When to watch JY's explanations?

Gladiator_2017

After BR a LR section, how do you decide when it's helpful to watch JY's video explanation?

I think I might be over killing it right now. I'm probably watching videos for about 18 of the 25 LR questions. Perhaps it's a reflection of my confidence level. My reasoning is that I want to make sure that I'm thoroughly reviewing a question and possibly learning takeaways that I may not otherwise have gotten. But, I'm beginning to think there's a downside where I'm not using my time the most wisely and I'm somewhat boring myself.

I'm thinking of changing my criteria for which videos to watch based on: confidence errors, any questions I got incorrect during BR, and questions that took me over 90 seconds or that should have just been quicker. One LR section ranges from -4 to -7.

Any thoughts or advice?

TheMikey

After you BR if you still are having trouble with a question then watch the video for it. Or if you obviously still got a Q wrong during BR, watch the video.

LSATcantwin

There are two times when I think you should reference J.Y.'s videos

1.) You just don't understand the question. You got it wrong timed, you have looked at it during blind review, and it's just not clicking. There have been times even after watching J.Y. explain it that I STILL don't understand and have to come here and ask. (BR that takes forever)

2.) You know that one answer is right/wrong but you can't justify why another A.C. is right/wrong.

In all other cases I think you should be putting the time into figuring it out for yourself. You can't rely on J.Y. during the test. It is you, and your brain. Your brain has to be able to get your back on harder questions. The only way it can do that is if you force it to figure out how to approach problems.

I bet you of the 18 videos you watch, at LEAST 5 of them you can do on your own. I bet you that your brain will catch on and THAT is where learning takes place.

Of course this is only my opinion. You need to find something that works for you.

Alex

I find it helpful to review the videos after I have done a thorough blind review. I then go on to watch videos for any question I had circled (even if I got it right during BR) and any questions I straight up got wrong.

As said above, do your honest best to figure it out on your own first. That said, I think spending more than a half hour or so during BR on a single question may be a case where one could spend their time wiser. I know some advocate for taking an hour or whatever it takes to figure it out, but I value my time too much. I'd rather watch JY's explanation and then spend that time figuring out what I can do to improve and make sure I get similar questions right next time.

Gladiator_2017

Thanks for the replies! My BR is usually -1/-2 from a confidence error. For 95% of the questions I circle and place a dash next to I can get through and reason why each answer is wrong/right. For BR I do a quick write up of How to approach that question type, the conclusion, premise, and if appropriate a pre phrase and the go through each answee choice for why its right/wrong. It usually takes me about 2.5/3 hours to BR a LR section on my own. But watching the videos for most of the questions increases the overall time to almost double. So ill spend almost four hours in total reviewing one LR section.

@LSATcantwin Thanks for sharing the situations for when you BR. I'll start sticking to watching the videos for only these two reasons.

@"Alex Divine" I think part of my problem is I'm still a little underconfident in my abilities so I over circle. I'm trying to figure out how to get a better at gauging my level of confidence and my accuracy. For my last section I wasn't 100% confident on 15 or so questions but I only got 2 wrong of those 15.

Alex

@Gladiator_2017 said:
@"Alex Divine" I think part of my problem is I'm still a little underconfident in my abilities so I over circle. I'm trying to figure out how to get a better at gauging my level of confidence and my accuracy. For my last section I wasn't 100% confident on 15 or so questions but I only got 2 wrong of those 15.

Ahhh, I see. For the 13/15 you get right but circle anyway, what exactly about each question causes you to be unsure? Is there another answer choice that you find hard to eliminate? Is there a pattern to the types of questions you are continuously circling?

I, too, had some under-confidence issues which not only caused me to be circling tons of questions, but more importantly was it was costing me time. I was eventually able to remedy some of the problem by doing untimed drills where I practiced verbalizing reasons for eliminating 4 the wrong answers. This translated to more confidence during actual PTs and timed tests because I had concrete reasons to pull the trigger on the correct answers.

I feel like one root cause of this problem was that I was relying a bit too much on feeling and intuition during the LR section. Simply put, I needed to work on my skills with conditional logic, grammar, and strategies so that I could approach each question with a strong plan that I could rely on. Not sure if this could be a possible reason for your under-confidence?

Gladiator_2017

@"Alex Divine" hmm I'll need to take another look at my last couple of sections to see why I circle them. From the top of my head there are probably 6 or 7 that I skip and then go back to during my second pass. I go over all those questions even if I was 95% confident in my 2nd pass to try to figure out what possibly slowed me down or gut me stuck on the first pass.

For the rest I think it's that I had a pre-phrase and my answer choice matched the pee-phrase. I guess I get nervous and think maybe my pre-phrase was off.

Today's my day off from studying (trying to be better at taking every Friday off no matter what to avoid burn out). But tomorrow I'll go through my last 2 or 4 sections and categorize why I circled each question (hopeful I can remember). Thanks!

Killmonger

To be completely honest i sometimes find better help in the comments section of the questions. So thanks 7sage community. Ill sometimes watch if i can't eliminate a wrong answer and i wanna know how he eliminated. But figuring it out for yourself is 100 percent the best way to go about this. I probably watch JY explanations for maybe 4 questions per section. Ive been doing this for a while tho but early on i was definitely watching easily 10-12 explanations per sections because i wasn't that good yet. But trying to learn for yourself and then maybe glancing at the comments could be helpful. I also hear JY's voice in my friggin sleep or when I'm doing tests. Like ill pick a bad answer and ill hear JY say "no you idiot. thats wrong. look a C a little harder" and ill look at C and its right. lmao . i know this sounds ridiculous but I'm not even joking.

Alex

@Gladiator_2017 said:
@"Alex Divine" hmm I'll need to take another look at my last couple of sections to see why I circle them. From the top of my head there are probably 6 or 7 that I skip and then go back to during my second pass. I go over all those questions even if I was 95% confident in my 2nd pass to try to figure out what possibly slowed me down or gut me stuck on the first pass.

For the rest I think it's that I had a pre-phrase and my answer choice matched the pee-phrase. I guess I get nervous and think maybe my pre-phrase was off.

Today's my day off from studying (trying to be better at taking every Friday off no matter what to avoid burn out). But tomorrow I'll go through my last 2 or 4 sections and categorize why I circled each question (hopeful I can remember). Thanks!

No problem! If you're 95% sure and getting 13/15 of the ones you circled correct, I feel like you should try being more aggressive and confident in yourself. As far as your pre-phrase, be flexible, but if it matches chances are you understood the stim and question stem.

Enjoy your day off!