Do you guys do low-res summaries and premise/conclusion identifications during PTs/real tests?

letsgo1st

For respectively the RC sections and the LR sections. For me they take up a lot of time but do help. I was wondering if people actually strictly follow these "tips" given by J.Y during real, timed full tests. Do you get faster at doing them after practicing?

MissionLsat

Of-course. I mean you won't be really able to answer at-least half of the lLR questions without identifying the premise/conclusion. And with RC, low -res summaries really helped me in improving my score. You could still skip making low-res summaries and follow your own method. But identifying premise/conclusion are an absolute must.

Forever Addicted to Coffee

I do, in the sense that I have practiced the low-res in RC and identifying the argument structure in LR so much that it became second nature. When the clock is ticking on a timed take, you should be able to do these things automatically. That being said, I do NOT write down my low res summaries for each paragraph on a timed take. Instead, it all happens in my head. Writing out the low res for each paragraph is something that I do during blind review.

zoomzoom

Yes, I absolutely do this. But it's not necessarily conscious, meaning I'm not thinking about doing them in the moment. I just do it because it's become a habit.

That's kind of where you ultimately want to be in your LSAT journey. Form good habits/techniques that become so automatic that on test day, you're not even thinking of doing them. You just do them.

teechj117

I'm finding low-res comes second nature after a lot of practice. Have a handful of key words
(i.e phenom, 180, hypo, additional info) that que you on a particular pattern or structure of each paragraph, or even the passage as a whole.

letsgo1st

@MissionLsat , @"Forever Addicted to Coffee" , @oychoi79 , @teechj117 , thank you for all the comments guys. A majority of you guys say that both practices (for LR and RC) have become "second nature"; may I ask what kind of markings you guys actually make on the actual test then?

I thought people would be actually underlining premises, conclusions, and writing low-res summaries on the actual test but doing it mentally seems to be what's happening.

Forever Addicted to Coffee

@letsgo1st said:
@MissionLsat , @"Forever Addicted to Coffee" , @oychoi79 , @teechj117 , thank you for all the comments guys. A majority of you guys say that both practices (for LR and RC) have become "second nature"; may I ask what kind of markings you guys actually make on the actual test then?

I thought people would be actually underlining premises, conclusions, and writing low-res summaries on the actual test but doing it mentally seems to be what's happening.

The markings are very different for LR and RC, at least for me.

RC: I highlight the Author's POV, others' POV, and key words using different colors. I also use one color to highlight anything important in the question stem and answer choices. My goal here is to a) force myself to actively engage with the passage, question stem, and answer choices and b) leave "breadcrumbs" when I have to reference the passage to answer questions. As I mentioned previously, when I am reading the passage, I am thinking about the author's main point, the purpose of the passage, and what the passage is trying to tell me. But these aren't actually written down during timed conditions.

LR: I use one color to highlight important words (question stem, stimulus, and answer choices) and the main conclusion of the argument. My goal here is really to force myself to actively engage with the question and answer choices at hand. Similarly to RC, I'm not writing out the argument structure for every question under timed conditions.

On a rare occasion, I do need to actually write out the conditional logic on an LR question. Typically on a 5 star MBT, MSS, or SA. I find that on some of these very difficult questions, forcing yourself to write the conditional logic on paper is more efficient than trying to do it in my head.

letsgo1st

@"Forever Addicted to Coffee" Thank you so much for your detailed answer! It's immensely helpful; will probably come back to this thread again and again. I hope you have a wonderful day

teechj117

I think @"Forever Addicted to Coffee" is spot on. I'm very similar in my style when it comes to marking Author's POV and other's POV.

For RC: I'll use different colored highlights to mark voices or if a statement marks a change in direction. For example, if the author's voice weighs on a particular view, I'll mark it in pink. If there's other POV's in the same paragraph, I'll mark it in yellow. The key is to stay consistent with your colors and/or markings so you know where to look or what you're marking it for. This is what I mean when things become second nature. You shouldn't have to second guess why you marked a sentence.

On a chance that there's a particular piece of the passage that I can't mark without interfering with another highlight or marking, I'll jot a quick note on scratch paper for that paragraph (i.e p3: auth agrees, P4: stats, critics disagree). Still working on cutting this down though, as I'll still come up short on answering all questions for the fourth passage.

For LR: Basically the same deal, but I'm very particular with what I'm marking. There may be one word that gives me a degree of certainty or strength of validity, but that's all. The conditional logic just takes practice until those rules are rolling out of your head like bullets down the barrel. If a question has a chain of logic rules that I'm just not comfortable with, or I know it's meant to trip me up, I'll skip it and come back to it later. Some are really just there to eat up your time.

I'm no sage, but these are some of the things that have helped the past 6-7 months of chipping away at this. Hope this helps