How to read LR stimulus

Zachary_P

Through the BR process, I've noticed that I can attribute 1-2 missed questions per LR section to "misreading" the stimulus. It seems that I am prone to skip an important adjective that clarifies the correct AC. Most of the time, I approach the AC's with a good understanding of the argument/facts, but for the few questions that hinge on these small clarifiers, I often get burned.

When I read the stimulus, I typically follow the end of each line with my pencil. I've noticed in JY's live commentary videos, he tracks literally every word with his pencil. Does anyone have a method of reading (specifically in terms of pencil usage) that they feel allows them to capture even small details? Do you think I would benefit from switching to this more methodical approach? Thanks in advance!

Sami

@Zachary_P said:
Through the BR process, I've noticed that I can attribute 1-2 missed questions per LR section to "misreading" the stimulus. It seems that I am prone to skip an important adjective that clarifies the correct AC. Most of the time, I approach the AC's with a good understanding of the argument/facts, but for the few questions that hinge on these small clarifiers, I often get burned.

When I read the stimulus, I typically follow the end of each line with my pencil. I've noticed in JY's live commentary videos, he tracks literally every word with his pencil. Does anyone have a method of reading (specifically in terms of pencil usage) that they feel allows them to capture even small details? Do you think I would benefit from switching to this more methodical approach? Thanks in advance!

I think following with a pencil is a great method! It definitely helps bring those errors down by a lot. But we are humans and are not infallible and I think its important to own up to that. We are bound to read some things incorrectly sometimes on some of the questions. I think the critical question is what do you do when you get to the answer choices and you have read things incorrectly in the stimulus. Something should happen where you feel that you don't have the right answer. So you circle that stimulus and come back to it on the second round and you nail it then because its hard to miss-read the same thing twice especially if you are following it with a pencil. That should be the strategy when you have made a mistake in reading an LR stimulus. Skip it fast come back to it again after a while.

But yeah if you find yourself that you are making this mistake a lot then yes, follow with a pencil it will really help bring those errors down. But be aware that you will still have this issue on some stimulus. I sometimes still read things incorrectly and as far as I can tell all of the 170 plus scorers make mistakes on their first round they just have a strategy in place to fix it.