The Loophole in LSAT Logical Reasoning

When I decided to start prepping for the LSAT, the first thing that stressed me out was the sheer number of resources out there—books, courses, practice tests— some of which costing hundreds or thousands of dollars. I didn’t know where to start. But since the new LSAT format eliminated logic games in favour of an additional logical reasoning section, I figured I should focus my efforts on mastering LR. This book was the highest rated LR resource I could find, and three months later I fully understand why. Everyone’s journey with this text will probably be different. It’s very multifaceted, covering the topic from many different angles that build on each other and then eventually converge. You may get more mileage from some concepts than others. In my case, I found that the breakdown of different question types (namely “powerful” vs. “provable” questions and the different things to consider for each) really made things click for me. I went from getting more LR questions wrong than right at the diagnostic stage, to consistently swinging 22-23 out of 25 on full LR practice sections. This improvement carried over into my final test score. So my main point is this: amongst all the other LSAT prep options out there, I would highly recommend just buying this book. Since there are less “tricks” to nailing reading comprehension (aside from lots of practice), there’s a good chance this is will be the only resource you will need to spend money on. I know there are courses out there that back up their high cost with big promises. I was as tempted by them as you might be. But if this book can carry me to the finish line, I’m sure it can do that for you too.

I've been studying for the LSAT for a while now. While I haven't gotten my dream score and I haven't finished studying, I feel that this book has been an invaluable aid in my LSAT journey. I started out with Mike Kim's LSAT Trainer, which was big and daunting (in fairness, you don't have to read the Logic Games sections anymore). I remember chugging through the book and feeling semi-dazed after completing it. I thought I would be ready to take the test after finishing his book, yet I still didn't feel confident when I approached the questions. While I will probably review his section on RC, I found his extensive categorization of different LR questions to be hard to remember and harder to implement. My next phase of studying was with 7Sage. I completed the Foundations course offered by J.Y., and it was certainly informative. I'm grateful for the level of depth that J.Y. went into in his videos. He covered loads of interesting and useful concepts on the test, and he's a really intelligent guy. The problem for me was that it just became a little too theory-heavy, and at some point, after watching hours and hours of his curriculum, my eyes would start to glaze over. It reminded me of watching Zoom lectures during COVID. Even after completing Foundations, I still (!) felt shaky with LR questions. I found myself misreading the stimulus, making simple mistakes, and failing to understand what I was reading. And that's where The Loophole comes in. After poking around on the LSAT subreddit (as one does), I saw Ellen's book recommended by a couple of folks. I was intrigued by the notion of focusing primarily on the stimulus rather than the question stem (the stimulus, after all, is where the majority of information in a given question is contained). As someone who studied English in college, this approach just felt more intuitive to me. I realized that a lot of the trouble that I've been having with LR questions is just understanding what in the world these dense little blocks of cryptic prose are saying, under time pressure! (I can read John Milton or James Joyce, but seriously, some of these LSAT stimuli are infuriating.) I'm currently practicing Translation + CLIR drills. For the uninitiated, this means putting the stimulus into your own words and breaking it down. Ellen describes the CLIR process in an approachable and thoughtful way. While I will transition to taking practice tests soon, these translation drills have been important for me in building confidence in reading and understanding (or at least, attempting to understand) these challenging stimuli. It is worth noting that, while the book does encourage you to write out your translations by hand, the Elemental team now encourages you to time yourself and record yourself speaking out loud. For the monstrous stimuli, I will still jot a few notes down on scratch paper. I found Ellen's book to be highly readable. She uses some funny examples in earlier sections and has (in my opinion) a good sense of humor. Other reviewers have noticed that the margins of the book are rather narrow, such that the text runs rather close to the binding. This can be easily remedied by purchasing and using a wooden book stand (I got mine from H&S on Amazon), which also makes reading more enjoyable in general. While working through The Trainer felt like a slog (a little like Murakami's 1Q84), I didn't feel that way while reading The Loophole. Perhaps it's because I had a foundation already, but it felt much smoother to read and work through. I think the book manages to be informative and clear as well as relatively fun to read, which is something I never thought an LSAT prep book could be. If you're just starting your LSAT journey, or if you've been studying for a while now but are feeling stuck with how to approach LR, you should consider trying The Loophole. I think it's worthwhile to hear Ellen's perspective, and the book is filled with plenty of valuable nuggets, like the CLIR or SW SCCER. Even her breakdown of sufficient-necessary was much easier to understand for me than 7Sage. Plus, there are funny jokes in the margins. Give it a shot.

The Loophole helped me a lot with my understanding of LR in general. Translation and CLIR drills made me realize that I need to predict an answer before attempting the answer choices. And now I’m planning to use the method for RC. Thank you!

This is the best LSAT book I found BY FAR. Get it!!! I'm so grateful to have found it. I studied for 3-4 months using other materials and found that the more I studied, the worse my score got?? This was confusing and demoralizing, and I was considering canceling my scheduled test. Then, I stumbled upon this book in my last month of studying. It helped me realize I needed to focus less on memorizing question types ("is it a must be true?") and more on reading the passage accurately (and retaining it) on the first try. This shift in attitude helped me break through my plateau. The book has a few excellent reading & retention drills (which I've never seen in any other test prep material) that wildly improved my ability to keep the passage accurately in mind after one read. Ellen also offers a very useful strategy for *predicting* the answer to the LR questions before looking at the answer choices. This strategy worked super well for me. During my practice tests, I counted how often this "prediction" was actually literally the correct answer (or close to it) - it ended up being correct for around 20/25 questions in each section. That's huge and saved me so much time (and stress) looking at answer choices. I ended up taking the April test and got a 175! I felt confident in my LR sections during the test and attribute this largely to Ellen! More about the book: - It helps you improve your reading (and retention)!!!! This was the game changer for me. I'd always thought of myself as a fast and accurate reader, but skimming to save time was causing me to waste time in the answer choices. I'd often end up stuck between two answer choices, because of slight misreads in the passage. Ellen offers two drills to help you read passages accurately and retain them on the first try. I dropped all other studying for two weeks to just do those drills and single-handedly raised my score by 5 points. Her reading drills also helped me finish sections on time! When I took the test, I ended up having extra time on the LR sections (which was a big jump up from previously not finishing sections on time at all). - The book gives you a strategy for decoding the horribly written sentences on the LSAT. I used this to great effect when I hit passages that felt like the passage could have been read two different ways and so I couldn't initially answer the questions. - The book has useful high-level categories for common questions. I found these categories more accurate and less confusing than the categories that 7-Sage or The LSAT Trainer offered. - It helps you recognize common *trap* answer choices. Most other test prep materials I used didn't talk much about answer choices. Having Ellen lay out common incorrect answers helped me feel more confident eliminating. - It helps you find flaws with arguments and guess answers in advance. This saves a lot of time in the answer choices. Other test prep materials also emphasize this, but Ellen's CLIR framework goes one level further in teaching you how to predict answers/find flaws for each of the 4-main types of LR questions. As one simple example: previously, I was trying to find flaws in arguments where I should have been making inferences / diagramming (and I hesitated to make inferences, because I was worried I'd waste time). Learning when to make inferences right off the bat instead of try to figure out what's wrong with the argument saved me time. - I really appreciated Ellen's dedication to understanding the test and test-taker failure modes. I found her tone inspiring and her advice fit me like a glove. It's clear she studies her students to figure out where they need help, then develops generalizable frameworks and strategies. I sometimes felt like other test prep materials were brushing off my lack of understanding - essentially just saying "well the answer is this, okay" or providing explanations that felt like cop outs. When I was stuck, this was frustrating and not helpful. By trying hard to understand the mentality of the student, I felt like Ellen's book was the thing that offered me a concrete and actionable path to a higher score. Thanks, Ellen, for your book, your thoughtfulness about the test, and your all around love of the LSAT!!

Awesome and straight forward book for the LSAT. Easy to follow and understand the content of each chapter.