Effective use of study time between PTs

Maritzaa

Question: How much time do you give yourself to drill/BR between PTs?

I am taking two PTs a week. I try to give myself a few days between each test but I am finding that BR is taking up a lot of time and leaving very little time for drilling. Does this sound right?

I am 9-5er and literally studying whenever I have free time (early mornings, lunch, after work). I feel like my studying schedule is all over the place and will eventually leave me feeling burnt out.

Does anyone have any scheduling suggestions? What works best for you?

For instance, do you only give yourself X amount of time to BR and then move on? Do you BR until you're finished? Do you pick your drilling sets based off what questions you got wrong when PTing? Or do you drill random sets anyway?

I need to schedule my study time wisely as I am aiming to write in October.

Thanks!

Pacifico

If you're in the PTing phase I think that more time should be spent on BR than drilling. I would only use drilling to help a particular weakness (e.g.- grouping games, NA questions, etc.) Two PTs per week until October means you'll have about 20 more to do, and I'm not sure how many you've done already but that should definitely help significantly, and staying focused on perfecting your BR will likely pay more dividends at this point than drilling will.

gs556

The schedule that worked for me was:

3 PTs a week, one every other day. On the in-between days I would BR. If I noticed that one sort of problem (i.e. Necessary Assumptions) was giving me problems I would drill that, but otherwise not.

c.janson35

@Pacifico said:
If you're in the PTing phase I think that more time should be spent on BR than drilling. I would only use drilling to help a particular weakness (e.g.- grouping games, NA questions, etc.) Two PTs per week until October means you'll have about 20 more to do, and I'm not sure how many you've done already but that should definitely help significantly, and staying focused on perfecting your BR will likely pay more dividends at this point than drilling will.

Totes magotes (shoutout @PaulRudd, a dedicated 7sager in between movies). PT. BR. PT. BR. After a few PT if you notice a particular question/game type thats really giving you trouble, then maybe thats a sign of a fundamental error and you should drill and review the lessons for these questions.

Also, there is some compelling science that supports the idea that varied practice, which is essentially what you are doing when you PT, is more beneficial than repetitive drilling:

"In many learning domains, varied practice has been shown to enhance the retention, generalization and application of acquired skills. There are many potential sources of the observed advantages. First, greater diversity of the tasks may also allow learner to extract the most relevant, task-invariant information. Any given practice trial contains both task-relevant and task-irrelevant information. By mixing up the trials, task-irrelevant information will be less consistent, allowing the learner to strip away the spurious associations. Task-relevant information should be constant regardless of the particulars of individual trial. Second, varied practice creates conditions that are likely to encourage elaborative rehearsal (see Craik & Tulving, 1975). Elaborative rehearsal is a means by which the learner forms multiple associations with the to-be-learned material, so that it can be recalled using a variety of cues. Cognitive psychologists generally regard elaborative rehearsal as one of the most effective means of acquiring new information, and its basic logic – to study the material from a range of perspectives in order to former richer links with preexisting knowledge – is completely consistent with the varied practice approach. Finally, because learners are frequently changing tasks, practice may seem less repetitive, potentially minimizing boredom and increasing the level of engagement during practice."