Logical Reasoning
What follows from what you are given
The ATSA's reasoning subtest, in two parts you can sit separately or back to back. Part 1 is assumption questions. A short passage makes an argument; four statements follow, and one of them is something the argument depends on without ever saying it. Fifteen passages, a new one each question. The difficulty is not the reasoning but the discipline: a statement can be perfectly true, and clearly relevant, and still be the wrong answer, because the question is never whether it is true — only whether the argument needs it. Part 2 is arrangement puzzles: a set of people or things, a structure to place them in, and a handful of clues. Some questions have one answer; others ask what MUST be true, which is a different thing again — an arrangement the clues permit is not the only one they permit.
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What to expect
- A part selector on the opening screen: Part 1, Part 2, or both in one sitting.
- The material on the left, the question and four options on the right.
- Fifteen questions per part, each on new material.
- Part 2 draws the structure for you — the floors, the row, the table — so you are not also being tested on your sketching.
- A B C D on the keyboard, or click.
- The working is shown after each answer, and again in the review.
What it measures
- Identifying an unstated premise
- Telling what an argument needs from what merely fits it
- Holding several constraints at once and seeing what they force
- Telling what must follow from what merely may
Instructions
- 1Find the conclusion first, then ask what has to be true for the evidence to reach it.
- 2If the passage states it outright, it is not an assumption — that is the commonest wrong answer of all.
- 3The answer is the LEAST the argument needs. A stronger version of the right idea is still wrong.
- 4Judge only whether the argument depends on it, never whether it is true in the world.
Tips
- Try negating the option. If the argument still stands with it false, it was not an assumption; if it collapses, it was.
- Words like every, always, only and never usually mark the too-strong option. Arguments rarely need that much.
- When an argument moves from one case to another, from a sample to a population, or from a correlation to a cause, the assumption is nearly always that the move is legitimate.
- In Part 2, start with the clue that pins somebody to a definite place. A clue that only relates two people is far weaker until something is fixed.
- In Part 2, at a round table everyone faces the centre, so a person's left is the seat clockwise from them as you look down on it. Getting that backwards costs whole questions.
- If a Part 2 question asks what MUST be true, one arrangement is not enough — find a second that satisfies the clues and see what survives in both.
Logical Reasoning
The logical reasoning subtest asks what a statement actually rests on — not what sounds sensible alongside it. Use only what is written.
Statement: “We should move the training course to the morning, because trainees perform better before lunch.” Which assumption is this argument relying on?