Drilling LR Strategy

amedley88

Hi everyone,

Sorry if this was mentioned somewhere before, like maybe in the CC, but I am really looking for an LR study strategy that is as thorough and ordered as the LG fool proof method (which I have began applying to RC using PTs 1-35)...

My average for LR is -10 to -11 timed and -6 to -7 in BR. I have done four full PTs and the analytics tell me that Flaw and NA are my worst areas. However, I have done a number of LR sections and had the same results with no clear pattern of question type that sticks out. Now, I have done the CC for LR twice at this point and really don't want to do it for a third time. Especially since I feel I have made improvements since doing it before (especially in relation to conditional logic.)

Some have told me just to drill different question types but I'm not sure what that means... How do I put them together? Do I start by doing them timed and then do BR? How many should I do and how often? If anyone has suggestions on how to design a structured and targeted LR study strategy, similar to the LG fool proof method, it would be greatly appreciated...

If any tutors are reading this, I am considering employing one to help me for the December and/or February LSAT - I definitely have to apply for this cycle, I have been at this almost full-time for one year now.

Thanks!

Alex

@"Cant Get Right" Will now be available to tutor. He is who I consider to be the logical reasoning master. He has helped me immensely in the past.

As for drilling by type, I would recommend just doing ~5-10 of any type giving you issues and then reviewing them.

Tavorak_

LR in the newer tests (70s) are a little trickier. They don't feel as mechanical, and the correct answers aren't as obvious as earlier tests.

A solution I found was to review an explanation of every LR question I missed or was unsure about on the Manhattan LR forums. Then I would type them up, print them off, and rework them throughout the week. The methodology behind it is similar to 7Sage's for LG. It helped with familiarity and improved my LR by about 6 questions on PTs where I reviewed the week(s) before, compared to PTs where I had been slacking.

amedley88

I do have the KAPLAN explanations for PTs 1-60. I appreciate these ideas and will consider them, but is there anything I can gain from this that I can't from say... doing one timed section of LR per study day, BRing it, reviewing the explanations for incorrect answers and then drilling the question types / difficulty of questions I didn't answer correctly on either try? I'm guessing this would probably take around five hours in total, but seems worth it.

What I am hoping to get out of this method is to increase my speed at understanding the point of the stimulus on first read. I'm great at identifying ctx, premise, sub and main conclusions but feel like the timing overwhelms me and causes me to make mistakes when deciding between answer choices. The majority of my wrong answers come from misunderstanding the stimulus as opposed to the logic or methodology of the question types. For example, I always seem to correctly get max difficulty parallel flawed method of reasoning questions on blind review, but I can barely even attempt them timed... I also realize I need to develop a skipping strategy and I can only see this being accomplished through brute force as opposed to just drilling five to ten question types and BRing them. That just sounds a little stressful and unfocused to me at this point.

Alex

@amedley88 said:
I do have the KAPLAN explanations for PTs 1-60. I appreciate these ideas and will consider them, but is there anything I can gain from this that I can't from say... doing one timed section of LR per study day, BRing it, reviewing the explanations for incorrect answers and then drilling the question types / difficulty of questions I didn't answer correctly on either try? I'm guessing this would probably take around five hours in total, but seems worth it.

What I am hoping to get out of this method is to increase my speed at understanding the point of the stimulus on first read. I'm great at identifying ctx, premise, sub and main conclusions but feel like the timing overwhelms me and causes me to make mistakes when deciding between answer choices. The majority of my wrong answers come from misunderstanding the stimulus as opposed to the logic or methodology of the question types. For example, I always seem to correctly get max difficulty parallel flawed method of reasoning questions on blind review, but I can barely even attempt them timed... I also realize I need to develop a skipping strategy and I can only see this being accomplished through brute force as opposed to just drilling five to ten question types and BRing them. That just sounds a little stressful and unfocused to me at this point.

Have you taken many PTs yet? Where are you scoring on LR?

I think it may very well be more productive to do timed sections w/ BR depending on where you are in your prep.

amedley88

@"Alex Divine" said:

@amedley88 said:
I do have the KAPLAN explanations for PTs 1-60. I appreciate these ideas and will consider them, but is there anything I can gain from this that I can't from say... doing one timed section of LR per study day, BRing it, reviewing the explanations for incorrect answers and then drilling the question types / difficulty of questions I didn't answer correctly on either try? I'm guessing this would probably take around five hours in total, but seems worth it.

What I am hoping to get out of this method is to increase my speed at understanding the point of the stimulus on first read. I'm great at identifying ctx, premise, sub and main conclusions but feel like the timing overwhelms me and causes me to make mistakes when deciding between answer choices. The majority of my wrong answers come from misunderstanding the stimulus as opposed to the logic or methodology of the question types. For example, I always seem to correctly get max difficulty parallel flawed method of reasoning questions on blind review, but I can barely even attempt them timed... I also realize I need to develop a skipping strategy and I can only see this being accomplished through brute force as opposed to just drilling five to ten question types and BRing them. That just sounds a little stressful and unfocused to me at this point.

Have you taken many PTs yet? Where are you scoring on LR?

I think it may very well be more productive to do timed sections w/ BR depending on where you are in your prep.

Four full PTs, average is -9 to -10 wrong timed and about -5 to -6 wrong in BR. The ones I get wrong in both BR and timed are often due to something small in the stimulus that I overlooked or misinterpreted and I feel the only way to get better at this is by doing timed sections with thorough BR to gain familiarity and stamina. I also sort of suffer from that problem where I get anxious at the very beginning and taking a needlessly long amount of time on question one compared to the rest of the section.