High accuracy, low speed

Ohnoeshalpme

Hi all,

When I drill my weaker LR question types (untimed), I almost always go -0, and on BR I usually go -1/-2 per LR section. On a timed section, however, I usually score closer to -9 per section. Also, I feel strong for the first section of the test, but wear out as the test goes along. How do I improve endurance between PT's (I don't want to waste PT's)?

What drills should I do to improve speed and endurance for LR?

Sami

@Ohnoeshalpme said:
Hi all,

When I drill my weaker LR question types (untimed), I almost always go -0, and on BR I usually go -1/-2 per LR section. On a timed section, however, I usually score closer to -9 per section. Also, I feel strong for the first section of the test, but wear out as the test goes along. How do I improve endurance between PT's (I don't want to waste PT's)?

To improve endurance on the PT as a whole try taking 5 or even 6 section PT. Try it on a retake and see if you can build endurance that way.

What drills should I do to improve speed and endurance for LR?

This can be different from person to person. But some things that can be happening are:

1) You could be spending too long on easy questions.
This is hard to identify because we tend to get the easy questions correct and the hard ones wrong. A lot of the hard questions require more than a minute and a half and that time has to be saved by going faster on easy questions.

There are a couple of things you can do to identify if this is what's happening.

Break down your time for each question and write down what difficulty level they are.
- Take a video of you taking your section and break down your time per question. For 1 to 2 difficulty level questions you should have been spending 30-45 seconds per question. If that wasn't the case, see if you can identify in the video at what point were you about 80% confident in your answer choices and should have moved on.

If you do find out that was one of your issues try confidence drill. Confidence drill can be really helpful in getting you to move faster on easier questions.

2) You could be spending too long on the first round on hard questions or questions you do not see what's going on with.

• If we spend 3 minute on a question that we just cannot figure out because we want to get all the questions correct, we are going to now be constrained for time on the rest of the questions in the section. This ends up making us feel under pressure and rush our reading - making us miss questions we shouldn't.

One way to address this is by practicing taking sections with good form.
- Read the stimulus once, if you do not get it, read the stimulus again. Then read the answer choices, if you end up crossing out all the answer choices or down to 50-50 but cannot quickly differentiate, or you just do not know what the right answer choice is. It's time to skip this question.
- Often times people keep re-reading the stimulus after each answer choice and its just a waste of time. Skip the question in a timely manner and come back on the second round.
- The faster you skip the more time you will have later. Time away from a question can actually do wonders.

3) Pick two questions to miss.
- If you take a section with the goal of going -0 you are not going to get -0. There is going to be at least 1 if not 2 question on each LR section that is better missed because of how long it will take to get it.
- The ideal way to take a section is after the first round you will have a better idea of the difficulty level for you for each of the questions you skipped. Out of the questions pick two questions to miss that are extremely hard and do not attempt them until you have worked on the ones you can get correct fast.

4) You could also just not have efficient strategy for breaking down the argument in the stimulus and that's why its taking so long.
- Try working with a tutor and see if they can indeed identify how well you are approaching the stimulus and answer choices.

I hope this was helpful. Let me know if you have any more questions.

tanes256

@Ohnoeshalpme this was also a problem for me. What I realized was that I was so panicked and focused on the clock that all strategy and any thought process went out the window. As I got more comfortable with the clock I started seeing a positive change. My PT scores started looking more like my untimed scores. I agree that you should focus on strategy and the task before worrying about time but don’t get to the point where you’re only doing things untimed. Or you’re doing more things untimed than timed. So much of my studying was untimed and I def paid for it. For such a long time I was literally afraid of the clock. Now my heart still races when I start the clock but I have normally calmed down before I’m done with the first page. Is this your issue? Or, can you think of what may be causing this for you? I know that uncertainty about certain question types slowed me down as well and caused me to either not be able to finish and having to guess or having to rush through from not having enough time. These two things affected my PT scores vs my untimed scores.

Ohnoeshalpme

@Sami Thank you so much. This is exactly the point-by-point attack that I needed.

@tanes256 I agree, I need to start the transition toward timed sections and timed drilling. I need to conquer my nerves and distractions.