BR method

Tina Cho

Hi, I have a question about the method.
I'm not sure whether I'm doing it correctly...
I was doing review bfr checking the correct answers, but now doing aft checking answers.
Because I thought when I choose answer choice, I already have my reasoning to choose it...but is this not efficient?
Why do we have to do the reasoning explanation part again after solving the question? (bc we already choose the ans. based on our reasoning)
If you know the correct reasoning, you would not miss the question.
Also I'm worried whether my reasoning is correct or not, whether that's the reasoning that makes the choices right or wrong...
Maybe I did not understand the BR method correctly. But I'm not sure how ppl improve using this method...
Could anyone elaborate the method a little bit? and if you could answer or address my questions/concerns?
Why and how will ppl improve using the method?

Thank you,

Alex

@"Tina Cho"

Well that is a detailed and complicated answer to unpack better than J.Y. has already done, but I will try my best to explain and answer your questions/concerns.

@"Tina Cho" said:
I was doing review bfr checking the correct answers, but now doing aft checking answers.
Because I thought when I choose answer choice, I already have my reasoning to choose it...but is this not efficient?

This is not efficient. J.Y. made a very apt analogy to doing this in his lesson on BR. He basically said doing this is like gambling. You are betting you got the answers right when you check them right away. When you get them right, you're happy and feel smart. When you get them wrong, you become disappointed and feel stupid. You don't much much out of it if you aren't closely examining why or why not you got it wrong.

Additionally, when you check the answers first you are missing the entire point of blind review. You will know which ones you got wrong and your brain will begin to reverse engineer the reasoning for the right answer choices. The problem is when your brain does that, if you don't know why it is right, you will learn and enforce bad habits.

Let me give an example. You are BR'ing after checking the answers and see you got #13 wrong. So you may remember what you chose and now you're picking between 4 choices instead of 5. Know if you checked and you know the answer is (c) your brain will automatically try to justify (c) and it may do so without the proper reasoning.

Perhaps you are checking the answers without seeing them. That is better, but still not honest BR. Let's say you see you got -0 wrong. Are you going to honestly go back and check your reasoning? There is still something to learn even if you missed none! Perhaps you guessed and got lucky? Or maybe you don't quite understand why one of the answer choices was wrong...

I don't know about you, but I often find myself between 2 answers and I pick the one I think is best. But in the moment, on a timed drill, I don't have the time to go through my entire reasoning process of why it is right... So BR helps me to make sure I understand why the one I picked is right or wrong.

@"Tina Cho" said:
Why do we have to do the reasoning explanation part again after solving the question? (bc we already choose the ans. based on our reasoning)

Because we want to make sure you understand WHY the right answers are right and the wrong are wrong. The thing is, you can get lucky and get a question right with the wrong reasoning. For a long time I could only do parallel flaw questions by matching quantifiers and prescriptions. So I would pick the answer that matched the stimulus. If the stimulus said most people should I would simply pick the answer that included more or should. A lot of the time I was right, but I wasn't learning or becoming better at parallel flaw questions. As soon as I ran into a question where I couldn't match the quantifiers I found myself lost.

In short, your reasoning can be wrong and get you to the right answer sometimes.

Is there something specific you would like elaboration with as far as BR goes?
I don't think I can more accurately and eloquently sum it up better than J.Y. can. Here is a link of his lesson on it. If there is something you are still lost on please ask. At first it didn't click with me, but I promise you it works.




Remember this to try to understand BR better:

BR's purpose is far beyond getting the answers right. That is only a small part of it. When you BR, part of it is retraining your brain. So if you got an answer choice wrong because of faulty reasoning, then you need to block out whatever you did and ensure you do not make the same error. When you go through the stimulus/stem/ACs during BR you should be cognizant of your thought process that finally leads you to the right answer. Or if you got it correct, you should make sure you understand exactly how you arrived at said correct answer and make sure to reinforce it. As you can see, simply checking your answers won't do this for you. In the end BR is about instilling the correct thought processes to answer the questions correctly, not just making sure you got the answer choice correct.

jknauf

Hello @"Tina Cho"
Watch these couple YouTube videos. If you still have some questions after come back and ask again.

BR overview:


Step 1:


Step 2:


Step3:


Good luck =]

Sprinkles

Good job in covering it, guys! and I'm glad you asked about this instead of just doing BR the wrong way @"Tina Cho". Truth be told, good BR is time consuming and takes lots of effort, but what it does to your prep is absolutely amazing and is practically responsible for point increases in PTs

Alex

@"Tina Cho"

Also, this webinar workshop really helped me understand the ins and outs of BR.



It is long, but an hour and a half is worth the points this technique will yield you

Cant Get Right

So it looks like everyone’s pretty much got you covered on this, but wanted to address this specifically:

@"Tina Cho" said:
Why do we have to do the reasoning explanation part again after solving the question? (bc we already choose the ans. based on our reasoning)
If you know the correct reasoning, you would not miss the question.
Also I'm worried whether my reasoning is correct or not, whether that's the reasoning that makes the choices right or wrong...

So, if you’re not worried about your reasoning on a question, you don’t Blind Review it. Worrying about whether your reasoning is correct or not is exactly why you select a question for your BR. The point of the BR is to remove this uncertainty. Either confirm or correct your initial reasoning. Take as much time as it takes to deconstruct the question until you achieve full understanding and absolute certainty. This is also why a clean copy BR and a truly Blind BR (not checking the answers first) are so absolutely vital. If you’re not working the question on a clean copy, you’ll see your answers and your previous work, and this will influence your BR. You’ve got to start fresh. If you’ve seen the answer, it becomes incredibly difficult to achieve meaningful understanding. It’s like already knowing the ending of “6th Sense” and then watching it from the beginning. You’re going to see everything and it’s all going to seem quite clear and obvious to you, but it’s only because you already know the answer. The whole point of that movie is that it is so obvious yet somehow everybody missed it. LSAT questions are the exact same way. So if you know the right answer, the path to it seems obvious. The whole test though is to see if you can find that path in the dark, and this is exactly the skill that BR cultivates.

Tina Cho

Thank you for your answers.
So what if I still could not find the path even though I think about the answer choices for hours?
When is the time I can check the answers?
Sometimes I found my reasonings and pro's reasonings or explanations are different-for example, sometimes this happens; I thought this is why this answer choice is wrong, but other's explanations are from different directions.
Should I trust my reasoning or theirs?
Should I just eliminate my reasoning and absorb their explanations and try to understand the answer choices?
Sorry if this does not make sense...

Nanchito-1-1

@"Tina Cho" said:
So what if I still could not find the path even though I think about the answer choices for hours?

Then you have something to learn/revisit during your review after br.

@"Tina Cho" said:
When is the time I can check the answers?

After you deep BR'd

@"Tina Cho" said:
Sometimes I found my reasonings and pro's reasonings or explanations are different-for example, sometimes this happens; I thought this is why this answer choice is wrong, but other's explanations are from different directions.

It's a different way of explaining things. Sometimes it can add on to your reasoning, or it can be another reason why something is wrong/right. It does not necessarily mean that you or they are wrong, or more right. Unless it's JY. If it's JY, yea learn it his way.

Tina Cho

"It's a different way of explaining things. Sometimes it can add on to your reasoning, or it can be another reason why something is wrong/right. It does not necessarily mean that you or they are wrong, or more right. Unless it's JY. If it's JY, yea learn it his way."

This is why I cannot stop referring to other's explanations cuz I'm afraid of overlooking something...not saying I don't trust my own reasoning but afraid of missing some important things.
But I was wondering whether I'm wasting my time...and whether this is a good way to review. (cuz it does not sound like what BR tells us to do)

By the way thanks for the video @"Alex Divine" just finish watching the workshop. It was indeed lon lol but it was interesting.

Alex

@"Tina Cho" said:
But I was wondering whether I'm wasting my time...and whether this is a good way to review.

Not a waste of time at all. After you BR you should watch the video explanations or some other explanations (I know Manhattan Prep Forum and LSAT Hacks provides free explanations)

It truly is the best way to improve and reinforce good habits and break bad ones. It can also be seen as a practice-practice test where you can try out new techniques and see what works best for you without worrying about the stress of time.

Do you have a specific question on what to do what JY didn't address?

Tina Cho

I think I'm good, thanks @"Alex Divine"