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LR is by far and away the section I struggle with the most. Some question types I have no issue with but there are others (NA, Flaw mainly) that just blow me out of the water sometimes.
My question is, what is your method of studying for LR in general? How do you break things down to better understand question types? I'm starting to see how answering "why" is so important and I want to be more effective with my study time. I typically have used the problem sets and mixed timed and un-timed individual questions and tried to break them down, along with watching J.Y.'s videos. However, I just don't know if this is effective or not.
So what do you all say? What is your weapon (strategy) of choice when it comes to general LR studying?
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16 comments
@aaronkeegan92975 thanks for starting this thread. I've found it helpful.
I'd agree with @gregoryalexanderdevine723 about getting the conclusion right. Sometimes when I'm listening to J.Y.'s explanations for wrong answers, they seem inconsequential. i.e.
A) cats drink milk,
J.Y.: "who cares?" A) ).
However, what I've found is that a lot of answers choices seem exactly that irrelevant when I accurately understand the conclusion and what the question stem wants me to do to it. Understanding the conclusion helps me eliminate wrong answers much more confidently and quickly.
@marine4life6798246 said:
@aaronwfrank90 said:
Is there a list of all the NA questions from every test that I can find somewhere?
It won't be every test because you have the Starter package, but you should definitely utilize the question bank for more specific drilling by question type. Type in "NA" in the search box and have at at!
@fmihalic2127 I caught that example. I'm familiar with many of the flaw types, but as you said due to the subtle nature of them it is hard to pick up sometimes, especially under timed conditions. I'm getting better but its a process as you probably know.
Looks like you've gotten some really good advice above so I'll try not to repeat. I've noticed with flaw questions in particular that the flaw can sometimes be 'concealed'. I mean, sometimes you'll read something and it seems totally fine and then you see it's a flaw question and you're like why?? :neutral:
For example: A child cannot have a social healthy social life if they don't spend sufficient time outside playing with their friends. Joey plays videos games at least 5 hours a week so he doesn't have a healthy social life.
Flaw: Asserts that because one spend 5 hours with another activity that they necessarily do not spend enough time outside playing with their friends without justification.
Did you get that? It's a little bit more subtle and you kind of have to be on your toes to catch it. If you are, this problem should be cake. Sometimes you just have to get used to reading the material.
@marine4life6798246 said:
@aaronwfrank90 said:
Is there a list of all the NA questions from every test that I can find somewhere?
I don't think every test, but there are 21 Drills for them in the Core Curriculum. Each drill contains about 5 questions. I used these
@aaronwfrank90 said:
Is there a list of all the NA questions from every test that I can find somewhere?
@aaronwfrank90 Awesome! That is extremely encouraging! I'll give it a go! Thanks again!!!
@aaronkeegan92975 said:
@aaronwfrank90 said:
Yes I time myself whenever I am doing questions. I personally feel that I need to always incorporate time to keep me on my feet. That way it always feels as close to test day conditions as possible.
I then do blind review as suggested by 7Sage
THEN do the method I have stated here. Like I said, its a long process but it has paid off for me.
Gotcha. Under timed conditions, after a while did it just start clicking for you after a while when it came to recognizing the negations?
Yes, after doing this it actually felt like I jumped over the wall that had been blocking me. My speed in LR as a whole increased because I was more effectively eliminating the wrong answers and spotting the correct answer. It's still not always 100% clear how a negation hits the argument, but when I can work the possible correct answer down to 1-2 choices the negation helps me see which has the potential to impact the argument at all.
@aaronwfrank90 said:
Yes I time myself whenever I am doing questions. I personally feel that I need to always incorporate time to keep me on my feet. That way it always feels as close to test day conditions as possible.
I then do blind review as suggested by 7Sage
THEN do the method I have stated here. Like I said, its a long process but it has paid off for me.
Gotcha. Under timed conditions, after a while did it just start clicking for you after a while when it came to recognizing the negations?
@aaronkeegan92975 said:
@gregoryalexanderdevine723 Ah I see what you mean now. Yes, my success rate has gone up when I have shown discipline and marked up my stimulus and focused on the core parts. Not super consistent yet but I have seen the benefits.
@aaronwfrank90 I really like that strategy. I have hurt myself many times because I couldn't quickly ID the negation of the AC. I think I will give your strategy a shot because it would really force me to understand what I am doing. Do you time yourself when doing the 5 questions and then is that review part, a part of your blind review?
Yes I time myself whenever I am doing questions. I personally feel that I need to always incorporate time to keep me on my feet. That way it always feels as close to test day conditions as possible.
I then do blind review as suggested by 7Sage
THEN do the method I have stated here. Like I said, its a long process but it has paid off for me.
@gregoryalexanderdevine723 Ah I see what you mean now. Yes, my success rate has gone up when I have shown discipline and marked up my stimulus and focused on the core parts. Not super consistent yet but I have seen the benefits.
@aaronwfrank90 I really like that strategy. I have hurt myself many times because I couldn't quickly ID the negation of the AC. I think I will give your strategy a shot because it would really force me to understand what I am doing. Do you time yourself when doing the 5 questions and then is that review part, a part of your blind review?
What I have done for LR, particularly with Flaw and NA questions is as follows.
For NA questions I did this;
Printed out the 21 NA question sets from the CC
Answer 5 questions at a time
Bought a notebook to record my work
FOR CORRECT ANSWERS:
I write out the conclusion
I write out the support (not the premises but what they are doing to help the conclusion)
I write out the answer choice AND the negation.
FOR INCORRECT ANSWERS:
I write out the conclusion
I write out the support (not the premises but what they are doing to help the conclusion)
I write out the answer I chose and its negation
I figure out how the negation DOES NOT destroy the argument
I write the correct answer and its negation
I figure out how the negation DOES destroy the argument.
For Flaw questions;
Printed out the Flaw question sets from the CC
Answer 5 questions at a time
Bought a notebook to record my work
FOR CORRECT ANSWERS:
Write the conclusion
Write out the support
Name the flaw
Write out the flaw each incorrect answer choice is describing.
FOR INCORRECT ANSWERS:
Write the conclusion
Write out the support
Name the flaw (if I don't see one I try)
Figure out the flaw the answer choice I picked is describing
Write how the incorrect answer DOES NOT match what happened in the stimulus
Write how the correct answer DOES match what happened in the stimulus.
This is a very slow process, but it has helped me with these types of questions a lot. Especially NA questions, being able to see negation of the argument is a KEY to destroying this question type.
@aaronkeegan92975 said:
@gregoryalexanderdevine723 So you do not mess with the premises first but rather the conclusion?
It depends on how the question is written but I think for me the important thing is seeing the entire argument core (premises + conclusion) and understanding how those premises are supporting the conclusion.
On assumption questions I know the premises are going to have a gap in the reasoning. The premises aren't going to fully support the argument made in the stim. So I'm just on the hunt for the argument core and then trying to find the gap, for example.
@gregoryalexanderdevine723 So you do not mess with the premises first but rather the conclusion?
@6400 That is literally me right now haha. I know one of my biggest issues is going through the stimulus carefully and gaining an exceptional understanding so I only have to read it once. I typically, probably due to stress and nerves, have a hard time putting the picture together under timed conditions. I mark up the stimulus and label but for some reason still either miss a link or can't quickly put the pieces together.
Let me preface this by saying that I am in no way a master at LR, BUT one thing that has helped me immensely is truly understanding what is happening in the stimulus. By that I mean understanding the relationship between the premise(s) and conclusion on a deeper level. In the beginning, I would rush through the stim with a superficial understanding of what was happening in order to get to the answer choices as quickly as possible. Doing so resulted in having to return to the stimulus a number of times when attempting to eliminate ACs. Since implementing this strategy, I have been able to eliminate wrong ACs and arrive at correct ones more efficiently.
@aaronkeegan92975 said:
LR is by far and away the section I struggle with the most. Some question types I have no issue with but there are others (NA, Flaw mainly) that just blow me out of the water sometimes.
My question is, what is your method of studying for LR in general? How do you break things down to better understand question types? I'm starting to see how answering "why" is so important and I want to be more effective with my study time. I typically have used the problem sets and mixed timed and un-timed individual questions and tried to break them down, along with watching J.Y.'s videos. However, I just don't know if this is effective or not.
So what do you all say? What is your weapon (strategy) of choice when it comes to general LR studying?
It appears like your method of practice/drilling looks pretty good.
My weapon of choice was first learning all the fundamentals for LR -- that just meant learning what I'm looking for in each correct answer choice / stimulus.
I then learned to weed through the excess verbiage in the stimulus and focus on identifying the conclusion first, then the reasoning, and figuring out why the premises do not completely substantiate the conclusion. I got really good at this by re-doing problem sets and drills a bunch of times. After the first time around I would then turn my focus to the process just as much as trying to find the right answer. Once I was able to do this pretty automatically I got much better at LR!
For LR it is also very important that when your BR you try to figure out what you did wrong and how you're going to fix it from happening again in the future. Try to take notes when reviewing a section and try to make little rules or things to remember next time to ensure you don't make the same mistakes more than once.