LSAT Method of Reasoning questions: describing the move, not the claim

A Method of Reasoning question asks how an argument gets from its evidence to its conclusion. Stems read "the argument proceeds by" or "which one of the following most accurately describes the method of reasoning used". You are describing a technique, not judging it.

This is the closest thing the section has to a grammar question. The answers are sentences about argument structure — "offers a counterexample to a general claim", "undermines a position by showing it leads to an unacceptable consequence", "distinguishes between two senses of a term in order to reject an inference". Your task is to find the one that matches what actually happened on the page.

Method is not Flaw

Flaw questions ask what went wrong. Method questions ask what was done, and the argument may be perfectly sound. Reading a Method stem as though it were a Flaw stem sends you hunting for an error that may not exist, and there is usually a well-written answer describing a plausible error waiting for exactly that mistake.

The two do overlap: some Method answers describe a technique that happens to be faulty, and the type is sometimes written as Method of Argument or Argumentative Strategy. The distinction that matters is what the stem asks you to produce — a description, or a verdict.

The techniques that recur

• Counterexample — a general claim is met with a single case it cannot accommodate.
• Reductio — a position is granted for the sake of argument and shown to lead somewhere unacceptable.
• Analogy — a judgment about one case is transferred to a structurally similar case.
• Ruling out alternatives — competing explanations are eliminated so one remains.
• Appeal to a general principle — a rule is stated and the case is placed under it.
• Drawing a distinction — a term or situation is split in two so a claim can be accepted in one sense and rejected in the other.
• Attacking the evidence rather than the conclusion — the conclusion may still stand; only the support is challenged.
• Conceding a point to isolate the real disagreement — common in two-speaker passages.

The best trap on this type

The strongest wrong answers are accurate descriptions of things that did not happen. They name a real technique, describe it correctly, and are perfectly reasonable sentences. They simply describe a different argument. This is the same trap Flaw questions use, and it works on Method questions for the same reason: you are checking the sentence against your memory of the passage rather than against the passage.

• Half right. The description is accurate for the first sentence and wrong about what follows, and the accurate half is the part you read first.
• Right technique, wrong target. The argument did attack something — but the evidence, not the conclusion, and the answer says the reverse.
• Overstated verbs. "Proves", "establishes" and "demonstrates" claim more than most arguments do. If the passage suggests, an answer saying it proves is describing a stronger argument than the one in front of you.
• Content words. An answer that leans on the passage's subject matter rather than its structure is usually not describing the method at all.

The habit

Before the answers, say what the author did in one plain sentence with the topic stripped out. "She gave an example that the rule can't handle." "He agreed with the first claim and then said it doesn't lead where the other person thinks." Then match. As with Flaw questions, the value of doing this first is that it fixes your reading before five polished sentences get a chance to revise it.

When two answers survive, go back to the passage and check them clause by clause. One of them almost always contains a single word — a verb, or a direction — that the argument does not support.