Shorter Version of Blind Review?

Quick Silver

Hi All -

I have been wondering about this for a while.

Instead of going back and redoing every questions we're unsure of on a PT.... What about just redoing every question we got wrong....

Here's my thinking - when I check scores, I rarely, if ever, remember the letter of the correct answer choice listed. So I can just mark whichever questions I got wrong and go back and redo them the way I would under blind review...

And since a primary objective for BR is to ensure we don't just accept the correct answer and actually learn more by forcing ourselves to find it on our own, wouldn't I be doing the same thing?

turnercm

Full Blind Review makes the difference between "I got this question right because I understand how to do it" and "I got lucky". If you only review the wrong answers, you're leaving out the set of questions that you got right because you got lucky - which you won't know, unless you review all the circled questions.

Its time consuming, but its the most important part, and the gains are worth the extra time.

Quick Silver

I agree @turnercm...

The only reason I bring this alternative up is because I'm at the point where I get so few wrong that I almost force myself to circle way more than I need to.

lsathopeful

Part of what makes BR useful is that it gives you a chance to see how well you are able to identify which questions you should revisit. That way, on the real test, your intuition on which questions to go back to (if time permits) is accurate. So, I think it works against you to circle just so you have something circled to go back to. If you are only circling a few, then so be it. Those are the ones you believe you got wrong, so check those. After BR, you will see if your intuition about which ones to check is correct and you can choose to continue circling the same amount or more or less.

Edit: I agree with K-magnet that going over any question that you are at all unsure about will help you improve your score. (i.e. The number of questions you circle should be a reflection of the number of questions you had doubts about...not how many questions you think you should have circled.)

K-Magnet

A quick response is -- then don't force yourself to circle more than you need to. You should be circling all of those that you don't feel 100% about. You could, if you wanted, develop a strategy for a 'lighter circle' as a certain percentage (80-100%) and a 'darker circle' as the range below that chosen percentage. In this way, you could conceivable just do the darker circles & the incorrect Qs.

But I *strongly* encourage you to review all circled ACs. You get to see why those questions gave you just a bit of doubt in the first place. Why weren't you 100%? Upon review, do you understand why the 4 ACs are absolutely wrong & 1 AC is absolutely correct? Even if you got the right AC and you don't know why 1 other AC is absolutely wrong -- then you should try to figure that out (whether on your own or from others' explanations).

This is about finding not just your weaknesses, but also about your areas of *potential* weaknesses. Perhaps the ones you circled were also the time-suckers that you thought about for too long, or you focused on the wrong part of the stimulus for too long etc etc.

You shouldn't be circling just for the sake of it -- you should be engaging in the process of eliminating weakness & establishing confidence in your approach to every Q.

Congrats on getting only a few wrong! But this shouldn't cut down your review by any means. Even though I cut out the Qs that I get wrong for later review, I also sometimes cut out questions that I got right but circled -- because something about them 'tripped' me up & I don't want that to happen again.

I want to reiterate the title of a post I had from a little while back -- Highest Score = Longest Review. I have since recreated that score more times, and *every* time, I do not skimp out on the long review.

Reviewing preptests very carefully & understanding your correct or incorrect thought process for circled & incorrect ACs is *more important* than pounding out preptest after preptest without reviewing, imho.

Quick Silver

@lsathopeful you're absolutely right about how circling for uncertainty helps on a test/pt. It's given me a firm idea of what questions to skip (and ideally come back to at the end).

Great points K-Magnet - all the benefits of full blind review are too important to squander!

lsathopeful

Awesome, good luck!