Formal Logic on the LSAT
Sometimes, a critical reasoning question on the LSAT has an answer so clear that there’s no mistaking it. For instance, the information given in the question has an obvious gap in it, and the test-taker quickly spots the appropriate answer and moves on.
Other times, though, the question seems bizarrely phrased, and all of the answer choices are either too extreme to be possible or so similar to one another that choosing one comes down to a quick Eeny Meeny Miney Moe. In those cases, the key to understanding and conquering the question is often formal logic.
Formal logic, or conditional statements, can be frustrating to the unwary test taker.
In its most basic form, a conditional statement looks like this:
If A, then B.
See? Not so scary, right? But then you have to make a contrapositive of that conditional statement. And the contrapositive of the statement above should look like this:
If not B, then not A.
Okay. So, you’re probably thinking that this isn’t so tricky. And you’re right: at its simplest, formal logic is absolutely understandable. When it gets less simple, it becomes a problem for many test takers.
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