How do you retake your incorrect LR questions to correct your reasoning pattern?

Bagelinthemorning-2-1-1

Hello everyone,

I have been contemplating going back to my older tests and making sections out of my incorrect LR questions to redo them. But I want to make sure I am making the most out of the process.

How do you retake your incorrect LR questions to understand and correct your patterns?

Thanks!

Cant Get Right

You're absolutely asking the right question. I don't love the idea of Frankenstein-ing a section together out of these questions though. How does that accommodate your study objective of understanding and correcting your errors? What does that structure add?

Instead, I'd recommend an untimed deep-dive on each individual question. Each one includes some component that you struggled to understand and that cost you the point. This is hard to access because, by definition, you're searching for something of which you are currently unaware. You have to really dig in to identify what those underlying components are. They are the roots of your patterns. Once you identify them in past errors, you can explore them in greater depth.

One thing I found out during this process, for example, is that "the more . . . the less . . ." style relationships have a lot of specific complexities. These weren't things I'd ever thought about in any formal sense, but I used an error to identify a misunderstanding rooted in that kind of relationship. I then wrote out an explanation expanding on the nature of the relationship. Now, any time I read something like "The fewer natural resources a developing nation can supply for itself, the more dependent on foreign capital it will be," I immediately recognize a specific relationship which I have spent a lot of time making sense of. I can rely on the work I've already done to bolster and accelerate my understanding of the relationship in a specific, future problem.

You likely do the same thing with conditional logic. Recognition triggers (or should) when you read the word "unless." Your job in the exercise you're asking about is to expand that kind of recognition and understanding into more and more areas. Your past mistakes are your clues into what those areas are.

Bagelinthemorning-2-1-1

Hello @"Cant Get Right" Get Right,

Thanks for the great advice. Untimed deep review of the questions and the reasoning behind the answers are very helpful. I did a review of the missed questions in different PTs untimed and it really helped my understanding of the structures and this understanding increased my blind review score. However, I notice that when I do similar questions under timed conditions, my mind reverts back to old faulty patterns of reasoning. I thought of making timed sections out of missed questions to solve for this, but I need to adopt a strategy that will prevent me from reverting back to the old patterns. Do you have advice on how to apply blind review-level understanding on timed PTs?

Cant Get Right

Absolutely.

Once I've finished my analysis and written a report , I like to give the mechanic a name, something I can use to label all the complexity I’ve just discovered and developed into a tidy conceptual package. “Conditional Logic” is this kind of label. Another is “The more . . . the less . . .” And they’re not all logical relationships. Many others are grammatical problems like “subordinate clauses” or “complex noun phrases."

Then, I write out the label on a notecard and pin the card to a bulletin board for quick reference. During most exercises, I allow myself a glance over my board when I'm struggling with a question and feel like I may just be failing to recognize something. That gives me the spark I may need and reinforces the skill. Eventually, I realized I hadn’t looked at my board in months. At some point, my board internalized into a mental catalogue which didn't require any external spark.

The Recognition skill leads to three major benefits:

1. You get questions right you would have gotten wrong before.

2. You get questions quickly you would have gotten slowly before. Most curve-breakers are not particularly complex. They’re just utilizing mechanics most testers aren’t prepared for. If you are prepared for such a question, you should get through it relatively quickly since you’ve already done the hard work of identifying and understanding the mechanism involved.

3. Not every question can be planned ahead for, all but solved before you even begin. With the benefit of all the time you saved on questions referenced above in major benefit number 2, you’ll be able to take a step back and utilized the prerequisite skill of question deconstruction and problem-solving with time to take a really good crack at the very hardest questions and answer them successfully at higher rates.

Bagelinthemorning-2-1-1

@"Cant Get Right"

This is super helpful! Thank you!

GSU Hopeful

Great stuff! Thank you!