If I get a LR question wrong, how can I improve to make sure I don't make the mistake again?

K

Okay i'm not really sure what to title my concern but unlike LG which I can do a few times and understand 100% wth I was doing wrong, I am having trouble doing something like that for LR.

When I go over the right answers by watching the video for the PT I can see what I did wrong. I try to "redo" the question by trying to convince myself why the wrong answers are wrong.

However I'm still making like 5-10 mistakes in LR per PT.

kraft.phillip

1. The blind review process really does help in LR. If you aren't doing that, I'd recommend it. I've gone from -7 or 8 per section to consistently -3 or -4 per section without reading any instruction materials.

2. When reviewing mistakes, I verbally characterize the trick I fell for. For example, if I get a strengthening question wrong, it's often because I chose an answer that strengthens the argument but not as strong as another answer. I chose that option because I didn't read or only quickly skimmed the rest of the answer choices. Berating yourself verbally for falling for such a simple trick (i.e., "I stupidly failed to read all of the options because I was certain that this choice was correct merely because it strengthened the argument at all. The question is obviously asking 'which strengthens the argument the most.' Is it really that difficult to read and comprehend what the question stem says?" ) may help. In my experience, I respond best to negative stimuli, and I think making yourself feel dumb for making certain types of mistakes will help you remember not make them again better than a more congratulatory approach. Just an approach that is helping me personally-it might not be a universally applicable approach.

K

Hi,

I am using blind review of course.

I'm saying for the ones that I (unfortunately) still get wrong after BR I am not sure how to improve on those.

I try to berate myself but then I get depressed lol :<

kraft.phillip

Isolate why you thought your answer was correct, and interrogate the assumptions or reasoning that led you to thinking that.

There are a couple of ways to facilitate this. Some people write/type out explanations for each answer choice. That's when forums come in handy; I know the manhattan forum has a discussion devoted to basically all of the questions that have ever been posed in a logical reasoning section. Posting to these types of forums allows others to challenge your reasoning and perhaps helps you find why you are choosing these incorrect answers. You should have in mind the goal of identifying specific themes in your reasoning that leads you to wrong answers. Type out those themes in a list somewhere are refer back to them. For every theme you identify, you better your reasoning that much more.

K

I printed out a bunch of questions that I got wrong so far (about 20+ LR questions unfortuneately) and I'm going to solve them on my way to/from work.

Honestly I blame my failure to drill enough questions of the types that I am getting wrong the most: flaw, NA, and to some extent the PSA/SA.

Never thought I'd say this but drill baby drill lol.

omw2_95th_percentile

Crazy that this popped up after 7 years. This is exactly where I'm at. Keep missing a few that I absolutely should not miss. Hopefully my comment makes it pop up for someone else who needs it.

mrowley91

I do the same thing sometimes, so I've just recently started keeping a wrong answer journal and forcing myself to answer why I'm getting them wrong, not just saying "I misread it/read it wrong." I've heard that this helps!