In Flaw / Descriptive Weakening questions, we approach the stimulus with a critical eye, looking for unreasonable assumptions and faulty reasoning methods. With practice, it’s often within reach to proactively identify the argument’s flaw well enough to move into the answer choices looking for that specific flaw.

This process is aided significantly by the fact that the LSAT writers routinely pull from a list of common flaws – learning to recognize these flaws when they appear in stimuli and answer choices will save you an enormous amount of time and mental energy.

Circular reasoning is seldom featured in stimuli, although it’s quite common as a wrong answer choice in flaw questions. When it does appear, though, it’s just 😘🤌. So much fun.

Circular reasoning, or begging the question, is when an argument’s premises and conclusion presuppose one another: the premises provide no additional information or evidence to support the conclusion.

Our favorite example of circular reasoning comes from this precious relic of the ancient internet: “Look at this! This is an aspen. You can tell it’s an aspen because of the way it is!”

Here is the logical structure of the company spokesperson’s argument:

Our products are the most expensive, and they’re the best.
Why? Because look at all these cheaper products. They’re worse!
Why? Because the best products are the most expensive products!
Why? Because look at our product! It’s the best one and it’s the most expensive!
(Why? Because look at all these cheaper products…)

With enough practice – specifically, with targeted practice focused on identifying common flaws – it’s entirely reasonable to expect yourself to identify this stimulus as circular reasoning, rapidly recognize the answer choice that points to circular reasoning, and move on from this question in less than 30 seconds. That process isn’t mandatory, of course, but it’s attainable for every test taker with time and conscious effort.