Friday, December 20, 2013

Question Type Variety


One of the aims of the test makers is to keep you off-balance. An unsettled,
frustrated test taker is prone to making mistakes. By mixing up the type of
questions you face, the makers of the test can keep you from getting into a
rhythm. Imagine how much easier the Logical Reasoning section would be if
you faced twenty-five consecutive Must Be True questions. For this reason,
you will always see a spread of questions within each section, and you will
rarely see the same question type twice in a row. Since this situation is a fact
of the LSAT, before the test begins prepare yourself mentally for the quick
shifting of mental gears that is required to move from question to question.
“Most” in Question Stems
Of course, every once in a while two answer choices achieve the desired goal;
in those cases you simply choose the better of the two answers. , the difference
between the two answers is significant enough for you to make a clear distinction 

as to which one is superior.
Many question stems—especially Strengthen and Weaken stems—contain the
qualifier “most.” For example, a typical question stem will state, “Which one
of the following, if true, most weakens the argument above?” Astute test takers
realize that the presence of “most” opens up a Pandora’s box of sorts: by
including “most,” there is a possibility that other answer choices will also meet
the criteria of the question stem (Strengthen, Weaken, etc.), albeit to a lesser
extent. In other words, if a question stem says “most weakens,” the possibility
is that every answer choice weakens the argument and you would be in the
unenviable task of having to choose the best of a bunch of good answer
choices. Fortunately, this is not how it works. Even though “most” will appear
in many stems, you can rest assured that only one answer choice will meet the
criteria. So, if you see a “most weakens” question stem, only one of the
answers will weaken the argument. So, then, why does “most” appear in so
many question stems? Because in order to maintain test integrity the test
makers need to make sure their credited answer choice is as airtight and
defensible as possible. Imagine what would occur if a question stem, let us say
a Weaken question, did not include a “most” qualifier: any answer choice that
weakened the argument, even if only just very slightly, could then be argued to
meet the criteria of the question stem. A situation like this would make
constructing the test exceedingly difficult because any given problem might
have multiple correct answer choices. To eliminate this predicament, the test
makers insert “most” into the question stem, and then they can always claim
there is one and only one correct answer choice.

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