Luiss Master's Admission Test common mistakes
Luiss Master's Admission Test · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Spending equal time on every reading passage instead of triaging by difficulty, so the hardest passage consumes minutes that later easy questions needed.
Candidates treat passages as a fixed sequence and feel obliged to finish each one before moving on, and the anxiety of leaving a passage partially done overrides strategic time allocation.
What to do instead
Before starting, scan all passages and rank them by topic familiarity and question type; do the two most approachable first, cap each at its planned time, and abandon a passage mid-way if the cap is hit. Practise with a visible timer and rehearse the decision to move on.
Answering inference and 'author's attitude' questions from personal opinion or general knowledge rather than from textual evidence, choosing the option that sounds reasonable instead of the one the passage supports.
These questions have no single sentence to point to, so candidates substitute plausibility for proof; options written to sound sensible are exactly the distractors the test relies on.
What to do instead
For every inference answer, locate and underline the one or two sentences that license it before selecting; reject any option that requires information not stated or implied in the text. Drill by writing the supporting line number next to each chosen answer.
Misreading the question stem, for example answering 'which is NOT true' as if it asked 'which is true', or solving for x when the question asks for 2x.
Under time pressure candidates pattern-match the stem to a familiar question type and skip the final clause; negative qualifiers and 'in terms of' phrasing are easy to skim.
What to do instead
Circle or mentally restate the exact quantity requested before computing, and re-read the stem after obtaining a result to confirm it matches. On NOT/EXCEPT questions, explicitly mark each option true or false before choosing.
Rushing arithmetic on ratios, percentages, and unit conversions, producing a correct method with a wrong number, especially on percentage change and successive percentage problems.
Candidates trust mental arithmetic on multi-step percentage work, where a single slip (dividing by the original instead of the new value, or adding percentages instead of compounding) is invisible without checking.
What to do instead
Write each step, including units, and use a consistent formula: percentage change = (new − old)/old. Sanity-check magnitude (a 20% then 10% increase is 32%, not 30%) and verify by estimating the answer before computing exactly.
Guessing on data-sufficiency or quantitative-comparison items without systematically testing the statements, often stopping after the first statement seems sufficient.
The format rewards early stopping and candidates do not have a fixed procedure, so they evaluate statements in whatever order occurs to them and overlook cases where a statement is insufficient.
What to do instead
Adopt a fixed routine: test statement (1) alone with at least one valid and one edge case (zero, negative, fraction), then (2) alone, then combined only if needed. Record a verdict per statement before matching to the answer options.
Confusing necessary and sufficient conditions, or reversing a conditional, when evaluating syllogisms and 'if and only if' statements.
Everyday language blurs 'if' and 'only if', and candidates map statements to diagrams loosely rather than translating them into formal conditionals before reasoning.
What to do instead
Translate each sentence into P → Q notation and test with the contrapositive (not Q → not P); remember 'P only if Q' means P → Q. For syllogisms, draw minimal diagrams and actively search for a counterexample arrangement before accepting a conclusion.
Accepting a causal explanation because it is plausible, ignoring alternative causes, reverse causation, or a common cause in argument-evaluation questions.
Human reasoning defaults to coherent stories; a tidy causal link feels like an explanation, and candidates do not habitually generate rival hypotheses.
What to do instead
For each causal argument, write down at least one alternative cause and one reverse-causation scenario, then ask whether the evidence rules them out. Treat 'the argument assumes' questions as requests to name the unstated link between evidence and conclusion.
Misinterpreting the conclusion of an argument, attacking a premise or a minor example instead of the main claim, so weakening and strengthening answers miss the target.
Long passages bury the conclusion in the middle or end, and candidates react to the most vivid sentence rather than identifying what the author is trying to establish.
What to do instead
Before reading the options, paraphrase the conclusion in one sentence and label the remaining sentences as premises or background. Then check that the chosen option affects that conclusion, not a supporting detail.
Confusing microeconomics and macroeconomics terminology, for example mixing movements along a demand curve with shifts of the curve, or conflating GDP with GNP and nominal with real values.
These distinctions are taught together and sound similar; candidates memorise definitions in isolation without linking each term to the mechanism it describes.
What to do instead
Build a one-page contrast table pairing each confusable term (shift vs movement, GDP vs GNP, nominal vs real, demand vs quantity demanded) with a concrete example and the cause of change. Test yourself by classifying fresh news headlines into the correct category.
Answering general-knowledge and current-affairs items from vague recollection, picking the most familiar name or country rather than verifying the specific fact asked.
Recognition feels like knowledge; a name seen in the news seems right even when the question asks about a different institution, date, or role, and candidates do not track what they actually know.
What to do instead
For each item, state the precise fact required (who, what, when) before looking at options, and skip rather than guess if it cannot be stated. Maintain a short running list of recurring topics (EU institutions, major economies, recent elections) reviewed weekly.