The Analytical Reasoning (AR) questions are designed to assess your ability to consider a group of facts and rules, and, given those facts and rules, determine what could or must be true.

AR questions appear in sets, with each set based on a single passage. The passage used for each set of questions describes a scenario involving ordering relationships or grouping relationships, or a combination of both types of relationships. 

Examples might include scheduling employees for work shifts, assigning instructors to class sections, ordering tasks according to priority, or distributing grants for projects.

The specific scenarios and questions in this section are usually unrelated to law, since they are intended to be accessible to a wide range of test takers. However, these questions test skills that closely parallel those involved in determining what could or must be true given a set of regulations, the terms of a contract, or the facts of a legal case in relation to the law.

In this sense, AR questions reflect the kinds of detailed analyses of relationships and sets of constraints that a law student must perform in legal problem solving. For example, an AR passage might describe six diplomats being seated around a table, following certain rules of protocol as to who can sit where. You might then be asked to answer questions about the logical implications of the rules as they apply to the scenario. For example, you might be asked who can sit between diplomats X and Y, or who cannot sit next to X if W sits next to Y.

Similarly, in law school you might be asked to analyze a scenario involving a set of particular circumstances and a set of rules that apply to the scenario — rules such as constitutional provisions, statutes, administrative codes, or prior rulings that have been upheld. You might then be asked to determine the legal options in the scenario: what is required given the scenario, what is permissible given the scenario, and what is prohibited given the scenario. Or you might be asked to develop a “theory” for the case: When faced with an incomplete set of facts about the case, you must fill in the picture based on what is implied by the facts that are known. Sometimes you will be asked to assess the impact of hypotheticals that add new information (as in the example above: If W sits next to Y, then who cannot sit next to X?).

AR questions test a range of deductive reasoning skills:

Comprehending the basic structure of a set of relationships by determining a complete solution to the problem posed (for example, an acceptable seating arrangement of all six diplomats around a table)
 Reasoning with conditional (“if-then”) statements
 Inferring what could be true or must be true from given facts and rules
 Inferring what could be true or must be true from given facts and rules together with new information presented in hypotheticals
Choosing a new rule to substitute for an existing rule, with logically equivalent effect

AR does require rigorous logic, but you do not need any formal training in logic to answer these questions correctly. The logic in question can be learned from practicing the materials and using knowledge, skills, and reasoning ability generally expected of college students and graduates.

Suggested Strategies for Approaching Analytical Reasoning Questions

Strategies for Reading

Read the passage carefully. Careful reading and analysis are necessary to figure out exactly what the relationships are in an Analytical Reasoning passage. Some relationships are fixed (for example, P and R must always work on the same project). Other relationships are variable (for example, Q must be assigned to either team 1 or team 3). Some relationships that are not stated explicitly in the conditions can be deduced from those that are stated (for example, if one condition about paintings in a display specifies that Painting K must be to the left of Painting Y, and another specifies that Painting W must be to the left of Painting K, then it can be deduced that Painting W must be to the left of Painting Y).
In reading the conditions, do not make unjustified assumptions. All the information needed to answer each question is provided in the passage and the question itself. For instance, in a set of questions establishing relationships of height and weight among the members of a team, do not assume that a person who is taller than another person must weigh more than that person. As another example, suppose a set involves ordering and a question in the set asks what must be true if both X and Y must be earlier than Z; in this case, do not assume that X must be earlier than Y merely because X is mentioned before Y.
The conditions are designed to be as clear as possible. Do not interpret the conditions as if they are intended to trick you. For example, if a question asks how many people could be eligible to serve on a committee, consider only those people named in the passage. When in doubt, read the conditions in their most obvious sense. Remember, however, that the language in the conditions is intended to be read for precise meaning. It is essential to pay particular attention to words that describe or limit relationships, such as “only,” “exactly,” “never,” “always,” “must be,” “cannot be,” and the like.

Through this kind of careful reading, you can develop a clear picture of the structure of the relationships involved, including the kinds of relationships permitted and the range of possible outcomes allowed or required by the conditions.

Strategies for Answering

Each question should be considered separately from the other questions in its set. No information, except what is given in the original conditions, should be carried over from one question to another. For example, if Question 1 adds the supposition “if P is sitting at table 2 ...,” this supposition should NOT be carried over to any other question in the set.
In most cases, a question will simply ask for conclusions to be drawn using the conditions as they were originally given. A few questions may, however, add to the original conditions or temporarily suspend or replace one of the original conditions. These changes apply only to that individual question.