this is EXACTLY what I NEEDED before my September LSAT!!! Yes!!!! I have worked SO freaking hard towards improvement and IT SHOWS. I knew that execution was my biggest enemy, so I took a positive approach and engaged with the stimulus. And it worked, I am so proud of myself, I am going to get some ice cream now...
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what's been your positive approach and engaging with the stimulus?
@RT.IBL yeah, so everytime I come into a PT or section, I get excited, but I get excited to do well. Like I imagine myself getting perfect or almost perfect, then get excited. Its a bit of delusion. That makes me happy and gets rid of my stress. For engaging, I read quietly, but aloud the stimulus, and critically review it, highlight MPs, Conclusions and premises. Like, I do my best to find the "notable assumption" even if thats not in the Q Stem. Then dissect the stim based on the type of question I have. For every question type I have an "ask this" routine. It truly helps. Thats the approach I take.
@AvishaiTaylor I've taken the same attitude on the RC, let's what I'll learn from this passage lol. Do you mind sharing your "ask this" questions per Q type?
@RT.IBL of course! For MC its "does this support, or is it the final claim being supported?" For flaws, I test them "is this what the argument does? Are there key words in the stim that indicate the flaw, and key words in the AC that exclude it from being correct?" and "if this was the flaw, what would it look like in an argument I would come up with" - this tests my understanding of the flaw AND whether the flaw matches. For STR and WEAK I 1) identify the type of argument (phen-hyp, factors, counter-pos. cond, caus) then I identify the type of STR or WEAK AC's relevant to the argument type and ask myself, "does this decrease/increase plausibility, is it an illusory inconsistency, directionally wrong, alt hype?". For Parallel reasoning and PF I always identify the MoR - "is it conditional, causal or something else, how exactly does the argument proceed?". Then match that to the AC - not getting bogged down in the details of the argument. These I typically get quite quick. For NA, i am ALWAYS skeptical of AC's that have strong language like "all, always, never etc." and ask myself "does the author HAVE to assume this". For SA, I love to look at AC's and see if the AC reverses the conditional (putting the conclusion as the suff. instead of the nec. - but I also TEST the contrapositive of those AC's)." in MBT I mentally diagram and assign conditionals as one letter variables like (X, Y, Z, A, B, C). MSS I always ask "does the stim give me enough info to make this inference" and for answers that have strong language I always ask "does the stim tell us about ALL of these things" and "can I support that answer with the information i'm given?". RRE i ask "what is the discrepancy here?" before even checking the AC's. For AP, I ask "is this supporting something, is it being supported itself?" and "what is the MC of this argument"?
@AvishaiTaylor Practicing this routine during untimed drills teaches me to do this quicker in PT's and Sections.
@AvishaiTaylor thank you! best of luck on your upcoming test day! 🙏🏻
Hooray 🙌 🥳 So proud of you, keep up the good work (: