Appendix: Name the Gap, 10 Reps
Chapter 8 taught the core move: read an argument, find the claim and the support, then name the gap, the thing the argument needs you not to question. Here are 10 everyday arguments to practice on. None are LSAT questions, on purpose; you’re building the habit on normal material, the way the book tells you to, not drilling the test years early.
Read each one, name the gap out loud or on paper before you read my answer, and notice where your instinct and mine differ. These aren’t single-answer test items, real arguments often have more than one gap, so if you found a different real flaw, good, that counts. The point is the reflex, not a key.
1. The new tutoring center opened and average test scores went up, so the center is raising scores. The gap: it assumes nothing else changed and that the students using the center are the reason. Maybe stronger students self-selected into it, or the test got easier, or a new curriculum did the work. Correlation, dressed as cause.
2. Most successful founders dropped out of college, so dropping out helps you succeed. The gap: survivorship. You’re only counting the founders who made it. The far larger pile of dropouts who failed never makes the headline, so the “most” is measured on the winners only.
3. We surveyed our newsletter readers and 90 percent love our product, so customers love it. The gap: the sample. People who subscribe to your newsletter already like you. That tells you nothing about customers in general, only about your fans.
4. She’s the most confident candidate, so she’ll do the job best. The gap: it assumes confidence predicts competence. They’re different things, and plenty of confident people are wrong while quiet ones are right. The argument swaps a feeling for evidence.
5. Either we cut the budget or the company fails, and we can’t fail, so we have to cut. The gap: the false either-or. It pretends there are only two options when there might be many, raising revenue, restructuring, waiting a quarter. Name the missing third door and the whole thing loosens.
6. That study can’t be trusted, the lead author once worked for the industry. The gap: it attacks the person, not the study. Where the author worked doesn’t tell you whether the methods and data are sound. The argument dodges the actual question.
7. Everyone I know is voting for this, so it’s going to win easily. The gap: “everyone I know” is not the electorate. Your circle resembles you, which makes it a terrible sample for predicting a whole population.
8. This policy is popular, so it’s a good policy. The gap: popular and good aren’t the same, and assuming they are is the whole move. Plenty of popular things are bad ideas, and the argument never closes that distance.
9. He failed the first exam, so he’s just not a science person. The gap: one data point, huge conclusion. A single failure has a dozen explanations, a bad week, a hard adjustment, no study method yet, none of which prove a permanent trait. Hasty generalization.
10. We should trust the plan because it’s based on a proven strategy. The gap: “proven” is doing unearned work. Proven by whom, measured how, in a situation like this one? Strip the confident word and ask for the evidence underneath it, and often there isn’t any.
Run a few of these a week on real arguments you meet, an op-ed, a class reading, a confident take online, and within a few months naming the gap stops being an exercise and becomes the way you hear. That reflex is the engine the LSAT pays for later, built free, years early.
