Answer-Choice Elimination: Contenders, Losers & Reading All Five
Recap: Closing Out Phase 1 Technique
Everything so far has been about generating a prephrase — your own expected answer — before looking at choices. Today's skill is what happens when your prephrase doesn't exactly match any answer: systematic elimination.
1. Contenders vs. Losers
On a first pass through five choices, sort fast into two piles: clear losers (wrong for an identifiable reason) and contenders (not yet ruled out). Don't try to fully verify the right answer on pass one — just clear the obvious wrong ones.
2. Read All Five, Every Time
Stopping at the first choice that "sounds right" is the single most avoidable source of error in LR. A later choice is very often a more precise match to the task.
3. Naming the Reason
For every eliminated choice, be able to state in one phrase why it's wrong (too strong, wrong direction, out of scope, restates a premise). If you can't name a specific reason, you haven't actually eliminated it — you've just disliked it.
4. When Two Choices Both Seem Right
Go back to the stem's exact task and the standard for that family (must-be-true vs. would-help). The tie usually breaks on one choice meeting the standard precisely and the other almost meeting it.
Practice items on this page are curriculum-authored in LSAT style; they are not official LSAC questions. Real drilling happens on LawHub — see the assignment below.
Q1. Two answer choices both seem to strengthen an argument. Choice A clearly strengthens it. Choice B is true and topically related but doesn't actually bear on the argument's logic. Which do you pick?
One drill-tier LR section, untimed. For every wrong answer you eliminate, write the one-phrase reason before moving to the next question.
Tomorrow: the first admissions-strategy checkpoint — real numbers on Georgetown Evening, GW, American WCL, and Scalia Law, and what they mean for the merit-aid math.