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For LR questions in which there are two authors with opposite views and the question stem only refers to one, do you recommend immediately reading the portion of the argument that the stem is referring to or reading the argument in its entirety? I figure if you only refer to the argument the stem refers to, it may save time. but then again it may cause you to miss something such as what the two authors disagree/agree about.
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There is no spoon...
The notion of a "specific task" is an illusion. It's all logic and reasoning. At least that's the way I approached LR. It helped me grasp it better, rather than trying to identify a "trick" for solving all the different "tasks."
Plus, I was often able to anticipate what sort of question stem I was going to get just by reading and understanding the argument.
Ok thanks a bunch! I was reading the entire argument for those types of questions anyway so I won't even think about not doing so. I agree that it does bias the way that you read the argument if you read the question stem first. However, the bias is appropriate since you are only trying to perform a specific task and reading the stem allows you to zero in on that task. I can care less about reading in a biased manner if it allows me to get that question correct. Lol. But to each his own. Your method certainly isn't wrong, I just perform better when given "direction" as opposed to not having any.
Interesting strategy, I think despite that fact that Mike Kim also says to read the stem first, so much of his emphasis on reading for argument/reasoning structure could actually point someone in this direction since understanding the argument and/or the flaw therein is so crucial to every question even though you can cheat this a bit in certain scenarios if you're lucky. Great food for thought.
My take:
I know 7sage instructs to read the stems first, but that is one area where I didn't follow the curriculum. I always liked to read and understand the argument before I read the question stem. I felt like reading the question stem first would bias the way I read the argument and I preferred not to do so.
Using that strategy I went -1 on all LR on test day.
Yea, definitely read the whole thing. The risk/reward of not reading both statements isn't worth it. By saving 15-20 seconds you are sacrificing the context that may be necessary to fully understanding the second author's response.
Always read the whole thing. You used to be able to get away with reading one on early PTs, but they changed it up, so always better safe than sorry.