Closing BR gap?

chaplin___

I'll be taking the April Flex and I'm currently scoring on average a 166/167 with a high of 174 and a low of 161. Any advice on stabilizing this fluctuation and closing the BR gap?

PT84: 164/173
PT76: 167/178
PTC2: 163/171
PT75: 161/171
PT73: 173/175
PT72: 166/172

Breakdown for LR: I was going -3 in the mid-late PT60s, but once I got to the PT70s, it dropped to -5 (PT84 was also a -5). Under timed, I allow myself to miss two or three questions and force myself not to sink time on those questions that I'll most likely miss anyway. Asides from solidifying my fundamentals, are there ways to improve my procedural strategies? Currently I make three columns: left column is for the questions that I'm 80% confident of and most likely won't come back for round 2, middle column is for the questions that I'm 60% or 70% confident but with a bit more time I can increase it to 70% or 80% so these are the questions I prioritize on round 2, and right column is for the curvebreakers. On average, I have 5 min for round 2 but I feel that I'm not making the most out of it. I'm working on boosting my confidence as I go through the first 15 questions but I still make mistakes that have nothing to do with my understanding of the material but just a case of anxiety, though it's more likely the case that I'll miss a question or two in April due to nerves.

Breakdown for LG: I always go -0 on BR but rarely under timed. I'm least comfortable with hybrid grouping games that are open-ended which means I take longer on setup and even longer in the questions when I didn't make an inference but at that point I'm on autopilot brute force mode. Rule substitution questions can be rough too. Currently plateauing at -2/-3 and sometimes worse for those oddball games. I feel most confident in LG though wishing there's a way to get to -0 because gaining those 2 to 3 points back can be a gamechanger.

Breakdown for RC: my scores fluctuate the most (-4 to -11) and I always feel rushed and on high alert. Currently at -6/-7 timed and -3 BR on average which seems to me that I could benefit from more efficient timing strategies.

I used to write down structural low res when I first started PTing but it was taking too long though it did reinforce good habits. Now I pause and connect anything of significance to previous sentences/paragraphs/ideas/etc and try not to get too bogged down with the detail but just know where those detail are located in case a detail-specific question comes along. I'm least comfortable with comparative passages and I often take at least 4 min to read both. Doing piecemeal analysis helps, and taking a second to digest densely worded question stems helps put me in attack mode rather than letting the ACs sway me.

My goal is to hit the high 160s/low 170s consistently and confidently going into April but it feels that I'm getting nowhere with a large BR gap (and I've taken 20+ PTs and retook 10+).

Any advice is appreciated!

kkole444

Hello I was having the same problems you were having. LR I will still get -5 my worst section, however on LG I keep track of everything that gives me trouble and I write it down and come back to it later, I also do the super easy games for speed & accuracy like how fast can I get through the simple sequence games so I can build up time for the hard ones. Once I did this I was able to bring down -3 to -0 consistently. It was literally about 1:45-2:30 I needed more on the hard games to bring me to -0, I was kind of shocked I only needed that little extra time to gain 3ish questions.
As for RC I started at about -12-15 and what helped me was going slow and mapping where each question came from, and dialing my low resolution summaries. Once I slowed down and did that as efficient as I could I go about -3/4/5(if really hard) on RC. There use to be specific style questions in RC that use to give me trouble, but now after studying them I learned how best to attack them for me. If you have a specific style question that trips you up shoot me a PM and maybe it was one that gave me trouble and I'll share the method I use for that RC problem, that also goes for LR & LG. Lastly taking more exams did not help me I use to take 2 exam a week now at most I take 1, I use the rest of the time to really dig into the questions that trip me up because there are not that many as compared to before and they normally are the most complicated ones.
Best of luck,
Kole

chaplin___

Hey Kole, thanks for this detailed comment! Just PM'd you with more specifics.