Pattern of missing LR questions

Sheri123

Hey everyone,

I've noticed a strange pattern of the answers I tend to miss on LR and wanted to see if anyone else has experienced this and if you have found a solution to fixing the problem.

I have noticed that I am not necessarily missing a particular question type but am instead missing clusters of questions together. It usually happens around question 11 or 12 & I will miss 2-3 questions in a row, then it will happen again somewhere around 17-20 where I will miss 2-3 sometimes even 4.

I'm not sure if I'm stumbling because I run into a difficult question & then loose confidence on the next few questions, or if it could be mental fatigue or something else I just can't put my finger on.

The same thing sometimes happens with RC on just one passage where I miss a few in a row, but that I could understand better because it could just be a matter of not fully understanding a certain passage. The questions in LR are autonomous though which has me a little more confused, since I can go 10 questions in without any errors, and then miss 3, then another 5 without errors & then miss another 3 or so.

Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Sheri

UsernameChange

Typically speaking(this is not definite or exact by any means) I have found that the first 10 or so questions are the easiest in an LR section in general with maybe 1 or two difficult ones sprinkled in. So if you are missing questions in clusters around the 11-15 range and 16-20 range it could just be an increase in question difficulty. Especially since you mention that you aren't missing a specific type of question. I also was missing them in clusters like that when I initially started studying and the way I countered that was to breeze through the first ten and force myself to only allow like a minute and a half on the first few difficult questions you run into. You could be missing them in clusters because you run into a difficult question which causes you to become flustered and thus spend too much time on that question/rush on the next few to make up that perceived time difference.

beth.flanders

I've been experiencing the same issue as well and so far I've noticed two issues for myself.

First with subject matter such as art and economics. Art has never been one my favorite subjects and economics is a close second. I find myself my putting up a mental fence when i see these types of questions and begin to assume that I won't get the correct AC whether in RC or LR. I attempt to take a deep breath and make myself more engaged with the stimulus.

The other thing I've noticed is when I begin the next question and see that the stimulus and AC's are rather wordy and lengthy, I automatically assume it's going to be a difficult question.

Unfortunately, I haven't overcome these two obstacles completely but at least i'm aware of the issue. So what I've been doing is slowing down a bit on these particular types of questions, try to be more engaged and rely heavily on POE. If I can eliminate 3 AC's quickly and cannot determine between the two AC's, I circle it and move on, hoping to have time to come back to them. I've seen some improvement where I don't get as many incorrect as what I had been and I'm hoping with more practice and awareness of my weakness in these situations, the upward trend will continue.

Nicole Hopkins

@Sheri123 said:
because I run into a difficult question & then loose confidence on the next few questions

This would be my guess—I had a student who had this experience all the time. It seemed that she would get into a mental tailspin that would cause multiple otherwise unexplained misses in a row.

runiggyrun

Though not necessarily in clusters, the questions I miss always seem to be 12 and 18 (sometimes 19 too so I do think there's a "difficulty peak" around there. The analytics seem to confirm that those are areas rich in level 5 questions. It's possible that once you run into a tough question, even if you move on your mind stays fixated on it and clouds your judgement on the following few.