How to address Overconfidence errors in LR?

youbbyun

Hey all,

i've been realizing I get around 2-3 wrong per section in LR that are due to overconfidence errors.

i usually kinda go through these questions quite fast/think they're relatively easier.

When I see I got them wrong during review, I realize that it's often a common trap AC that I've just been easily duped for. This may happen because there's an attractive trap AC that is right in all areas except the scope is wrong.

Or if it's a NA question, I'd pick the SA answer rather than the NA answer.

Overall, I can kinda live with getting 5 star curve breaker questions wrong.

But getting these relatively easier/medium difficulty questions as overconfidence errors is a real pain in the butt.

Any advice on overcoming and preventing overconfidence errors in LR?

I've seen a lot of advice on ppl addressing under confidence errors -- by being more reckless, aggressive, etc. But I haven't seen too much on addressing overconfidence errors.

lsat4life

Did you read every answer choice on those questions? If so, do you remember why you got rid of the correct answers? There must be some failure of analysis if you eliminate the correct answer on a straightforward stimulus.

samantha.ashley92

So I just got a lot of good feedback about LR, and most of it was that I need to slow down. I totally understand feeling like you're going to run out of time, but it's better to run out of time on one or two questions and not have overconfidence errors. Speed will increase with practice, anyway.

MissChanandler

I think that slowing down a bit is a great idea, and even if you feel good about an answer choice in the easier questions, take the time to actually read the other answer choices.

keets993

Drill them like crazy.

There's about 6 NA (I think) per test so it's probably a wise investment to drill them thoroughly so that you can see patterns between each question. Drilling them also helps you get more comfortable with curve-breaker questions, they won't feel as difficult or curve-breaker if that makes sense. You'll also become faster at them by drilling

Rigid Designator

You need to do a deep dive on exactly why you were wrong each individual time. So you’d want to go deeper than “it was a trap AC”. You’d want to examine exactly what made it a trap and why you fell for it. After that you just need to internalise that error and add it to the list of errors to not make (like confusing sufficiency for necessity). I found overconfidence errors hard to eliminate but with time you will make progress!

Leah M B

Agreed with the others that it helps to slow down. If you're selecting an answer choice as soon as you think one is right and not reading the others, then you should go back to reading every answer choice. I've found myself almost being tricked before, but once reading the other options I could see what the correct one was. Basically go backward a bit in your training/drilling. Pretend that you aren't confident. Commit to at least looking at every answer choice and not stopping reading when you found the right one. If you even just skim and see that 2 choices are very similar, then you need to pause and figure out how they're different and which one is right. And try just generally slowing down a bit. If you are finishing all the questions with 5+ minutes to spare, then you should definitely be slowing down a bit since your gut has led you astray.