Good afternoon everyone. I wanted to come on here and seek general advice and feedback from anyone who’s been struggling to score in the 140s on practice tests. I study almost every day, review my wrong answers, and maintain a journal of incorrect answers. I’ve noticed that I either second-guess myself or completely miss the problem. However, this tends to happen only on difficulty four and five questions in certain sections. Additionally, I find that I get the last six or seven questions wrong. I’m curious to know how I can improve this habit. Thank you for everyone’s time. I’m looking forward to your advice.
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In LR there is so much bait answers, when you fall for bait just take a couple minutes to see why you fell for it and what in the passage makes it not a perfect answer, there is a lot of common bait techniques they use which after a few months of studying i've found easier to identify, and remember to always leave outside knowledge at the door and just answer the question based on the passage!
@AnthonyEdwards#1Fan The outside knowledge part had been a weakness, thank you for the advice!
Do you struggle with timing? When you say that it’s usually the last 6 or 7 questions that are usually wrong, is that because you are out of time, or maybe feel pressured? If that’s the case I think blind reviewing could really help figure out if it’s a timing issue or an understanding issue and what to work on! You got this!!
@AnnakenRogers At first, yes. However, I started incorporating timed drills into my practice, and I’ve found that I’m not panicking as much. I think I’m struggling with harder questions and volume. I agree. I have found blind review very helpful for correcting mistakes, and I make note of whatever I get wrong during the timed sections and br.
Sounds like it might be cognitive fatigue at the end of the section. Simplifying the approach to each answer type could help, skipping and flagging the harder ones to return to (hurts less to miss those than easier ones because you ran out of time). I'm someone who brain drains on section 2 of each test. Can perfect score the first section, and then plummet in the second.
Managing the cognitive fatigue is really important. Mitigating it comes from not wrestling too hard with everything. I noticed my biggest improvement when I asked "who cares?" to each answer choice, and got hyper critical of everything offered. Only one of them is correct. Dont compare answer choices to eachother, only back to the stimulus. Accept everything as a fact, dont fight with any facts and try to assess whether they are true or not. In most question types, they're true, period. But they may or may not matter or do what you need them to.
I was in the same place and saw improvement when I went back to the foundational portion of 7Sage. I saw improvement pretty quickly. Causation and link assumptions especially. Also, take carefully time to evaluate really what the stimulus and question is saying. At times I caught myself speeding and reading just to read but really wasn’t comprehending. The slow is smooth and smooth is fast unfortunately has been proven to be true. Take it easy!
@Chanda.m Yes, I have made note of things like necessary and sufficient assumption as well as harder flaw questions.
Use the 7sage AI, have it analyze your recent PT's ask it which question types you're struggling with and which you've had the least amount of problems with. Based on the info it gives you have it refer you to specific lessons to look back to, create drills specific to these question types, I would also recommend watching live sessions focusing on those question types as well. I also have tried using AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Grok w/ voice say you're going to analyze the following question try to walk through each answer choice and give it your reasoning why you think it's correct or incorrect, have it respond accordingly to where your logic is flawed or could use some work (note: limit to your 2-3 fav answer choices, you'll run out of time quick if you don't have a subscription)