When a stone is trimmed by a mason and exposed to the elements, a coating of clay and other minerals, called rock var...

Ross-Rinehart on June 2, 2022

This a typo we’ll fix. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

I know this is sort of besides the point to this question, but you invoked a misconception about the LSAT that’s a bit of a hobby horse of mine. It’s not true that we should rely “only information presented when dealing with the LSAT.” That advice is overly reductive. In fact, if you read the introductions before each section of the LSAT, they never actually say that. The closest we get to that is in the LR introduction, which says “you should not make assumptions that are by commonsense standards implausible, superfluous, or incompatible with the passage.” That statement implies that you should use your common sense on the LSAT. Indeed, on much of the LSAT, we in fact have to use our common sense and practical knowledge of the real world.

It’s true that we should assume that the premises in arguments are true (even if we know those premises are not true in the real world). It’s also true that, when making an inference on a Must Be True question in Logical Reasoning or Reading Comprehension, we should only use the information in the passage.

However, to understand the information presented in arguments, identify flaws in arguments, strenghten or weaken arguments, and resolve paradoxes, we’ll have to use our common sense and practical knowledge of the real world. For instance, suppose an argument on a Weaken question said, “This town recently introduced a speed limit on its highways, and the highway accident rate dropped by 10%. Therefore, the decrease highway accident rate is due to speed limit.” In that case, the correct answer could say, “Many residents now drive cars equipped with safety features that help drivers maintain control of their vehicles in dangerous situations.” (There are many Weaken questions like this.) To answer that question correctly, we can’t rely on only the information presented in the argument. We have to also rely on our common sense and real world knowledge that cars drive on highways and that cars with safety features might also drop the highway accident rate!

(Sorry for the rant, it’s just unfortunate to me that so many people seem to have this misconception about the LSAT. Hopefully this brings some clarification to your process on LR!)