probably never use many machines outside the ‘Intensity’ room.

(B)    Every ‘Super-Training’ machine at ‘Extreme-Gym’ is located in the ‘Intensity’ room. The only person to use these machines is Jeremy. Therefore, Jeremy may never use any machine outside the ‘Intensity’ room.

(C)    The only machines known to exist in the ‘Intensity’ room of ‘Extreme-Gym’ are the ‘Super-Training’ machines. The only machine Jeremy would ever use at ‘Extreme-Gym’ is the ‘Super-Training’ machine. Therefore, he’s unlikely to use a machine outside the ‘Intensity’ room.

(D)    The only ‘Super-Training’ machines known to be in ‘Extreme-Gym’ are located in the ‘Intensity’ room. Jeremy would never use anything other than a ‘Super-Training’ at ‘Extreme-Gym’, so he’s probably never going to use a machine outside the ‘Intensity’ room.

(E)    Every ‘Super-Training’ machine in ‘Extreme-Gym’ is located in the ‘Intensity’ room. Jeremy is not known to use anything other than a ‘Super-Training’ machines located in ‘Extreme-Gym’. Thus, Jeremy will not use any machine outside the ‘Intensity’ room.

So, first we compare the conclusions. The original argument’s conclusion was: ‘it’s highly improbable that she’ll ever collect any cards that weren’t originally distributed by ‘Distribu-City’‘.

(A) Conclusion: ‘Jeremy will probably never use many machines outside the ‘Intensity’ room‘.

But – the original argument stated it’s highly improbable that she’ll ever collect any cards. Not that it’s improbable that she’ll ever collect many cards. The two conclude with different force, (A) is out.

(B) Conclusion: ‘Therefore, Jeremy may never use any machine outside the ‘Intensity’ room‘.

May never use…? The original argument stated that it’s not just a possibility – but that it’s improbable. (B) is out.

(C) Conclusion: ‘Therefore, he’s unlikely to use a machine outside the ‘Intensity’ room‘.

Highly improbable vs. unlikely is fair, and it’s otherwise absolute, just like the original. We’ll keep (C).

(D) Conclusion: ‘…so he’s probably never going to use a machine outside the ‘Intensity’ room‘.

Same as above. Force of statements is similar in terms of ‘unlikely’ and ‘never’. We’ll keep (D).

(E) Conclusion: ‘Thus, Jeremy will not use any machine outside the ‘Intensity’ room‘.

Well, it’s absolute – but too absolute. The original argument stated this is ‘highly improbable’, not that it won’t happen. (E) is out.

So, now we’re down to (C) and (D). Well, the original argument concluded she probably won’t collect any cards that weren’t distributed by ‘Distribu-City’, because she only collects Pokémon cards, and they happen to be the only known distributer. Because she only collects one type (Pokémon) of item (Cards), and there is only one known source (Distribu-city) for such a type of item, she’s probably going to get it from that source. It’s worth noting that this is actually a reasonable conclusion.

(C) tells us that the Intensity room is only known to have Super-Training machines, and since Jeremy only uses those kinds of machines, he’s unlikely to use machines outside that room. In other words, since a source (Intensity) only has one type (Super-Training) of item (Machine), and since he only uses that one type of item, he must go to that source. But wait, is that the same reasoning? In fact, does that even hold? Just because the Intensity room *only* has Super-Training, does this necessarily mean that Jeremy will likely go there? The original argument noted this was *the only place* to find such an item. This argument notes that this place *only carries that item*. Jeremy could just as easily go elsewhere to find Super-Training machines. (C) is out.

(D) correctly notes that the *only* such known machines can be found in the Intensity room. Since Jeremy would only use such machines, it’s unlikely that he would use a machine outside that room. Credited response is (D).

Largely, the take home message here is that while Parallel Reasoning questions can be time consuming, they’re not always necessarily difficult, and with some aggressive discrimination, the workload they bring can be substantially reduced. Thus providing you with more time to nap. Actually no — still not a very good idea. At all.

– John