Self-study
Hi everyone.
Over the past few months of my studying I’ve started to feel much more confident when it comes to the difficulty and pace of the logical reasoning questions. I’ve been making minimal, if any, errors on questions that are levels 1-3.
But now that I’ve been focusing more on questions that are exclusively levels 4-5 in difficulty, I’ve reached a slight roadblock. On questions I do get incorrect it's typically when I’ve been debating between two possible answers. I’ll do a blind review for these questions, and when I select my “second choice” answer, 90% of the time I end up getting that question correct.
I was wondering if anyone has experienced similar obstacles when it comes to choosing the “best” answer. I was wondering if anyone had advice on how to recognize which answer is best when you’re stuck between two options, especially when the answers are very similar. Is there a trick to narrow down the answer options or will it simply come down to practice and pattern/question type recognition?
Thank you so much! Any advice helps!
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7 comments
I struggle with this too
Hi Fiona,
Getting down to two answer choices consistently is actually a very good sign. Usually that means your overall understanding of the stimulus and question type is already pretty strong, and your score is getting ready to improve.
One of the biggest mindset shifts at that stage is realizing that you are not choosing between “two pretty good answers.” One of those answer choices is incorrect. That means that is has a significant flaw that you haven't found yet.
And the flaws at the 4-5 difficulty level are definitely more subtle than the flaws in the obviously wrong answers.
Some of the most common traps I see in those final two answer choices are:
an answer choice that is supported by the stimulus, but does not actually answer the question being asked,
an answer choice that sounds very true or reasonable in real life, but is not directly supported by the stimulus,
or a single-word issue where the answer is slightly too extreme, too specific, too broad, or not precise enough.
I always teach my students that difficult LR questions are often decided by very small wording distinctions. At the higher difficulty levels, a single word can absolutely make an answer choice correct or incorrect.
And as you continue improving, you’ll notice that the same patterns that eliminate the incorrect answer choices also start helping you positively confirm the correct answer choice much faster.
So overall, I’d actually take this as a sign that your process is moving in the right direction.
Scott
@SCOTT_LEBO Thank you so much, I really appreciate your advice!
the strategies will differ a bit depending on the question type but in general i would say: 1. Focus on having a very clear understanding of the argument structure, know exactly what the conclusion is and the premises, and then look for gaps between the two. Often times tempting answer choices can be eliminated by asking yourself exactly what does the argument conclude (and why) and does this answer choice align with that. 2. Deep blind review or what I like to do is do small sets (usually 5 ish questions) of 4 or 5 star difficulty, do them untimed and show answer after each question, and just do a complete deep dive on each - completely understand the structure and systematically eliminate every wrong answer and be able to explain exactly why the correct answer is correct. If you really can't get one then watch an explanation video but be sure at the end that you totally understand each question, then as you get better start doing similar but under timed conditions.
@Jdunni Thank you so much! This was really helpful.
Narrowing it down to 50/50 isn't as great as it may seem. Three of the answer choices are usually complete nonsense, one is correct, and one looks correct if you made a particular common mistake when you were reading. The "traps" are just answer choices that are written to look really good to someone who misread in a predictable way. For example, confusing necessary/sufficient or not noticing the difference between "most" and "all". The test writer is sitting there thinking, "What is the most common way someone will misunderstand this passage? Alright, now what is an answer choice that would look really tempting to someone who misunderstood in that way?" The AC they come up with there is the "trap". It is 100% wrong, but looked right because they were able to predict how you'd misunderstand.
If you're stuck between two, there is something you misunderstood and you have to find what it is. You could have misunderstood the passage, question, or ACs. There is no trick to resolving a 50/50 when you're there, since you could have misunderstood in many different ways.
@Karl! Thank you for the help. I greatly appreciate it!