Always take the bait! Need help!

CRISPR24

I have been studying LSAT for 7-8 months, although had just recently joined 7sage and realized how much I have progressed in Logic reasoning. I am now more structured and can breakdown LR question pretty well. However when it comes to answer choices, I tend to pick the most tempting answer choice for the 1st round! I am most of time able to pick the correct answer during blind review. e.g. I would miss 6-8 in one section in 1st try, and miss only 2-3 during BR.
Can anyone offer comments on how I can close this gap? Thank you in advance!

CRISPR24

I would also add that I found my trend of picking the tempting answer choices a lot more often in recent PTs , where I do feel more traps in answer choices in old PTs.

DivineRaze

@ciacduan In short, I would say:
1) Know what you're looking for.
2) Realize subtleties in the answer choices (strong wording, vague wording).

RealLaw612

You need to get The Loophole by Ellen Cassidy. I gained so much from that book and can think of no better single game-changer for LR.

Sami

@ciacduan said:
I have been studying LSAT for 7-8 months, although had just recently joined 7sage and realized how much I have progressed in Logic reasoning. I am now more structured and can breakdown LR question pretty well. However when it comes to answer choices, I tend to pick the most tempting answer choice for the 1st round! I am most of time able to pick the correct answer during blind review. e.g. I would miss 6-8 in one section in 1st try, and miss only 2-3 during BR.
Can anyone offer comments on how I can close this gap? Thank you in advance!

There are multiple reasons you could be picking the wrong answer choice. It's a great sign that you can get them correct in blind review. Write down an analysis about why you thought the right answer was not a good contender that needed to be resolved and the wrong one so attractive.

One thing that I see very common in students is that because of the time pressure, they may be leaning on intuition and pre-phrasing of the correct answer choice rather than close reading of the stimulus and answer choices. So if the correct answer choice is written in a very difficult way that doesn't register with students as going the "right way" really fast, and the wrong answer choice as having some of the "right wording", they tend to pick the answer choice with the "right wording" but that may not, when actually read closely, be saying what the student is thinking. A mantra I always tell students when taking the LSAT is do good work -which means read precisely, which may require further work, and don't rush the analysis. Speed and accuracy comes from being decisive on the test because of your clear understanding not because you pushed yourself to rush and not breakdown something calmly that you knew needed to be thought about more.

It's not a one size fits all solution. But I hope this helps you a bit.

CRISPR24

I appreciate everyone's comment, will definitely take advice of re-reading Ellen's book, I have paused myself reading the book due to limited timeline I set for my prep and testing. I especially appreciate Sami's comment, which is exactly what happened to me during PT!!

lauren.ladino

This same exact thing happens to me! I usually score 18s and 19s on my first round, but then I go back to blind review and I end up with a 21 or 22. As I'm blind reviewing, I am kicking myself in the butt for picking stupid answers and crossing out all the other answers except the right one. On a PT, after blind reviewing, there are maybe only 3 or 4 questions that I definitely got wrong because I had zero understanding. I can't tell what this indicates about my knowledge of LR.

kahileg

To add to this thread, as I feel like this issue happens to me often. When I first take the PT, should I try to finish each section even though that means speeding or should I try to only answer the questions I’m confident about?

I find that I get answers wrong because I’m quickly reading and I DONT read the subtle wording changes. In the back of my mind I’m worried about the clock so I try to rush through a lot of the questions.

Louislepauvre

Keep your answer predictions very flexible (at least for the hard ones). For weakening/strengthening I phrase it into a question: why is too expensive? Why bigger? Etc, rather than having a narrow focus. On thé first read through of the answers only eliminate the really wrong ones, and give the others a chance. Don’t eliminate an answer because it sounds weird or doesn’t match your prediction. Maybe that extra second of contemplation could change your perspective.

Trusttheprocess

I'd agree with @Sami with this ... there could be multiple reasons.

Few things for LR to notice:
1) Did you really understand the conclusion? Like really..... and did you really grasp on the premise support for the conclusion?
2) What type of LRs are you getting wrong? If they are under MP, AP, MOR, PMOR, PF - I'd say theres a structural error within the argument you are missing out on. If not, if there are MBT, SAs - maybe your conditionality might not be bullet proof? If they are S,W, NAs, F, POI, RRE - i think you can resolve this issue by really diving into your BRs and finding the patterns in LR....