LSAT Flaw in the Reasoning Questions, Explained
Flaw questions hand you an argument and ask: what's wrong with it? You're not fixing the argument — you're naming the exact mistake the author made. These are among the most common LR questions, and they reward a very specific habit: reading for the gap between what the evidence says and what the conclusion claims.
How to approach them
- Find the conclusion first. Ask: what is this person trying to convince me of?
- Find the evidence. Ask: what reasons do they actually give?
- Name the gap. The flaw is almost always the jump from evidence to conclusion — confusing correlation with causation, attacking the person instead of the argument, assuming what needs to be proved.
- Match your gap to an answer. The right answer describes the flaw abstractly ("takes a correlation to establish causation"). Don't pick an answer that's true but doesn't describe this argument's mistake.
The trap to watch for
The most common trap describes a flaw the argument didn't commit. It sounds like a real logical error — and it is — but it's not this argument's error. Always check the answer against the actual stimulus, not against your general knowledge of fallacies.
Know your starting point
Take the free diagnostic — you'll see exactly which question types are costing you points, including flaw.