Hi all,
Do folks have any recommendations for PT practices when there’s no full PT/clean sections left?
Since I’ve been practicing with some re-used materials (ie, an LR section may have 4-5 seen questions, RC may have 1-2 seen passages) I naturally could go a bit faster than what I realistically can do on the test day. This difference in pacing kind of threw me off on the real test. What do folks do in similar situations?
Things I’ve tried & been doing are:
Re-use PT but still thoroughly analyze wrong/slow answers to learn new lessons.
Pro: still good learning through WAJ
Con: doesn’t get 100% test day condition practice with fresh materials
Manually make my own section practices.
Pro: good practice with fresh materials
Con: very time consuming to select the questions; old LR that may not be representative; not sure if I’ve taken the right combo of different question types
I feel quite confident with the materials at this point and am just looking to get enough section practices in to be able to execute quickly.
Thanks in advance!
2 comments
Hello! It is actually great that you are recycling materials; that is exactly what you should be doing at this stage! I highly recommend retaking full PTs that you reviewed a long time ago, even those where you have seen 100% of the questions. You might feel like you will remember everything, but when you actually take them, you will probably notice yourself getting the same questions wrong twice, or even missing questions that you previously got right. Work on WAJ thoroughly and update your previous entries based on your most recent performance.
To address your concern about going too fast on reused material: if your brain immediately recognizes the correct answer, force yourself to explicitly articulate exactly why the other four answer choices are incorrect before moving on. In other words, don't choose the correct AC because you know it's the correct one; try to work your brain through and reach the correct AC. Ask yourself, why was this correct, and why was that incorrect? This prevents you from rushing and keeps your internal pacing clock accurately calibrated. Also, maintain strict simulation rules for these retakes (35-35-10-35-35) to keep building that final-section stamina.
Finally, if you have not touched PTs 1-18 yet, that is a great place to get fresh questions! It is worth working on older PTs, especially since you don't have many fresh ones left. Although the difficulty and style may vary slightly from the current versions, the underlying logic is the same. I hope this helps, and best of luck!
Thank you so much!!!