LR Hard Questions

Broccoli

I've been really depressed not getting difficult 4-5 questions on LR (many times 3 too). This hurts my overall score so much that I've been consistently getting low 150. I thought I knew how to distinguish question types, how to diagram, and how to approach different types of questions. Now I'm considering hiring a tutor to help me. I wanted to hear what other people have done to overcome...

I know practice is so important but no matter how much I review. I just keep making mistakes and getting everything wrong.

pioneer321

Blind review - A LOT of it. Obviously there are people who have gotten there much faster, but for me it took about 55 PTs until my LF comfortably settled at -0/-1.

You could always go through the CC again for LR, if you think you may have some fundamental inconsistencies in you methods.

I have found writing out my reasoning during review to be quite effective, albeit painstaking. Another thing that I would try, is to have you question-type strategy page (I'm sure 7Sage has a page or lesson for each question, I've just never done it so dont know what it's called exactly), and follow threir procedure mechanically, until your strategy application is rock-solid.

I know it's frustrating, but you can get there. Good luck!

keets993

Is it specific types of questions or just any questions that are over a certain difficulty? Do you get them right in BR or not? What's your BR process like? Do you write out your reasoning or just briefly think it through? Also, do you know why you got certain questions wrong or not? Do you employ skipping strategies? All these questions will help with figuring out whether theres a gap in your understanding of the fundamentals or if its a timing issue.

I used to have difficulty with LR too and it was my weakest section. Sucks even more since it appears twice. I've been going through the CC again at a sloow pace because I realized that I didn't even know what I didn't know when it came to LR. I would read the stimulus, and without a proper grasp of the argument structure, dive right into the answer choices.

Something that is really helping me is keeping an excel document of LR questions I've had difficulty with while going through problem sets. I write the date taken, the question type, my difficulty rating, 7sage's difficulty rating and briefly explain why I found it difficult. This helps me find patterns - underconfidence, finding questions difficult because of the grammar as opposed to the structure. I think analyzing why you're struggling is necessary to figure out how to deal with it. It will help with feeling overwhelmed and demotivated.

Also, I don't know what your goal score/breakdown is, but if LR is seriously preventing you then you need to stop taking PT's. It'd be beneficial to go through timed sections of LR, and BR-ing so you know what weaknesses you need to drill on. Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions and I'll try my best to help.

NotMyName

low 150s with -10 in LR? What is your LG score?

Are you missing those questions in BR as well?

Broccoli

@jkatz1488 Last pt lg score was 20/23. Missing the difficult ones with BR too.

Alex

@Broccoli180 said:
I've been really depressed not getting difficult 4-5 questions on LR (many times 3 too). This hurts my overall score so much that I've been consistently getting low 150. I thought I knew how to distinguish question types, how to diagram, and how to approach different types of questions. Now I'm considering hiring a tutor to help me. I wanted to hear what other people have done to overcome...

I know practice is so important but no matter how much I review. I just keep making mistakes and getting everything wrong.

I want to first agree with the advice above by @pioneer321.

One thing about making the same mistakes is that review/drilling aren't always enough for improvement. You need to study your mistakes and you need to take away something actionable from each review session.

You need to ask yourself "What am I going to do next time so I don't miss a similar question?"

akistotle

@jkatz1488 said:
low 150s with -10 in LR? What is your LG score?

Are you missing those questions in BR as well?

I think that by "difficult 4-5 questions," @Broccoli180 means 4 or 5 star rating questions.

@Broccoli180 said:
@jkatz1488 Last pt lg score was 20/23. Missing the difficult ones with BR too.

Wait, are you missing only -5 on LR? If so, are sure you are scoring correctly? I think @jkatz1488's point is that if you are going -3 on LG and -10 (-5/-5) on LR, you are only missing like -13. Raw scores for low 150s are like 55 - 63 (-46 to -38). This isn't possible unless you score close to 0 on RC.

Grey Warden

Hey @Broccoli180 apart from blind reviewing thoroughly for LR, it is also helpful to have extra time for the hardest LR questions and in order to have that one needs to answer the easiest questions on LR very fast. I would say first 10 questions (even if you skip 1 or 2) in 8 minutes and keeping an aggressive pace throughout the section so that you can give like 2 minutes to the hardest of questions which you circle (after finishing one round of the LR section). If you see some of the JY's video doing LR, he has more than 10 minutes left after finishing one round of LR section.
Make sure you are doing the blind review correctly for LR especially. Write out explanations for each question you get wrong describing why right AC is right and why an AC is wrong and try to have a take away from that particular question. Before you attempt the next PT have a look at those take aways.
Don't worry, the hardest questions are hard for most test takers, it is just that they try to keep more time in the bank in order to tackle those beasts and a thorough blind review helps in having more of that time.

m.c lshopeful

@"Grey Warden" said:
Hey @Broccoli180 apart from blind reviewing thoroughly for LR, it is also helpful to have extra time for the hardest LR questions and in order to have that one needs to answer the easiest questions on LR very fast. I would say first 10 questions (even if you skip 1 or 2) in 8 minutes and keeping an aggressive pace throughout the section so that you can give like 2 minutes to the hardest of questions which you circle (after finishing one round of the LR section). If you see some of the JY's video doing LR, he has more than 10 minutes left after finishing one round of LR section.
Make sure you are doing the blind review correctly for LR especially. Write out explanations for each question you get wrong describing why right AC is right and why an AC is wrong and try to have a take away from that particular question. Before you attempt the next PT have a look at those take aways.
Don't worry, the hardest questions are hard for most test takers, it is just that they try to keep more time in the bank in order to tackle those beasts and a thorough blind review helps in having more of that time.

She hit it right on the head when she said that improving speed while maintaining accuracy on the easier questions is one of the most important factors for getting the hardest questions correct. Yeah, you might still be having difficulty with them during BR as well but we all miss some hard ones during BR too as we are learning. However, you do get some right with the extra time in BR and those are likely problems you could fix with 2.5 - 3 mins even if you had 30 minutes for it... Sometimes we miss problems because we JUST DONT SEE IT :P but I can promise that you will snag an extra 2-3 problems where you just needed another min or two if you can smack down those 1-3 star problems...

NotMyName

@akistotle

Wait, are you missing only -5 on LR? If so, are sure you are scoring correctly? I think @jkatz1488's point is that if you are going -3 on LG and -10 (-5/-5) on LR, you are only missing like -13. Raw scores for low 150s are like 55 - 63 (-46 to -38). This isn't possible unless you score close to 0 on RC.

Yeah that's exactly where I was going. @Broccoli180, would you mind clarifying for us?

Aside from that clarification, the hardest questions in a section can come from just about any type (except MC). So I think you could benefit from looking for similarities among the questions you're consistently missing. Here are some common ways the test writers can ramp up the difficult across question types and tactics for improving:

1) Abstract language/referential phrasing/poor (but grammatically correct) writing: Test writers love to do this. It's the most common trick they use in my opinion. They can take a simple question with uncomplicated logic/reasoning and quickly make it a challenging question in this way. The best approach to dealing with this is to develop a process for reading in the LSAT. We can't read this test like we are reading a novel because, chances are, the novel's author didn't write it with the intention of hiding her point and confusing the shit out of you.

I recommend returning to the grammar section of cc as well as the webinar on active reading. Slow down in BR. Rephrase what you are reading and create low resolution summaries of the stimuli.

https://7sage.com/lesson/grammar-subject-predicate-details/
https://7sage.com/webinar/active-reading/

2) Contaminating ACs: This happens with me on para a lot recently. I lose my grip on the stimulus by allowing wrong AC contaminate my previously good understanding of the argument. I'm learning to spend more time with the stimulus when I need to and returning the stimulus once I feel my grip on it slipping. This approach, however, has had to be accompanied with a disciplined skipping strategy because it's easy end up spending 3 minutes on a question.

3) Lawgic: The gateway to a guaranteed better score. Mastery over lsat lawgic is an unbelievable powerful tool and, just like fool proofing games, many more of us are capable of it than we think. It's so easy for the test writers to offer an SA answer choice in the opposite form you were extending or to bait you with some invalid solution that plays on misguided intuitions. Mastery here also lets you eliminate answers quickly since you know where the sufficient/necessary conditions belong. The only way to master this is to drill, drill, and drill. So back and diagram the logical statements in every question you've ever see. And then do it 10 more times.

Broccoli

@jkatz1488 @akistotle Nope, I didn't say I get -10 or -5 on LR. I wish.

Broccoli

@"mickey.caleb" @"Grey Warden" Okay. I'll try to tackle first 10 questions on my next PT to give more time for hard questions. I'll let you know how it went.

NotMyName

@Broccoli180 my guess is that you are dealing with unaddressed gaps in understanding. If that's the case, speeding up will make things worse. I would stay away from fresh PTs for a few weeks and just take timed section retakes, drill, and return to the cc. Find your weaknesses and work on them until you see improvement. Then gauge that improvement with a PT. Hang in there!