Let’s now turn our attention to our general strategy for approaching all types of Logical Reasoning questions. As we said previously, we will later tailor this method to tackle specific question types. For now, let’s get the Essential Strategy under wraps.

It’s not brain surgery, so we feel no need to dazzle you with some flashy method consisting of a mixture of biorhythms, astrology, and Eastern meditation. There are passages, questions, and choices, so we’re going to focus on what you should do with these passages, questions, and choices. Just not in that order.

Step 1: Grill the Interrogator. In other words, read the question first! An LSAT instructor once sent a student down to the corner of a busy metropolitan street and instructed him to wait there for five minutes and then come back to class. After the student had gone, the teacher ordered another student to camp out for five minutes on a different corner and told her to count the number of people she saw wearing white sneakers. After the students returned, the instructor asked them how many people they saw wearing white sneakers. The answers were predictable: Student 1 said “Uh, I dunno . . .” and student 2 said “Seven.” When looking for the answer to a question, you’re in much better shape if you know in advance what the question is. So read the question stem first; it will put you in the right frame of mind to scope out the information you need.

Step 2: Attack the Passage. Many test takers think their job is simply to “read” the passage, but that’s not enough. The goal is not merely to get from the first word to the last but to understand and extract from the passage the information and concepts that will lead you to the correct choice. Reading the stem comes first because the specific question you face will dictate how you attack the passage and what you’ll look for in it. You’ll learn in this chapter how to perform a targeted passage analysis for each of the 11 question types you’ll face.

Step 3: Work the Choices. Depending on the question type and your success with the passage, there will be a number of possible ways you interact with the choices. Sometimes you’ll have a viable prediction in mind, in which case you’ll scan the choices for that idea. Other times, you’ll need to fully evaluate each choice, eliminating common wrong answer types. In other cases, you’ll work backward from the choices, meticulously comparing every element of each to the specifics of the passage. Often, a combination of approaches will prevail. Again, it all depends on the context, but the goal is the same: one choice—the correct one—left standing.

Step 4: Mine the Experience. We’ve included this fourth step as a vehement reminder to review every practice question to reinforce what each one teaches for test day. “Well duh,” you’re probably thinking, “of course I’m going to see if I got it right, and check what I did wrong if I didn’t.” But you’ve got to go beyond that: Did you get it right for the right reason? Did you just get lucky, or is the process you used repeatable in the future? If you got it wrong, was your mistake simply careless, or does it indicate a lack of understanding regarding a particular concept? Each question offers a wealth of information, and the more you get out of each one, the fewer questions you’ll need to do in the long run.