Self-study
Hi all! I'm consistently getting 179-180 on BR but in the mid/high 160s on AT. Any advice on closing the gap? I understand speed is likely a big part of this, but I'm curious what has worked for others in closing this gap? Is it doing drills where you gradually give yourself less and less time? I particularly feel that the timing on RC is really tough.
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3 comments
like bigfatpanda said, you almost have to know the answer before you look at the AC's. I was stuck in mid to high 160s until I got good at this. I practiced untimed first, then gradually reduced the time in the drills to force myself to go faster. of course, the more questions you do the better you'll get because there's only so many variants possible.
I do 1 of 2 things, sometimes both, before I look at the ac's. 1) make an actual prediction of an answer (aka prephrase), and 2) what I need the answer to do. it sounds like it takes a long time but it's 3-5 seconds once you get good at it
on a flaw question for example - stimulus: all boys are tall. therefore you're not tall unless you're a boy
prediction: assumes that because all boys are tall no other people are tall
what it must do: address the mixup between sufficiency & necessity
on a weaken question - stimulus: Alzheimer's patients have higher levels of enzyme ABC than the average person. Therefore increased enzyme levels of abc invariably leads to alzheimers
prediction: alzheimers causes excess production of the enzyme
what it must do: (since this is causal)
show that the alleged effect is actually the cause (alzheimers -> enzyme)
show that some 3rd factor in fact causes them both (all the patients in question all their lives ate 10 bananas a day and bananas are known to cause alzheimers and increased enzyme production)
show that the effect doesn't always occur when the cause is present (there are 100k people with high levels of the enzyme who never develop alzheimers)
For LR my strategy is to speed through the first half of the section, aim to be done with the first 12 questions in 12 minutes, then you can have about 2 mins per question on the last 10 hard questions. The key to making this work is predictions and pattern recognition, if you know what kind of answer you need before you even read the AC's, it will save you much time. For RC there's no shortcut to being faster, its just something that comes with practice. However, I will say active reading is a better strategy than making low resolution summary. Think you're making a summary in the back of your mind about the passage, and every sentence you read you update that summary a bit. Hope this helps!
In the same boat! What helped my LR timing a bit was first 15 in 15 drills and drilling level 4-5 questions constantly and trying to attend a lot of Cracking 170 and LR Lightning Round classes. I’m still struggling with RC timing a bunch so open to tips on that!