The Royal Method
A universal approach for the LSAT
Process vs. Content
My approach to the LSAT relies on a fundamental division of two equally important, and sometimes overlapping concepts.
Much of the LSAT prep industry focuses exclusively on content. This is indeed an important piece. Come test day, you need to know the different question types, common flaws, and other patterns of the test.
Overlooked, however, is the process. By process, I mean your fundamental approach to reading every stimulus on the test–regardless of the question type. The chart above shows you my process, but I want to clarify some sticky points.
1. Stop after every bit of information
You have to understand that the LSAT is not written in a way that is easy to digest. Arguments are written poorly, ideas are interrupted, and it sometimes just feels out of order. This is done on purpose–they don’t want you to get every question right.
So, every time I feel like they’re throwing a new piece of information at me, I pause and ask myself “what is this saying?” and “what is this doing in the argument?”. Only then do I move on. Keep in mind, this may mean stopping mid-sentence as if there was a period instead of a comma. We want to break down the arguments into easily digestible parts.
As I’m reading these bits of information, I’m also asking myself if they can be put together somehow. Do these two premises link together to form a causal reasoning chain? Do they seem to be taking me somewhere? It is important to anticipate–whether or not you’re right about where it’s going. You want to make sure you’re having a reaction.
By the time you get to the end of the stimulus, you should already have an idea of what the main conclusion is, and why the premises don’t prove it (this is what happens on 85% of LR stimuli). You should never get to the end of a stimulus and ask yourself, “wait, what happened here?”. Believe it or not, this is the #1 problem students run into.
2. Predict, answer choice elimination
Once I understand the argument, I read the question type and try to come up with a prediction. How useful your prediction will be depends on the question type and the nature of the argument, but it’s generally a good idea to have something.
Finally, I want to be aggressive with eliminating answer choices. I know that for every right answer choice on this test, there are 4 wrong ones. So I’m biased against the answer choices, and expect them to be wrong. The #1 time waster for students is spending time debating answer choices. This is a disaster because they’re psychologically designed to trick you. I would much rather eliminate all 5 answer choices and start again than debate between 2 or more answer choices–at least one of which is guaranteed to be wrong!