Misreading LSAT Passage or Game rules

westcoastbestcoast

Hey guys,

Say you are working through a preptest and half way through the questions of a Reading Comprehension passage or a logic game, you realize that you misread a rule or mis-interpreted the main point or a key view of the passage. How would you go about mitigating errors while still maintaining a good pace to finish the passage and logic game on time and accurately?

allison.gill.sanford

I think there's a big difference between misreading in RC and misreading in LG. And recovery is also different.
My advice is to always double check the rules in LG (go through a second time to cross reference your notation of the rules with what the rules say). It takes very little extra time, helps you make inferences up front, and can even help you semi-memorize the rules for a game. It's pretty hard to recover from a mistake with the rules if you don't catch it right away, but I would say you need to back track, fix your master game board, and even potentially start over with inferences depending on how influential the misunderstood rule was. Really, you want to prep to avoid this at all costs on your actual administration, so getting in the habit of double checking the rules is really helpful.
Can you say more about what you mean with a misunderstanding in RC? My experience was usually either understanding a passage clearly or having a fuzzy/imprecise comprehension. I don't entirely know what you mean with how you would misinterpret a key point.

Addistotle

It's hard to say, it could depend a lot on how well you've managed your time before this happens. I think for LG it is worth looking back at your answers and checking if they depended on that misinterpretation, same goes for Reading Comp. Aside from a MP question, perhaps most of your answers were line-specific and therefore unaffected by this mistake.

Also, depending on how many questions you have left in the LG section, I would bubble in "C" for all the remaining questions in the section and move onto the next game (if there is one) and once I complete that game, come back and try starting from scratch.

It'll really really come down to how serious of a mistake it is.

westcoastbestcoast

Thanks for the responses! @allison.gill.sanford To be more precise, I meant to say that I would sometimes misinterpret either the main idea, or the viewpoints mentioned by a critic, scholar or some other party that isn't the author himself.

runiggyrun

For a passage, it's unlikely that a misinterpretation could cause you to answer more than two questions wrong, so you could finish the remaining questions with your new understanding and if you have time go back and fix the questions affected by the mistake.

For a game, the fastest way would be to go back as soon as you realized your mistake and redo your board. Trying to make "corrections" is likely to waste you more time than just doing it over. Hopefully you catch the mistake early enough - usually when one "rule" eliminates something like three of the answers on the first question you should stop and check for mistakes. Of if there are two answers that appear correct based on your notations, go back and check. If you catch your error in the first couple of questions, you might be able to recover with only 3-4 minutes lost. Depending on how good you are in general, you might be fine. I think most LG sections are designed to be "finishable" in ~25 minutes if you do everything perfectly. Of course that doesn't usually happen, but I can see strong LG people being able to finish most sections in just over 30 minutes, so that would allow for recovery from a mistake.
If you're 5 questions in, you're looking at completely redoing the whole game, at which point you have to decide whether you want to redo this particular game or try the next game in the section. It's basically the same decision you would make deciding between game 3 and 4 if you have say 10 minutes and you know you're not likely to finish both.
The advantage of re-doing is that you will be somewhat familiar with the game. The disadvantage is that you might have the wrong rule sort of stuck in your mind, and you'll be shaken. If the next game is really easy, I'd be tempted to go for that next one, and then come back and use the familiarity to quickly get through as many questions as possible.

I don't think there's a "golden" strategy - it's a very tough position to find yourself in, and that's why it's worth taking an extra few seconds double checking rules against the text, checking rules off as you write them, and going over them one more time after they are all written down - those extra 30-60 seconds could save you lots of minutes caused by a mistake.

Cant Get Right

@runiggyrun said:
Hopefully you catch the mistake early enough - usually when one "rule" eliminates something like three of the answers on the first question you should stop and check for mistakes.

Yeah, this has saved me a couple times. Early realization is the most important thing. And this is more a matter of experience than anything else. As you foolproof and continually revisit your games, you will develop a sense of when something isn’t quite right. It’s something that unfortunately happens and no matter how good you get you can never achieve 100% immunity from misreading a rule or something. But you can get to the level where early detection is basically inevitable.

So basically, what you do in this situation is have the experience and practice to recognize it immediately. What is your system for drilling Games? Got to have a system for Games.

westcoastbestcoast

@"Cant Get Right" I'm currently taking practice exams atm and I would usually keep a log of games that I found troublesome and revisit those games to fool proof them. Usually most of the games that I found troubling wasn't a particular game type but rather it would be the harder ones of the game set. I haven't actually encountered mis reading rules to be much of an issue of minr but I just wanted to know some strategies in case on the actual exam date that I would make a misinterpretation error perhaps due to nervousness. Just trying to prepare for the worst case scenario:)

Cant Get Right

@westcoastbestcoast said:
Just trying to prepare for the worst case scenario:)

If you’re not prepared for the worst, you’re not prepared. If you’re strong on games, it should be pretty obvious to you something is amiss. Acceptable sitch' questions usually tell you a lot. If anything is off there, like you can eliminate multiple answers with one rule or of course if you can eliminate everything, it’s time to go back. Main thing at that point is just don’t panic.