Video recording PT's

Journeyto99thpercentile

I listened to a few of the episodes of the 7Sage podcast and remember hearing someone talk about how they recording themselves taking practice exams. Has anyone else experimented with this? If so, how and what did you use to set up your phone/camera to watch yourself? Also, did you find it beneficial? Any other thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Chris Nguyen

I've heard great things about doing this, and I'm actually recording myself take a test this week. I'm still deciding whether to just record my screen (since it's digital) or to print out a PT and record it on paper.

Once I do so and learn from it, I'll report back my findings here!

Journeyto99thpercentile

@Christopherr thank you so much! Can't wait!

sarahisk

I've watched screen recordings of myself taking timed sections and let me tell ya, it's like watching a horror movie where all the characters are doing exactly what you don't want them to do. Doing this a couple of times actually helped me get out of my head a little bit when I'm taking sections.

lsat2016

i did this during my prep a few years ago for every PT. Pointed the pc's webcam on the notebook paper based and recorded the entire PT of 3 hours. then during BR i'd look at the recording to find time taken, and which questions took me long during the PT, esp RC passage reading and doing its questions. if i got something wrong then i'd look at the recording to see what might have made me pick the wrong choice etc.
finally got a low 17x score on official.

Tempore Novissimo

I do this for all my PTs and definitely recommend it as a great strategy. I think 7sage analytics regarding timing and answer choices chosen is helpful but recording yourself gives you a fuller picture of how you were acting during time. It truly is a pain to watch though. Seeing yourself choose the wrong answer and spend 30 seconds just flip-flopping makes you want to pull out your hair.

Journeyto99thpercentile

@sarahisk @lsat2016 @johnjyoo Thank you so much for your insight! I think it will definitely be worthwhile to try and implement this into my studying!

Chris Nguyen

Okay so I decided to do this for a whole flex PT. I recorded my scratch paper and my screen at the same time.

I cannot tell you how many timed I cringed, screaming at my past self to just skip the question. Or when I eliminated something without actually fully evaluating its merits... I wanted to flip my table. I wanted to stop watching. But I knew I needed to see this in real time to internalize how bad it would be. Sometimes you might think you're doing something correctly until you actually see, with undeniable proof, that you are doing it wrong.

It has truly given me a perspective that I will never forget. Hopefully, I will start scoring higher so I don't have to go through this horror experience again.

I hope this helps you. I think you should absolutely do this.

Journeyto99thpercentile

@Christopherr Thanks so much for the follow-up. I am sure I will have a lot of cringe worthy moments. I plan on starting tests in the next week, so I will try and follow-up soon and let you know if I had any epiphanies.

Silly question. Did you just set up a try-pod to record your scratch paper and record your screen to see the flex exam?

Chris Nguyen

Yes! And it's not a silly question. So there was this app I used (the free version) to turn my iPhone into a webcam. It's called Camo Studio on iOS. I stacked a bunch of books on top of each other and put my phone on top to record my scratch paper, and I split my screen to have a video of my scratch paper and my test on the same screen. (70% of my screen was the test, 30% of the screen was my scratch paper) Then I thought seeing myself write in real time was really annoying, so I covered that part of the screen up with construction paper. Used Zoom to start a call and record my screen and it worked like a charm.

Journeyto99thpercentile

@Christopherr awesome, I can't wait to try this. Thank you again for your insight.