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Patz4life

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KeepCalm

Hi! Here is a response to a question similar to yours made by @Alex. He gives great advice and I made note of this one in particular:

"I think the LR drill by type packs are great to use. I would start using some earlier tests and save the 62+ for full length PTs (at least for now)

Otherwise, I recommend doing question type drilling untimed. Here's why: when you're drilling by question type, you're presumably trying to get better at a particular skill or question type, maybe both. Speed, however, should not be a main concern. Learning and improving is the concern with question type drilling. If you learn a new skill or improve on a question type, practice it repeatedly, then speed will take care of itself.

If you're mostly getting them all right even untimed, then you should focus on your strategy. You may not be approaching them with the best technique or strategy."

I hope this helped! Thanks again, @Alex !

jmarmaduke96

I would absolutely second what was said above, I found the drill packets to be incredibly helpful. I finished the CC and for some reason Sufficient Assumption questions still baffled me, even relatively easy ones, so I went back and did the drill packets for SA questions from PT 1-30. I am by no means flawless at them now, but the intensive practice is good to help ingrain the process in your brain. Once the process is second nature, the speed will begin to pick up on its own!

Cant Get Right

I think it kinda depends on where you are in your studies. I’ve found that drilling by question type feels much more productive than it actually is. If you look at analytics and see that you’ve missed 21 out of the last 25 NA questions, sure, you need to do some work with NA. But once you understand what the question types are asking you to do, I’m just not sure what that drill is supposed to accomplish anymore.

I greatly prefer section drills. Timed, untimed, whatever your specific goals for the drill call for, a section is a dynamic sampling of different question types across a broad spectrum of difficulty levels. This, to me, is a much better starting point to study argumentation and LSAT trickery.

So it really just depends on what your specific goals are for the drill you’re doing. Sometimes you absolutely need to be doing questions by type. For most purposes though, I think a section drill is best.

Patz4life

@"Cant Get Right" said:
I think it kinda depends on where you are in your studies. I’ve found that drilling by question type feels much more productive than it actually is. If you look at analytics and see that you’ve missed 21 out of the last 25 NA questions, sure, you need to do some work with NA. But once you understand what the question types are asking you to do, I’m just not sure what that drill is supposed to accomplish anymore.

I greatly prefer section drills. Timed, untimed, whatever your specific goals for the drill call for, a section is a dynamic sampling of different question types across a broad spectrum of difficulty levels. This, to me, is a much better starting point to study argumentation and LSAT trickery.

So it really just depends on what your specific goals are for the drill you’re doing. Sometimes you absolutely need to be doing questions by type. For most purposes though, I think a section drill is best.

Thanks for the response! I'm taking the June LSAT. I'm in the PT phase right now, and have hit 170 a few times but am trying to break into the mid 170s by then. Just trying to find and fix any weaknesses (pun intended) by that time

Cant Get Right

@HotPie4IronThrone said:
Thanks for the response! I'm taking the June LSAT. I'm in the PT phase right now, and have hit 170 a few times but am trying to break into the mid 170s by then. Just trying to find and fix any weaknesses (pun intended) by that time

If your upper range is falling into the 170's, you've almost certainly outgrown question type drills. To study LR, you should invest a lot of effort into metacognition exercises where you're studying the way you think about the LSAT rather than the LSAT itself. It's kind of like those games where it gives you two pictures that are almost the same but there are some hidden differences:

https://i2.wp.com/www.activityshelter.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/spot-the-difference-worksheets-for-kids.jpg

On the left is the correct understanding of the material in question. On the right is your understanding of that material. Spot the differences. Those differences are the things that are causing you to miss points. They take many forms, but identifying them is crucial to improving.

As an example, one thing I see a lot is a missing duckling--I mean a missing distinction between possibility and actuality. Students miss this distinction all the time and is an absolutely critical one. If you aren't hyper-sensitive to that distinction it's a difference you will notice coming up quite often in your analysis. The following two sentences have dramatically different implications:

1. I would drive to New York today if I can get my car started.
2. I could drive to New York today if I can get my car started.
   (For simplicity, let's assume I'm writing this at midnight, thus giving me time to make the who trip within a single day.)

They're only different by a single letter, but that letter has enormous impact. In fact, my car is in perfect working order, thereby triggering this sufficient. In the second example I have the ability to drive to New York and the discretion to exercise that ability or not. In the first sentence, I've got to drive to New York. Do you know how long a drive New York is for me? It's 22 hours! So that one letter is a really important difference for me. I don't want to have to drive to New York in one day without any notice or preparations!

There's a ton of things like this, and that's what you need to be digging around in your reasoning for.

Hope this gives you something to go on!

Patz4life

@"Cant Get Right" Wow what a detailed, awesome, helpful response! Love the picture. Thanks for all your help and comments. Love the idea of looking more into metacognition rather than just going for the hardest X type of questions. I think going over my thought process and tracking that will be more beneficial.

Thanks again!