LSAT Main Point questions: finding the claim everything else supports

A Main Point question asks which answer expresses the argument's conclusion. Stems read "which one of the following most accurately expresses the main conclusion of the argument". These look like the easiest questions in the section, and they are — until the conclusion is not where you expect it.

The conclusion is not always last

Test writers know students read the final sentence and stop. So the conclusion is frequently in the first sentence, or the middle, with the last sentence being a further consequence, a concession, or a restatement of someone else's view.

The reliable test is support, not position. Ask of each candidate sentence: does the rest of the passage exist to make me believe this? The sentence everything else props up is the conclusion, wherever it sits.

The opposing-view opening

A very common shape: the passage opens with a claim somebody else makes, then turns and argues against it. "Many people believe the new rules reduced delays. But the delays fell only on routes that were already improving." The first sentence is the most quotable thing in the paragraph and it is the opposite of the conclusion.

Watch for the pivot words — but, however, yet, although, in fact. What follows the pivot is usually the author's own position, and the material before it belongs to somebody else.

Why the right answer often sounds flat

Correct Main Point answers are frequently the least exciting choice on the page: hedged, narrow, faithful. That is a feature. The conclusion is a specific claim with a specific scope, and an answer that sharpens it into something bolder is no longer the author's claim.

• The topic, not the claim. Names what the passage is about without asserting anything — a heading, not a conclusion.
• A premise. True, stated in the passage, and doing support work rather than receiving it. The single most common wrong answer here.
• The opposing view. Lifted from before the pivot.
• Overstated. The author's hedged claim promoted to a certainty, or its scope widened past what was argued.
• A consequence the author never drew. Reasonable follow-on, not the thing the argument was for.

The habit that makes these fast: after reading, say "the author is trying to convince me that ___" in one sentence, out loud, before looking at the choices. Then pick the closest translation of your own sentence — not the most impressive one on the page.