Any tips for going -2 or less on LR?

iamcardibri

Currently sitting at -4 average on LR and striving to break this barrier and improve to -2 by July. After BR, I usually end up with -1 or -0. Typically, the questions I get wrong are the ones that I skip because of time constraints (usually 3 on the last page) and one or two from earlier in the section that I didn't have time to review. There is not much consistency in the question types that I miss early in the section.

Any tips for improving my timing? Should I drill the first 15 problems of older PTs with a 10 minute time limit? Confidence drills? Video taping full LR sections to see where I waste the most time? What methods have worked best for you guys when it comes to reaching full LR potential?

testfromaway

Do you diagram everything? Do you diagram most things? I only diagram parallel reasoning and parallel flaw questions, and I've been getting -0/-1 since employing that strategy. My LR sections are usually not marked up after a test because I hardly need to write things, I have seen enough of these questions and know how to reason through them enough that I can do it all internally.

If you're writing more than you need to on the paper, it may be slowing you down. Your BR score shows that you know the answers, so now you just need to get through the whole section fast enough to get them down. Take those easy questions, and zip through them.

As with other things on the test, the easiest way to speed up does seem to be practice. If you've seen this question a ton of times before, you can hopefully fly through it without putting pencil to paper for anything other than filling in that bubble.

btate87

If you're doing that well on BR and are skipping questions at the END, then I would look into skipping strategies. There are posts in the forum as well as discussions in webinars. I aim for two benchmarks to keep me on track.

1) 15 questions in 15 minutes, but not necessarily the first 15. Even if it is question #1 (it's happened before), if I read a stimulus and can't grasp it as well as I want, skip it as soon as you have concerns.

2) Get to the last page in 21-23 minutes. This is more for my peace of mind. I want to have at least five (preferable 8-10) minutes to go through questions I skipped and/or circled.

You might find a different system that works for you. The important thing is you're not falling into the trap of missing easy points at the end of the section because you fall into time sinks in the beginning or middle. It helps you work through the tougher questions with a little less stress because you've already seen the entire section.

iamcardibri

@btate87 Thanks for the advice... I really am falling into the trap of missing easy points toward the end because of wasted time in the middle. Usually, I have only 5 minutes left for the last 6 questions so I'll skip over the questions that look most daunting, only to realize in BR that the big ugly parallel method question was actually really easy I'm going to employ some skipping strategies right away!

iamcardibri

@testfromaway Like you, I only diagram parallel questions and I stick to using symbols A, B, C, D LOL! No time for none of that diagramming unless I'm really stuck... But I definitely think that more practice will be helpful in improving my speed. I've only taken about 20 PT's so far. I haven't done any PTs in the 40s so I'll try some timed LR sections and work on answering more quickly and confidently. Thanks for the tips!!

LivingThatLSATdream

late to the party but JY strongly encouraged videotaping during one of the RC meeting/calls he hosted. I can see the advantage of it. He said you should video every timed PT to review. I think it will help a lot with skipping strategies and to know where and what questions you are wasting time on. I'll be trying it out for all future PTs