Flaw Types List and Examples

[kmaikristofferson]

Is there any slide I could have that identifies the following flaw category types with examples? I can't seem to find it in the recording or the interact. I'm trying to speed up my LR skills by recognizing patterns... some of them are clear by the name but others not so much.

1) Part to Whole
2) Whole to Part
3) Numbers Flaw
4) False Equation
5) False Dilemma
6) Absence of Evidence
7) Representation Flaw
8) (Other common LSAT flaw type I may have missed)

Thanks!

Mai

[tommywallach]

Hey KM,

We don't organize questions by type of flaw. You're right that such a thing could be useful, but at the same time, if you knew what type of flaw was in the argument, you would automatically know the answer, so it would kinda defeat the point of the question/example anyway.

-t

[kmaikristofferson]

Hi T,

Thanks for your response, although I'm left a little confused. First, these categories definitely came from notes I took in class so I didn't just make them up or find them online randomly, someone from the Manhattan team mentioned them, by name, as common flaw types.

Moreover, I'm not sure why having a name for a category would defeat the purpose of finding the flaw. Say for example I have a matching question and I identify that its a "whole-to-part" flaw, then I can organize my thoughts and accelerate the process by knowing, "okay I'm looking for another whole to part flaw." Would this defeat the purpose?

My study time can probably be better spent elsewhere, so I won't push for these notes if my thinking behind the request really doesn't resonate with you, but I would like to better understand why the disadvantages outweigh the advantages.

With appreciation,

[tommywallach]

Hey KM,

The majority of LR is made-up of flawed arguments (assumption, strengthen, weaken, match the flaw). The main goal of all these questions is to figure out what the flaw in the argument is. It's true that you then have to go a further step (Well, on assumption questions, you actually don't, but on every other flaw-based question, you then have to figure out which answer strengthens by mitigating the flaw, or weakens by exacerbating the flaw, or matches with the given flaw). But in every case, finding the flaw is an enormous part of the battle. If we categorized questions by flaw type, it would remove the majority of the difficulty of the question. Of course we mention the flaws in class, because you should know them. But we can't organize the questions that way without effectively destroying them as questions.

-t

[king_matt]

This may be what the OP was looking for / referring to.

https://www.manhattanprep.com/lsat/blog ... -the-lsat/

Hope this helps.