Self-study
AlexandraFriestman
👩🏫 Strategizing
Essential Study Skills for MinMaxing Your Score (part 1 - remembering + understanding)
This is part of how I got to a 177 PT after 4 weeks of studying.
Hi! I have a master's degree in education, and I'm currently using it to minmax my studying for this test using some of the most foundational things that teachers learn about in college. That means I want to put in the least amount of study hours and have the maximum retention and mastery of the material. I'd like to share with you what I know, so you, too, can steal my study methods.
I'd like to introduce y'all to a framework called Bloom's Taxonomy. This is one tool teachers are using when they create lesson plans and decide what order students should learn things in. This is also the very foundation of what I'm doing to accelerate my study timeline.
No matter what curriculum you're using to study for the LSAT, you should not be starting off with immediately doing questions*. Instead, you need to learn the very most basic facts and concepts and understand what you're reading. Most people think that this means that they should skim the article, maybe watch the video for a little bit, and then call it a day. "Okay, I've done the reading, now I can apply." No. Without truly understanding what you just read and internalizing it, you cannot get the apply, analyze, and evaluate stages of Bloom's taxonomy (which is where the questions live). And I'll be honest, this part, the understand and remember stage, does require a little bit of front-loading the material. Meaning, you might put more hours into this stage than any other stage.
So what does internalizing something mean? How do I do it repeatably, easily, and fluidly? It's not really a one-size-fits-all kind of situation, but the "topic learning cycle" I outline below can really improve your retention. It may not work for everyone, but it is one framework based on the science of how people actually learn that works for me.
Day 1 of a topic: Be an active reader. This means finding ways to connect with the text using some level of background knowledge. This means asking questions of the text and actively summarizing in your brain as you read. I'll probably make a separate post on the details of active reading strategies we teach in k-12.
Day 1: Check your understanding. This is different than the Apply stage on Bloom's. Checking your understanding means perhaps doing a skill builder or a you try (caution - this does involve going beyond the understand level of Bloom's sometimes) about the material that you just consumed. If there isn't a Skill Builder published about that reading, or there isn't a you try published about that reading, then you need to design it yourself as you're reading. One way you can do this is anytime you have a question about the reading, write that question down on an index card. Then, if the answer comes up later, write that answer down on the back side. Then compile all your index cards and quiz yourself with them.
Day 2: Only take notes on the second pass! The first time you read something, it should be purely for understanding. The second time, you should take notes on what you remember as the most important things in the reading. This should ideally happen at least a day after you did the reading the first time.
Day 3: Compile your notes, any quiz questions you made for yourself, and any key terms from the reading into an Anki deck. While I have my own, it is way more effective if you make it for yourself. Identifying what to put in the deck is part of the learning process.
Day 4 and beyond: use spaced repetition, which is what Anki is for, to continue to review the material as you add new material in (note - Anki will not be the only way you use this material, it is just the foundation).
Does this mean that you're taking four days to learn each topic? Yes, but you shouldn't be only learning one topic at a time. There's a reason I said this was a cycle:
Day 1: learn one topic.
Day 2: review the first topic and add in a second.
Day 3: review topics one and two and add in a third.
What do I mean by one topic? Well, there isn't an easy, clear-cut answer for this. One topic could mean just one reading here on 7Sage. It could also mean all of the content in a module. It really depends on you: how much your brain can handle learning at once and how long you have to study.
Now, I know I just said that you probably shouldn't be using actual LSAT questions during this stage, but there are a couple exceptions. You could probably safely do the Main Conclusion and Argument Part questions as soon as you have memorized all of the argument indicator words and understand what an argument structure is. That might be getting to apply just a little bit, but I would argue it's still mostly in the understand stage
By taking the time to truly internalize each topic that you learn, you'll be much better prepared to move on to the apply, analyze, and evaluate stages of Bloom's taxonomy. That's the end of this post, but I'll probably make another one about the higher stages later on.
*yes, you should take a diagnostic.
@graceslevin guided meditation is great when first learning how to meditate in general, but the kind of meditation discussed in the study is typically not guided. Normally when I meditate I just focus inward and focus on a specific stimulus like the feeling of my ring on my finger and let thoughts pass through without latching on to them. This is called focused attention meditation.