I've been able to get my scores up to 170+ on timed sections and full PTs, but I've really been struggling with consistency. For instance, yesterday and today I got a -5 and -4 on LR sections. I know I shouldn't let those dips dishearten me, but it's hard not to when you expect higher.
What techniques do you all recommend to effectively review these mistakes to ensure they don't happen again? Or conversely, how should I be properly learning from and repeating great sections?
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i used to have lots of dips; some days i would go from -3 LR, to then -7, -8, -9 LR, etc. now i am in a position where i consistently perform -2 or -3 LR, and i think for me what helped me become more consistent was recognizing patterns in answer choices, in questions, predicting answers, avoiding trap answers, and paying close attention to wording both in the stimulus and AC. as for reading, that’s something i’m kind of struggling with as well but i’ve been able to improve my consistency by making one big change; don’t read for details, don’t try to memorize everything or learn new concepts, just pay attention to structure, the authors opinion, and purpose. i hope this helps if you have any questions let me know!
This issue is admittedly something I am still working on, but I’m finding it helpful to watch the explanation video for every question I flagged or exceeded the suggested 7SAGE time on, even if I got the question correct. Sometimes JY and Kevin approach the questions differently than I do or identify things in the stem that I overlooked. I note these differences in my wrong answer journal and evaluate the differences between my approach and JY’s/Kevin’s.
I relate to your frustration. After four PTs (168, 166, 168, 164) I hit a whopping 176 on the fifth, then dropped all the way to 160 on my sixth attempt this weekend. It was very disheartening getting a -6 and -8 on the two scored LR sections, and I felt like I was regressing.
I can't say I fully understand what happened, but it does seem like my problems have consistently been in the Conditional Reasoning questions, which I did particularly badly with this time around. Personally, I am going to follow Jillian062's advice and spend a lot of time with the specific questions I got wrong, including watching the explanation videos (which I've neglected to do thus far).
Best of luck to you!
I think what you pointed out is the key point: review the mistakes. I think looking at the patterns on where your particular mistakes reoccur along with where your biggest time sinks are can be a determining factor to improving score. Most people have weaknesses in different areas and targeting them correctly is what I believe can truly help. I would probably say that at the beginning most people can benefit in training in the exact same way given that the fundamentals are what they are, but as we move up the score ladder we need to become more specific in our problem solving given that one approach will not always work for the other. To give an example I used to struggle with necessary assumption questions and took a detour and looked at a philosopher called Stephen Toulmin and his books Uses of Argument and Introduction to Reasoning helped me vastly. One thing I will say that I do believe will help most if not all that has been said plenty but in some ways understated is to really understand what one is reading and practice reading in other areas to develop the skill. Reading complex books in philosophy will make your brain hurt for a bit by forcing one to truly parse through the meaning of the passages but after acquiring the skill of understanding the logic and meaning of hard books, reading LR and RC passages become far easier. Hope this helps
sameee! I've been having the same issue. I hit -4/-5 on LR a couple of times recently but it's not consistent. My consistency score is -8. What I am planning to do is create an order for myself to review my answer without panicking. I would first read the question and understand it as best as I could, and then start eliminating answers. And then if there's 2/3 answer choices im going back and forth with, I will again go back to the question and read the stimulus. This helps a lot. Because the second time I read, I have a better understanding because I've read the answer choices.
Im wondering this as well