Improving LR by December

jennybbbbb

So I desperately need help with improving on logical reasoning. Right now my blind review is close to 19/25. On timed sections, I get around 15. I am writing the December test so I can take all the advice I can get.

I have heard that repeatedly doing untimed questions helps big time as you begin to recognize the patterns in the flaws/answer choices. Right now, I have been doing untimed LR sections in groups of 5 questions so that I don't get use to doing specific question types since I noticed I was getting use to doing one type of question and had troubles switching back and forth when doing an entire section/PT.

What has worked for you guys? I find myself struggling with questions where I have trouble understanding the stimulus or with longer questions, any tips on how to get around this? Should I just keep drilling? Will I eventually see an improvement?

Waiting For Grey Day

Could you elaborate more on where you are right now? For instance, have you revisited the CC?

For me, I visited the CC multiple times throughout my process of analyzing wrong answers. I think it really comes down to your relationship with not only the ones you get correct but also the ones you get wrong.

For the ones you get correct - even if you do understand the question make sure to watch JY's video because it 1) could have been luck that you got the answer correct and 2) JY may give you some other insights/methods on seeing the question from a different light. I made sure I not only understood JY's explanations but was also able to have my own reason for why an answer was correct.

For the ones you get wrong - I cut the questions out and keep them in a separate folder and every morning, I start the day with the ones I got wrong the previous day (similar to Fool proofing but only its LR). Before watching JY's explanation for the question, I try to first understand why I chose the wrong answer, what was so appealing about it, what felt so "off" with the right answer, recognize the certain biases I may have towards it, and figure out ways to avoid it in the future. After that phase, I then watch JY's explanation. After watching JY's explanation (sometimes multiple times to hammer that reasoning in), I type up my own explanation (why I got it wrong; why an answer is correct, why an answer is wrong) in a word file, print it out and staple it to the cut out question so that in future review, I can have my own thought process to refer to. I also note important take aways like ("stop dismissing the question stem" or "this type of assumption is acceptable for LSAT")

This process has helped me go from average -4 per LR section to -1/-3 in total.

I also think its important to do intensive focused drills; For specific questions types I had trouble understanding, I just drilled the hell out of those types and sometimes would combine similar question types - those that JY mention as superficial differences (SA together with Principle and MBT and doing NA with Weaken and Flaw). Although doing untimed sections are also helpful, I think its first important to understand the different tasks each question asks of you before attacking a whole section and sometimes, the way to achieve that is through intensive drills.

Also, I suggest you watch this webminar: https://7sage.com/webinar/post-core-curriculum-study-strategies/

It was extremely helpful for me to figure out and implement my post CC studying strategy.

I hope this was helpful!