Untimed Section Drills Information Bank #help

Wesley-B

Hey 7Sagers-
There are a fair number of discussions about doing untimed section drills or untimed full PTs, but not one with some consolidation of purpose, goals, best practices. I know there is apprehension about wasting PTs, not to mention some old forum posts including lines like, "No untimed PT's. No untimed sections. Not even once."

I've currently stalled in my progression a bit from going from CC to timed PT w/ BR. I'm going to start doing some untimed section drills and/or untimed full PTs, but want to make sure I have everything straight.

My questions remaining are:
1. There seems to be some varying opinion over whether you should only move on from untimed questions when you are at 100% certainty or move on at your "natural pace," and leaving the unlimited timed section for blind review.
2. Is there a benefit to doing a full PT untimed or do people find doing sections most effective?
3. I went through a handful of tests about a year ago. Should those be at the top of the list for untimed sections, or should they be completely fresh?
4. For people with Ultimate+, do you use PTs1-35 for untimed section/PT drills or keep it to the 30s-50s?
5. If your Blind Review is at or just under your goal score, is this an effective approach to lift your timed score? (Especially if you have not done any untimed sections.)

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Without further ado, here is what I found in the webinars and forums.
If I have misrepresented anything, or you have additional insights, I would love to have them.

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What: When 7Sagers refer to untimed section drills, it means taking a full section of a PT without the time pressure, but finding a natural pace. This does not mean taking all of the time in the world like you may with Blind Review. You will likely be over time at the end of the section. The idea is that you can work at being more efficient later, but you need practice to get the score up without the arbitrary time pressure.

When: In the Post Core Curriculum webinar, Sage Josh says these are great for Phase 1 where your blind review is under your target score, but leaves the door open to this being helpful in Phase 2 as well.

Purpose: @"Cant Get Right" Untimed work is really great for learning the fundamentals. Once you've got each section where you need to be, it's time to work on strategy... Before you master these elements [for example: conditional reasoning] of the test, taking timed sections isn't going to be very productive." Discussion

@AllezAllez21 I think untimed work is so critical. You could do the occasional untimed section if you wanted a variety of LR questions to deeply study. Or you could maybe be focusing on a particular process for LR (like really identify the flaw, or the conclusion, or something that is pretty universal to LR questions).
For LR, I would just do deep dives on your weaknesses, untimed. That could be by question type, it could be "lawgic" or maybe argument structure. Discussion

@Ohnoeshalpme: Following a deep understanding of these errors and a correction through untimed drilling, speed and accuracy will come naturally. Discussion

Sample Study Schedule with Untimed Section Drills: s/o @kimpg_66 Discussion
Once I had fool proofed (took over a month), I started drilling and PTing. My schedule was:
Monday: 1 LR and LG section
Tuesday: 1 LR and RC section
Wednesday: 1 full PT/blind review
Thursday: 1 LR and RC section
Friday: 1 LR and LG section
Saturday: 1 full PT/blind review

I used all of PTs 40-52 for these section drills. I started out doing each section untimed, underlining the keywords in LR with a highlighter and writing a line # for where I had pinpointed the answer for RC. I would take 15+ minutes on each RC passage at first, and 45+ on LR. I figured it was better to get the basics and concepts down to a science before I moved on to timed. Eventually, I started timing my sections.

Thanks to those who have unwittingly supplied information to this thread and anyone who can provide additional insights.

Ohnoeshalpme

Q1: There are two types of untimed drills. One is “natural pace” which means that you give each question a solid effort, but you don’t devote more than a few minutes to any single question. It’s meant to provide a benchmark for accuracy and timing across the whole section. The second type of untimed drilling is where you work on every question until you get to be as certain as you reasonably can, even if it takes you ten minutes for a single question. I don’t think this second type is as helpful as the first because you end up wasting a lot of time.

Q2: It could be beneficial to do a whole PT untimed, but generally speaking, the most effective method for untimed testing is to weave in untimed sections throughout the week and then address the errors that you made in the untimed sections within the same 24 hour period. I’m assuming that an untimed PT plus Br would take up too much time to do all at once.

Q3: Keep the old tests that you’ve already completed for later so that you can come back to them down the road to see where you have improved and where you still need to improve. Make sure to do your BR within 24 hours of taking a PT so that you remember what your thought process was when answering each question.

Q4: It depends how long your prep is going to last. If you have a year or more to prepare, use 1-35 for drills and 36-present for full, timed PTs. If you are only preparing for a few months and don’t plan on doing more than 20 PTs, drill from 20-50.

Q5: You should try to push your BR score to 4-5 above your timed goal score before you move on to intense timed practice.

There’s a lot here, but feel free to PM me if you have some specific questions!

Wesley-B

@Ohnoeshalpme Thanks so much for taking the time to write out responses. I really appreciate it.

AttJazz08

@Wesley-B @Ohnoeshalpme Thank you both so much for taking the time to write this out. My studying has been so sporadic I have been unsure about how to proceed.