LR blind review... success stories?

demiiisodaaa

Hii

I've been studying for 4 months now, and planning to take the feb test.

I only recently started doing Blind Review for LR (starting from PT 20), and I realized that my score before and after blind review has a huge difference. I think the main reason is that I can't ever finish the LR section on time. On average I miss about 4-5 Q's, sometimes more... and of course get things wrong along the way... So i would end up getting 7-10 wrong per section

But when I do Blind Review, I get most of the questions right (which surprised me!) .. missing 5 to nothing. So it seems like I can get through the reasoning with enough time...

I'm planning to continue to BR maybe for a month and see if I improve on time as well.

Does anyone have a "success" story of blind review?? If I continue to Blind Review, would I get faster?? I know the answer may be obvious but I would love to hear how other people improved on LR...!

Thanks so much..!!

Alex

I know there are literally tons of BR success stories on here, but mine is pretty short and sweet.

Before 7Sage, I was a lone ranger when it came to my LSAT prep. I had some books and I'd read a chapter on a question type, then I would just drill a bunch of LR questions and check the answers immediately afterwards. I got a bit better in terms of my understanding, however, my score kind of stalled for over a month. So after studying for about a month or so I finally signed up for 7Sage and learned of the BR method. Once I began seeking to understand the questions untimed and doing everything that came along with BR, my LR score plateau broke.

In essence, BR gave me increased confidence which in turn led to me being faster and more accurate.

BR is a habit... not something you should only do short term or just for another month. If you want to continue to get better, continually BR is the way to go!

Check out/review the lessons on it in the curriculum or on YouTube for free below:

https://7sage.com/lesson/the-blind-review-is-a-habit/

akistotle

I think it depends on the definition of “success.” I have made about 25-point increase from my initial diagnostics, but I don’t know if mine is a “success” yet....

But I think increasing your BR score to as close as possible to a 180 is the first step toward improvement on your actual score.

NotMyName

I studied for about 4 months without BR before coming to 7Sage. My LR avg correct started around 17 (-8) and I was able to raise that to 19 (-6). But during that time I was constantly rushed and invariably forced to guess on questions blindly. Since starting to BR, I'm now at -3/-4 and I see all the questions in around 29 minutes. My next goal is to be -1/-2 and see all the questions in 27 minutes.

I think anyone who BRs properly will eventually get faster and more accurate. However, I think a tendency to rush through BR followed by hindsight bias commonly interferes with proper BR. In terms of rushing, it's not uncommon for me to spend 30 minutes with a question in BR because there are lots of practicing methods at my disposal.

A short list for example would be: is this a cookie cutter and what is the structure? Can I succinctly describe the issue in the stimulus to my 4 year old niece? What would be an analogous argument? Why are these answer choices wrong and how could I make them right? Why is this AC right? Could I make this QT X into QT Y? What would that correct AC look like? Did I approach this question efficiently or did I read uncritically and spend too much time debating AC while having a fuzzy understanding of the stimulus?

But doing all these things along with asking/answering questions takes time. And it's easy to watch JYs video explanation and chalk your error up to a "silly mistake since you understand it now".

Also, are you taking into consideration questions which you didn't have trouble with yet got wrong anyway? i.e. over-confidence errors? That is another illustrative observation in the BR process. It's very difficult to achieve a consistent score or progress if you're being ailed by over-confidence errors. I'm usually at about .5 per LR section now -- a major improvement over before.

TheMikey

BR is awesome, it's what made me better and faster at LR.

Was averaging about -2 per LR section during PTs, and I almost always had about 5-10 mins left at the end. Although, there were rare occasions where maybe I was off my game and finished right on 35 mins or something.

Keep practicing, it takes a lot of focus and time but it will get you better. Once you see the patterns of every question type, you will do them much faster and it doesn't get "easier" so to say, but you just kind of get used to it. I want to hesitate on saying "easier" because the test is still hard no matter what, but you get my point

studyingandrestudying

Yes, stay in the game and it'll pay off.

demiiisodaaa

Thank you all so much for sharing!!!
@jkatz1488 After you do the BR and check your answers, do you watch the explanations video for questions?? For me, I would definitely seek explanations for the ones I got wrong even after the BR. But I'm sometimes not sure whether or not my "reasoning" for choosing a correct answer and eliminating the wrong answers are right. But then seeking explanations for even the Qs I got correct would take so much time...
And right now, I am not enrolled in the 7sage course so I don't have access to explanation videos, so I would just search on google and see what people have said about it. But then again, Im not sure how accurate some information is. :O
So i guess the bottom line question is: How important is it to get outside explanations for BR?

goingfor99th

@akistotle said:
I think it depends on the definition of “success.” I have made about 25-point increase from my initial diagnostics, but I don’t know if mine is a “success” yet....

But I think increasing your BR score to as close as possible to a 180 is the first step toward improvement on your actual score.

Congrats on your increase so far!!

NotMyName

@demiiisodaaa

After you do the BR and check your answers, do you watch the explanations video for questions?? For me, I would definitely seek explanations for the ones I got wrong even after the BR. But I'm sometimes not sure whether or not my "reasoning" for choosing a correct answer and eliminating the wrong answers are right. But then seeking explanations for even the Qs I got correct would take so much time...

And right now, I am not enrolled in the 7sage course so I don't have access to explanation videos, so I would just search on google and see what people have said about it. But then again, Im not sure how accurate some information is. :O
So i guess the bottom line question is: How important is it to get outside explanations for BR?

https://www.manhattanprep.com/lsat/forums/logical-reasoning-f4.html
https://lsathacks.com/explanations/

The above are two free, alternative resources for LR question explanation that I trust.

Once I've BRed and graded, the only questions I'll have gotten wrong and not reviewed would be over-confidence errors since I didn't mark those for BR. Once those are identified, I go through the same process for those with the additional question "why was I so confident?".

I use the videos just about every question I feel the need to BR. But at the moment, that is only about 7 questions per LR section. Are you asking about questions which you marked for BR but you got correct? In this case, I often consider these kind of lucky for myself since there is a chance I could get the same question wrong in the future (unless I was like 90% sure and just wanted to double check in BR). For many of these, I go through the same process because the goal (understanding) is still not met even if I am a little closer or especially if I just got a little lucky.

When you're considering whether you need to review a question or not, I don't believe time should be a consideration. The only criterion in my opinion which should matter is (1) did you get it right and (2) did you choose it confidently? If you answer "no" to either of those questions, it needs to be reviewed. That means it could take 2 weeks to BR a single PT (or longer I suppose). But if 2 weeks is the natural cycle of BR for a given student, going faster will only result in less learning and slower progress. PTs are a gauge for execution and practice. BR is where we actually learn.

I've done blueprint and lsathacks; read lsat trainer and some of the bibles. None of them we're even remotely as helpful as 7Sage. If you are set on the feb exam though, I don't think it makes much sense to use anything beyond the starter package here. However, you might consider doing that and upgrading if you decide to take it again next cycle. In the mean time, are you foolproofing games? That is the easiest way to jump in scoring.

demiiisodaaa

@jkatz1488 Thanks so much for your advice..!!!! You're right in that BR should be the learning process and PT is just a method for executing it... I think I was mistakenly caught up with the idea that more PTs = better... haha It is okay if I ask you some more questions on message??

btate87

It turned my LR around. I started 7Sage (and BR) after finishing the Bibles and realizing it still took me 40+ minutes to finish an LR section. In 35 minutes I was still missing 8-10. My LR scores are primarily -0/-1 at this point and that improvement very much depended on months of making BR a habit and reviewing missed questions again and again over a few weeks. Stick with it and remember accuracy over speed when the timer is on.

NotMyName

@demiiisodaaa Of course I don't mind : )