Anticipating Correct Answer Choices

Zachary_P

Hello 7 Sagers - I'm in the post-CC stage preparing for the June '17 test, and I'm almost averaging my goal BR score, which is encouraging. I have a question about anticipating the correct AC in the LR section. For which question types should we be doing this? I know strengthen/weaken can bring in outside information to affect the amount of support, but should we try to guess the answer for all other question types before moving to the AC's? Thanks in advance!

Cant Get Right

Hey, this is such a great question. I've had a bit of a vendetta against the prephrase/anticipate approach except for question types like SA or Main Conclusion where there really can only be one possible answer. For most types, I really don't like it. I acknowledge it is a legitimate and helpful technique for many people, but it just didn't work for me personally.

Here's what I do: If I see a gap in an argument, I want to be aware of it and mentally tag it. What I don't want to do is throw all my eggs into that basket. I've seen too many stims with obvious gaps only to get into the ACs and find that they didn't give me the obvious thing. In that situation, I usually need to skip the question at that point or risk getting bogged down. When I don't go looking for the specific thing I'm expecting though, I maintain the ability to give each AC a fair and objective evaluation. This has enabled me to fly through lots of curvebreakers where the test writers manipulate us by planting those expectations and then not using them for the correct AC. They love that trick.

And of course, when they do give me the obvious, great! I'm not going to miss it just because I wasn't specifically looking for it!

Mo Zubair

I second @"Cant Get Right"

Even for SA question an approach of mentally tagging the missing assumption has worked better for me than trying to prephrase. I have noticed that even on easiest SA question (the ones that should be knocked off in less than 40 seconds), if i try to anticipate i waste around 5-10 seconds in doing so and still sometimes fail to see what i anticipated in ACs. Talking specifically about SA questions, i have noticed i am faster without anticipating than with anticipating.

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lsnnnnn0011

@"Cant Get Right" do you think that all LR Qs ask us about THE main logical flaw (most obvious) of a stimulus and just give the correct answer in expressions/words that are sometimes different from what we expect?

Cant Get Right

@lsnnnnn0011 said:
@"Cant Get Right" do you think that all LR Qs ask us about THE main logical flaw (most obvious) of a stimulus and just give the correct answer in expressions/words that are sometimes different from what we expect?

You make a great point about AC wording. A lot of times they will give us the obvious thing through a very strange expression, and this can make it a challenge to spot. A particularly challenging way they can do this is through the extensive use of vague referential phrasing. Those are the worst.

To answer your question though, I'd be really hesitant to say ALL of them do anything. For flaw questions though, I think the overwhelming majority definitely will. Where it really gets tricky is with Strengthen/Weaken, NA, RRE, and things like that where they can really bring in all kinds of crazy shit. The number of NA's an argument can make, for example, approaches infinity. So if they decide not to go with the obvious, you're screwed if you've committed yourself to that.

lsnnnnn0011

@"Cant Get Right" Thanks for your comment. But then why do people stress importance of pre-phrasing so much? Don't you think pre-phrasing is the KEY to 170+?

Heart Shaped Box

I think pre-phrasing can be very subjective. For some ppl, yes, that might be the "key" to score in the range, while for others, it may be a huge distraction to approach the ACs with such a biased mindset. One thing good about pre-phasing is that it allows you to focus on the "core" of the argument which could be an effective tool to eliminate wrong ACs, especially ones sounding mish-mash mixed with some words from the stimulus but really is irreverent. So pre-phasing is not completely useless. However, just like @"Cant Get Right" pointed out, it could also be a huge distraction allowing the test writers to trick you with the ACs that they know would be your anticipation and yet the correct one. That's where you really gotta be careful, it's a double sword. I always say this: LSAT is not a fair game in a sense that it's almost like taking a knife to a gun fight. Think about the manpower distribution between the test writers and test takers. We are literally taking on this fight as one person versus "a group of" experts with years of experiences sitting together around a big desk in their conference room who's "job" is to craftily "design" traps for us to jump in. They almost always know exactly what our pre-phases would/should be upon design of the questions. Why? Cuz they are the ones designed them, and they know "if" our reasoning is on point, we would/should pre-phase in certain ways. At that point it's really just a matter of whether them choosing to trick us or not. So it's a dangerous game to play there.

Furthermore, I agree with Josh that the Q types also determines whether or not to pre-phase, as W, S, MSS, NA, etc those ones could be really tricky, for there are many flaws/assumptions an argument could be making and it's again completely up to the test writers' discretion to choose which ones they feel the pleasure to throw at us. And many times they choose to do neither but a restatement of a line of the stimulus that virtually has nothing to do with the flaws/assumptions of the argument. But SA, inference MBT, MP, etc, definitely I would pre-phase.

So yeah, I would just try it out and see how it works for you personally. If you find it helpful for eliminating the wrong ACs (which it would/should be) and can also keep an open mind despite of your pre-determined biases, then by all means. Pre-phasing could be a beautiful thing if it works for you, and there are indeed many high scorers heavily use pre-phasing. But if you find it more distracting than beneficial, and even got Qs wrong that you wouldn't have otherwise "bc of" pre-phasing, then I would make adjustment accordingly.

Good luck.

tanes256

I am so glad someone brought this up. I didn't start out prephrasing and it has been so hard for me to incorporate it. I try during BR but it leaves me during PT. I'm still not very comfortable with it. After watching the webinar a while ago I got the feeling it was disastrous if I didn't but it's good to hear "to each his own." I'm not going to completely abandon it though.

danielznelson

I'm a firm believer in anticipating in a way akin to how Josh does. If I see a gap, I note it, but I don't depend on it. Jonathan Wang always told me to anticipate broadly rather than with too much specificity and for obvious reasons - you may miss the correct AC because of an anticipation that is too specific.

This stated, I do believe in anticipating more concretely for Flaw Questions. If you can't articulate any flaw, I'd recommend moving on to the next question, as I've found that I and many others fall for ACs that describe a flaw that isn't in the argument or something that the argument IS doing but is not in itself a flaw.

Some Strengthening and Weakening Questions have a clear gap, and for those, I try to immediately look for that gap in the ACs. But I'm always ready for it to not be there and run a second round of arriving the correct AC.

I try to gather inferences for MSS and MBT, so I can get a head start before heading into the ACs.

NAs are getting harder and harder to anticipate, because the stimuli are often so crazy awful, especially for the most difficult questions. But I do anticipate and scan the ACs to see if anything matches, like I do for S and W Questions. This takes me a few seconds. If nothing sticks, I go at it as normal.