I strongly advise against taking a logic class (before taking the LSATs). I took two years of logic in college (instead of math) and found it WAS applicable to the LSATs. HOWEVER, when it came time to taking the LSATs I wanted to sit there and prove every conclusion. There is no time for such detailed reasoning. During the test, I waded through theory after theory instead of focusing on simple rules of logic; my score suffered as a result. I think you are better off learning the basics from a prep course or prep book. That way you focus just on the logic you need to quickly work through the games and reasoning section.With that said, I loved my logic classes.Just my two cents.
There is some logic in each section, but mainly in games and LR. It is fairly simple logic though, explained in most study guides, and I think your time might be better spent practicing with real tests and beoming familiar with the question and answer types. Good luck.
How does logic help on LR? Dont you mean Logic Games Others have told me this and I dont understand. Give me an example of how logic can help on the LR. I thought it was all about finding the evidence and conclusion.Without going into great detail, yes, the logic of conditional statements shows up often on LR...however, formal logic is not necessary. It helps to know a few things though, especially contrapositives:If A->B then -B->-AChris
On many questions in the LR section, you can reduce them to logic and letters. Some are more obvious than others, like:"Only if the electorate is moral and intelligent will a democracy function well."First, you change it to--as you should know from your logic course--if/then statements. "If a democracy is functioning well, then the electorate is moral and intelligent."As also taught in logic courses, you can just use either A, B and C in your head or written out beside the statement, or you can use the beginning letter of the most significant words (or whatever is easiest for you):If A, then B & C or A--> B & C If F, then M & I or F-->M & IThe question goes something like:"Which one of the following can be logically inferred from the claim above?" in reference to the original statement. Well, as your logic course also teaches, you can see that "and" means it has to be BOTH of them. If even one of those two (moral and intelligent) is not true, then the democracy can't be functioning well. Or, in other words:If -B, then -A or If -M or -I, then -FI know there's something taught in logic that represents when you have a and/or/both situation, but I always don't really remember that one and feel that -B, then -A works much the same and keeps me from having to memorize a whole bunch of logic.By the way, I'm getting this from "10 Actual, Official LSAT Preptests, test IX, section 4, question 4 just to let everyone know and to reference the source.So the answer choices--you look at them, see which one looks most like the formal logic work you know/do...You see that (C) says:"If the electorate is not moral or not intelligent, then a democracy will not function well." Breaking that down to logic, that's going to look something like that "If -B, then -A" concept. They say "or," so that means that one of those is not true when BOTH have to be true. If they said "and"--that's even more obviously the answer.There are tons of other real problems in this book that illustrate logic on the LR section. A good question type to use logic on is parallel reasoning. I was taught in logic that you could turn just about any statement into an if/then statement, so that's all you have to think of many questions in the LR section as.Same test/section, question 24, first sentence (the conclusion):"It now becomes clear that the significant role initially predicted for personal computers in the classroom has not become fact."This looks like a lot, but cut through the crap to break it down to:R--> -F (the Role has not become Fact)This is especially helpful in parallel reasoning because, most of the time, the structure of the answer choice is going to be the same...ie, in this case, it should be something that says:A--> -BThough not obviously written, the main point of the correct answer, which is (D), is that consumers are not using or buying microwave ovens as much, or C--> -U, as well as a few other parallelism that show this as the correct answer over others (because there will often be two answers, or maybe more, that have similar structure, though sometimes one of them might say -A-->B, which is backwards but can still trick someone up). Like others said, you can just learn this kind of stuff from a study guide rather than a course. I also believe that the LR section will take most people more than just finding the evidence and the conclusion. For some people, breaking downstatements like this helps them see the answer more clearly, though.