Essay technique
Intros, Definitions and Assumptions
LNAT Section B · Technique guide
The question this answers
This is a technique guide, not a single prompt. It teaches the opening move of an LNAT Section B essay: how to write an introduction that paraphrases the question, defines the contested terms in a way that already favours your side, and names the hidden assumption the question smuggles in. It works the method on a running example: should voting be made compulsory, so that citizens face a penalty for not turning out at elections?
The stance
A technique guide has no single correct stance; the skill is to define your terms and pick a position before you write a sentence. On the worked example the demonstrated stance is qualified: compulsory turnout is defensible, but only if the law compels attendance at the ballot box and preserves the right to spoil the paper, so that the duty is civic rather than a forced choice of candidate.
The case for
Open by paraphrasing the question in your own words, so you argue about the real issue rather than the examiner's phrasing, and so you signal control from the first line.
Rewriting the prompt forces you to decide what it is actually asking before you commit a stance. 'Should voting be compulsory?' becomes 'should a citizen face a legal penalty for not turning out at an election?' The paraphrase strips the question to its operative core, the penalty, and quietly discards the noise. It also protects you from the classic error of answering the words on the page instead of the proposition behind them. An examiner reading your first sentence should feel that you have grasped the question more precisely than it was posed, which is exactly the move a lawyer makes when restating a vague clause or a loosely worded charge.
The case against
A heavily 'defined' introduction can look like the candidate is rigging the question, and examiners distrust a definition that does too much work.
If you define 'voting' so narrowly that the answer becomes trivially obvious, the essay reads as a stitch-up rather than an argument. The honest response is that a stance-aware definition must still be defensible: it should be a reasonable reading of the term that a fair opponent could accept, not a gerrymander. The discipline is to define for advantage but within the bounds of good faith, and to justify the definition in one clause rather than smuggling it in.
Elite unlocks every LNAT Section B model essay in full — the worked argument, steel-manned counters, verified authorities and the founder's own plan behind each one.
Sign up and unlock