How long should parallel flaw questions take?

TexAgAaron

With these being a bit wordier than your average LR question (especially with the AC's), what is an appropriate time to shoot for?

TheMikey

Depends. Usually I leave them for last unless they're in the first 10 questions or so. I'd say the easier ones shouldn't take that long if you figure it out quick, so maybe like 1 to 1:20 min? maybe even quicker. the harder ones it just depends on your feel for the question tbh

TexAgAaron

That makes sense. I've thought about whether I would skip these on the first pass since they are typically larger than other LR questions. But I can see if they appear early on they may be on the easier side and worth the time.

TheMikey

@akeegs92 said:
That makes sense. I've thought about whether I would skip these on the first pass since they are typically larger than other LR questions. But I can see if they appear early on they may be on the easier side and worth the time.

yeah for sure. there are definitely some parallel questions that might be long but are easier than say, a flaw question. it all just depends on how you feel for that questions but yeah, I usually skip any parallel questions that are long if they're in the middle or end until later.

JustDoIt

For sure. Skip and come back to them! I skip every single one on the grounds that they're too long and I can't right now haha

Alex

This might be controversial, but I don't think they take much longer than most other questions for high score takers. I still skip them if they long though, lol, all about the "low hanging fruit."

Daniel.Sieradzki

I also think that most parallel flaw questions do not take long with practice. Often, you can eliminate several answers because they have a completely different conclusion or argument structure. This usually takes you down to two answers. From there, just match the argument type (the wrong answer is usually the opposite, which in a flaw question would be valid). With this process and practice, parallel flaw questions can sometimes take as little as 45-50 seconds, which is way less than a short 5-star questions that is deceivingly difficult. Now, there are some truly difficult parallel flaw question, but most of them are easy questions disguised by a lot of text.

fmihalic2

Great question. For a while I was asking myself the same thing. I usually fly through these questions even if they are very long and intimidating. Sometimes these take me 2 minutes, sometimes 50 seconds, depends on the subtleties found in the stimulus and answer choices.

Since we are always watching every word, if the conclusion says something like "must" and then I see it's a parallel, I will immediately look through the five answer choices and eliminate any AC that has a lower degree of certainty. Sometimes this gets rid of 3 choices, or just one, depends. Then I check how the premises work to support the conclusion and the reasoning itself. If I see circular reasoning in the stimulus, I can't select a valid AC and vice versa. If I see conditional in the stimulus, I better see it in the AC.

95/100 these lead me to the correct answer in about 1:20, as stated above.

As you get to know the test your speed will increase.

TexAgAaron

@JustDoIt @"Alex Divine" @Daniel.Sieradzki @fmihalic2 Thanks for the imputs! I have been hovering around 1:20-1:30 for the 4-star ones so far. Accuracy has been hit or miss (still learning how to do them better) but at least I know now my pace isn't horrendous.

Alex

@akeegs92 said:
@JustDoIt @"Alex Divine" @Daniel.Sieradzki @fmihalic2 Thanks for the imputs! I have been hovering around 1:20-1:30 for the 4-star ones so far. Accuracy has been hit or miss (still learning how to do them better) but at least I know now my pace isn't horrendous.

Just keep practicing. I always begin searching for the conclusion and then quantifiers. (most, ever, some, etc.) this helps with speed because the better I get I found myself zeroing on in the important argument core and not the BS details meant to bog you down.

fmihalic2

These are long. They take time. In contrast a lot of flaw, weaken, main point questions take like 30 seconds.

Sami

@akeegs92 said:
I have been hovering around 1:20-1:30 for the 4-star ones so far. Accuracy has been hit or miss (still learning how to do them better) but at least I know now my pace isn't horrendous.

If you want to increase your accuracy for parallel type questions I once had to do a drill that really helped with that.

Take a bunch of old parallel/parallel flaw questions and see if you can crate an analogy for each answer choice with the stimulus. If its a bad analogy, see what needs to be added to make it better. Try seeing parallel questions like analogy questions. The answer choices are all imperfect. We just have to find the closest fit. So in the drill try to really pin point what each noun or verb in the answer choice would correspond to in the stimulus.

I hope that helps bring your accuracy up.

Alex

@fmihalic2 said:
These are long. They take time. In contrast a lot of flaw, weaken, main point questions take like 30 seconds.

They seem long because there is a lot of text to parse though. You have practice zeroing in on the argument structure. But I honestly believe that with the correct skills they shouldn't take much longer than any other question. Controversial, I know. I should also mention that this is Graeme Blake and Dave Hall's theories (which I do not endorse) However, he's got some good evidence for it.

Also. @Sami 's exercise is extremely helpful. I began doing it back in December or so and have definitely seem my accuracy and speed go up!

TexAgAaron

@Sami said:

Take a bunch of old parallel/parallel flaw questions and see if you can crate an analogy for each answer choice with the stimulus. If its a bad analogy, see what needs to be added to make it better. Try seeing parallel questions like analogy questions. The answer choices are all imperfect. We just have to find the closest fit. So in the drill try to really pin point what each noun or verb in the answer choice would correspond to in the stimulus.

I like that idea! That plus what @"Alex Divine" said about quantifiers which I seem to miss or read over I think will give me something to work on here. The past week I've been working on flaw questions and its starting to get a bit easier now that my level of exposure has greatly increased, so this will greatly add to it. I appreciate the input!