Is it only me? Review takes hours..

Broccoli

Hi,

I take like hours to review questions that I got it wrong... I go through every answers and try to figure it out why each is wrong or right...

I've noticed if I review like 10 questions.. I spend almost an hour... sometimes more..
Am I the only one who's taking this long? Is this normal?

Seeking Perfection

It is normal. It can start to take a little less long over all once you get more confident on more questions and get more right.

However, the per question time should remain really long. There is a reason most people don't blind review intensively enough to get the full benefit. It is very time intensive.

tanes256

This is totally normal. Don’t let it discourage you. BR is where you’ll make your greatest gains.

TheoryandPractice

you are doing exactly what you should be doing!! That's awesome.

Mindful Monkey

Totally normal

J.CHRIS.ALST

You aren't alone!

tylerdschreur10

The more time you're taking, the more you're benefiting! Keep up the intensity and you'll go far!

People who's blind review looks anything like, "oh yup, I should've picked B. Just a silly mistake, next question", are in deep trouble. That's just a waste of time. Your goal is to truly understand the question; its structure, arguments, and logic, and each answer choice, right or wrong. Even for a 1-star question, doing this process thoroughly might take 5-10 minutes. multiply that by 5 for a curve-breaker!

Trust the system and stay patient!

Broccoli

Do you guys write down explanations on your notebooks?

Alex

@Broccoli180 said:
Do you guys write down explanations on your notebooks?

I type them out, but only so I can store them and actually read them. My handwriting looks like a drunken baboon's (whatever that looks like...)

If I miss a question I spend at least 20 minutes reviewing it. Properly reviewing an entire section takes me at least an hour or an hour and a half. For LR and RC, I write out detailed explanations and passage summaries, as well as prove out my answer choices with line cites from the passage on RC. I find that forcing yourself to write out explanations, even if you never look at them again, ensures you are actually grappling with the issues that messed you up and making sure you're learning how to improve. It's too easy to trick ourselves into thinking we understand the answers when we truly do not. Understanding is not binary and just because you know the answer doesn't mean you truly understand the question. Likewise, just because you miss a question doesn't mean you didn't understand anything about it at all. Writing out explanations will help you to focus in on the parts you didn't which is helpful.

Reviewing is where the actual improvement takes place, so never feel like you're taking too much time. In my estimation you can't ever spend too much time reviewing. You want to keep going until you reach that "Ahh! Yes, now I get it" moment.

I also highly recommend cutting out all of the questions you miss on LR and creating decks of missed questions to go through. This has helped me immensely. Further, I find writing out/typing out all my wrong answers helpful. I've found that when you read through 15-20 of the wrong answers choices you chose, patterns start to emerge. For me, I realized many of my stupid mistakes were when I picked answer choices that were the reversal of what I was actually looking for.

Broccoli

@"Alex Divine" okay! i'm not doing anything wrong. Thank God. Thanks Alex always helpful
and thanks to all who replied!

Broccoli

@tylerdschreur10 there's a curve in lsat?

Victor Wu

It typically takes me about an hour to BR 5 questions.

Alex

@Broccoli180 said:
@tylerdschreur10 there's a curve in lsat?

Technically it's scaled, but often you'll find people calling really challenging LSAT questions "curve breakers" since they seem to do a good job at separating people between score bands.

Broccoli

@victorwu Same

studyingandrestudying

I'm right there with you and the other people who commented on this.

demiiisodaaa

Yeah... I spend like 2-3 days per LR section... I try to BR all the questions (some more intensively than others) and jot down reasoning for eliminating and choosing answers. Then, I watch explanations for questions I wasn't sure of and try to correct my reasoning. For some I type out my reasoning again to make sure. All that said, it takes so much time... lol I begin to think doing timed section is the "easy" part.

studyingandrestudying

It might not seem like it now, but I'm starting to realize in the big picture there's actually not that many tests so it's really good to spend the time reviewing.

Rigid Designator

I spend most of a day reviewing my PTs, and that's just the circled questions plus games. Don't worry!