patience

rutemayalew

my biggest problem is that i rush through questions and this results in me picking the most attractive wrong answers. answer advice on how to stay patient and thoroughly consider every answer choice?

masters557

What has helped me improve is really understanding what my job is on any given question before I go to the answers. That way I'm not just "predicting" what the answer is, but I know generally what I need to be looking for. That has helped me better understand attractive answers as the traps that they often are. Part of that approach is also just firmly understanding what the argument is saying—attractive but wrong answers become a lot less attractive when you see they have nothing to do with what the conclusion is actually stating. Lastly I would say try to build confidence and trust in your ability—when you know what you're looking for, you are less likely to be tempted by wrong answers. Four of the answer choices are 100% wrong and the correct answer is 100% right. When I'm between two answers, I need to have a high level of certainty to switch from my original choice. Otherwise, I trust that I know what I need to look for and that the other answer is just playing on a trap that I might convince myself to fall into. It might help you to start by not thinking of it as looking for the correct answer, but evaluating which answers you know with certainty are incorrect. You may find yourself being more patient when you only have to evaluate through 3 potential answers after eliminating two, instead of telling yourself that you have to find that correct answer out of all five right off the bat.

rutemayalew

@masters557 said:
What has helped me improve is really understanding what my job is on any given question before I go to the answers. That way I'm not just "predicting" what the answer is, but I know generally what I need to be looking for. That has helped me better understand attractive answers as the traps that they often are. Part of that approach is also just firmly understanding what the argument is saying—attractive but wrong answers become a lot less attractive when you see they have nothing to do with what the conclusion is actually stating. Lastly I would say try to build confidence and trust in your ability—when you know what you're looking for, you are less likely to be tempted by wrong answers. Four of the answer choices are 100% wrong and the correct answer is 100% right. When I'm between two answers, I need to have a high level of certainty to switch from my original choice. Otherwise, I trust that I know what I need to look for and that the other answer is just playing on a trap that I might convince myself to fall into. It might help you to start by not thinking of it as looking for the correct answer, but evaluating which answers you know with certainty are incorrect. You may find yourself being more patient when you only have to evaluate through 3 potential answers after eliminating two, instead of telling yourself that you have to find that correct answer out of all five right off the bat.

thank you so much!!