Understanding deductive reasoning and Circuit Logic can significantly aid in resolving paradoxes on the LSAT.

Deductive Reasoning: Clarifies Logical Structure

Deductive reasoning involves drawing logically necessary conclusions from given premises. In paradox questions, you're often presented with two seemingly contradictory facts or data points. Understanding deductive reasoning helps you:

Spot the gap: You recognize where two premises seem inconsistent because you expect logical coherence.
Test for consistency: You can better evaluate whether the contradiction is real or only apparent.
Rule out invalid inferences: You avoid the trap of assuming a contradiction where none logically exists.

Example:

Premise 1: The number of people buying hybrid cars has increased.
Premise 2: Average gas consumption per capita has also increased.

A student trained in deductive reasoning recognizes that this only appears contradictory if we assume hybrid car buyers are the only factor influencing gas usage. A resolution might include a third factor (e.g., increase in total drivers or travel distance).

Circuit Logic: Unpacks Argument Components

The Circuit Logic framework allows you to see the flow of an argument without getting lost in the details. Effective use of the framework lets you quickly see:

Claim: The statement being argued (conclusion)
Facts: The evidence supporting the claim
Rules: The principle that connects facts to the claim

In paradox questions, this helps because:

You can identify implicit principles—what assumptions are required for the contradiction to appear real.
You separate what’s actually stated from what’s assumed, making the apparent paradox easier to dissect.

Putting It Together for LSAT Paradox Questions

Paradox questions don’t ask you to resolve a logical contradiction in the formal logic sense—they ask you to explain an unexpected outcome. So:

Why It’s Useful for LSAT Paradox Questions

Paradox questions involve two surprising facts. Circuit logic helps because it forces you to:

1. Break Apparent Contradictions

Circuit logic shows how:

Two things can happen simultaneously if they result from interacting systems (e.g., a thermostat turns on a heater because it’s cold, but the heater makes the room warm).

2. Spot Hidden Variables

Often, the resolution to a paradox depends on something unstated. Circuit logic treats this as a missing node in the causal circuit.

Confused yet? Let’s see it in action!

Essentially, you will be provided two sets of facts. The first we’ll call that Fact A (though often it will be a set of facts, for now we can just simplify to a single concept), the second Fact B.

Fact A will imply a natural conclusion to draw: something clear, intuitive, obvious. We’ll call that Claim A.

Then, the stimulus will roll out Fact B its presence will seem to contradict Claim A. This is an important one. It doesn’t contradict the other Fact, just the Claim it implied.

The reason it contradicts that claim is that there is an ASSUMPTION buried between Fact A and Claim A, a Rule/Principle that the author got us to assume that created what looked like a Paradox. Once we identify that rule, we can then introduce a New Fact or New Rule, something that will lead us, instead of to the Paradox, to a Resolution that warrants Fact B as the NEW CLAIM!

Check out the diagram below:

The correct answer to a Paradox question is usually simply the Resolving Rule B. But sometimes, it will be a New Fact X that triggers an Assumed Rule B that in turn creates the resolution. Be ready for it to get complicated!

Example time?

Physicians often rely on intuitive judgments and personal experience when diagnosing patients, and frequently disregard standardized diagnostic guidelines. Yet, studies show that across the medical profession, diagnostic accuracy remains consistently high.

So, what’s going on up here? Let’s use our analytical framework to investigate.

What is Fact A? What is the default state that we began with, the assumptive “normal”?

Physicians often rely on intuitive judgments and personal experience when diagnosing patients, and frequently disregard standardized diagnostic guidelines.

And Fact B, the surprising state of affairs we face?

…studies show that across the medical profession, diagnostic accuracy remains consistently high.

OK, so what is that “Implied Rule A” that creates the Paradox? In light of the thing Fact B is stating, Fact A must be implying that diagnostic accuracy should be LOWER in the face of doctors relying on intuition. Otherwise, why would Fact B be surprising?

So we can diagram like this:

Notice that we’ve put both the New Fact X AND New Rule B in the green boxes, and notice how similar they are. We don’t actually know what the correct answer will give us, so we need to be prepared for either. But we don’t need both to be provided, since we’re not looking for any measure of validity or certainty. We’re just looking for the framework for a resolution, and either one would provide it to us.

Here is a potential correct answer:

Many intuitive judgments physicians make are based on years of pattern recognition and repeated exposure to similar cases.

Does this guarantee that intuitive judgments are equally accurate? Not at all. But it is a fact that, if included in the stimulus, would imply that the author is taking that position.

Making Connections

So, what is an LSAT Paradox question? How is it similar to what we’ve already done?

In a certain sense, it’s much like a Principle Justify question: we are missing a principle that would make our claim make sense, except we’re not aiming for validity as we would in P-J questions.

It’s also like a Strengthen question, since the new fact/rule we’re adding won’t necessarily bring us to validity, but the new info we add is often going to be directly in the line of reasoning in the circuit, while that of a strengthen correct answer would always be implicative.

So, it’s a bit like a few things, which goes to show that we may have been right all along: we should be finding universality in everything! These stimuli and the questions they’re asking us about them are much more alike than different, and it is their similarities that unlock success.

Resolving Paradoxes