LSAT Analytical Reasoning

Class Location: The Internet.

Description: This course is designed to help students prepare for the Analytical Reasoning section of the LSAT.

Objective: Score well on the Analytical Reasoning test.

The analytical reasoning section of the LSAT is also commonly referred to as the logic games section. It consists of one 35-minute section of about 21 or 22 multiple-choice questions. This section tests your ability to understand a structure of relationships and then draw conclusions about that structure. The questions are designed to reproduce the kinds of detailed analyses of relationships that you’ll need to complete to solve legal problems as a law student. The idea is to give law school admissions committees an accurate assessment of how well you’ll perform at the tasks required to succeed in law school.

The test will provide you with a set of rules, statements, or conditions that outline relationships among the various elements of a group, such as people, places, things, or events. The questions will then ask you to make deductions from the information provided. You will generally be required to group or order each set’s elements whose number may or may not be known.

For example, the test will provide you with a set-up, such as, “There are five people who may attend a lunch.” This will be followed by a series of condition statements, such as, “If Mary attends, then Steve does not attend. If Rita is present, then Ralph is also present.” The questions will then ask you to draw a series of conclusions from the information provided, for example, “What is the largest number of people who could attend the lunch?” Each question may add or change the information you already have, testing your ability to quickly reorganize information and relationships.

LSAT test-prep companies usually market the analytical reasoning section as the one for which test-takers can most benefit from coaching and professional training. As a result, the LSAT has made this section increasingly difficult, so much so that tests from even a decade ago will have little value as training tools for this section on current LSAT exams.