Avoiding Eliminating Correct Answer Choices (LR and RC)

MPeabody

I just posted something very similar in the course so I apologize if this is considered spammy, but I hoped it might be more visible here.

Something I've been really trying to improve upon is getting rid of wrong answer choices quickly. I watch JY do it in the videos and know that being able to adopt this skill is crucial to cutting down on time. I'm not talking about when something is factually out-of-left-field or an obvious conditional reversal, but more when the first part of an answer choice is not enough to make it right, but may have additional information that doesn't make it wrong and hence shouldn't be eliminated. I have no trouble understanding why he will cross off an idea--I do see why it's not fully correct--I just can't seem to nail down when you know that it's sufficient information to be able to eliminate it and look at other answer choices.

This came up most recently on PT 34, 2 #23, a LR MBT question. Basically, the first part of the correct answer choice did not provide information that would make it the credited response. It was simply irrelevant. So how do you know when something is irrelevant vs. absolutely wrong?

I guess this will be more of an issue on some types of questions more than others and so I can focus on some type-specific strategies, but I have seen this on main point questions in RC, which is where I WOULDN'T expect to see it. I can't think of any specific instances at the moment, but I feel like I've seen a couple correct main point questions include a little detail that really isn't crucial to the main idea, but the rest of the choice is a perfect match and the other answer choices are very clearly wrong.

Similarly, I get why JY might immediately eliminate a answer choice that is asking you to make an inference off of a necessary condition, but I'm just afraid that the answer choice might either make this detail irrelevant or say something like *you can't conclude anything about this* at the end. I know this will occur much less frequently than it won't, but I know a big weakness of mine is eliminating all answer choices and panicking. (I'm getting better at rereading the question stem to make sure I didn't miss a crucial detail and if not, just skipping it, but I'd still like to just avoid this in general.) I've been contemplating making different notations for answer choices that are straight up wrong or have something wrong enough that I don't like it and moved on without finishing it so that if I do get into this situation, I don't have to revisit all answer choices, and can also study where I'm doing this correctly/incorrectly in BR, but other than that, I'm stuck.

I understand that with practice I will see more patterns and develop more confidence, but I feel like there is some strategy here and would appreciate your thoughts!

MPeabody

And quasi-related: Any other advice on moving quickly through answer choices, whether eliminating the bad or being comfortable moving forward once you think you have the right answer (i.e. It's probably wiser to be more confident that you have the right answer in a MBT question as opposed to a MSS question, right?) would also be fantastic.