Why does it take time to see improvement?

Tina Cho

Hi

So I think I know the fundamentals of LR but I still miss questions on the ones that I should not have missed...
I do choose very carefully when I do timed-test...why does this happen???
I do review throughout after taking the test but this continues for months and I feel very disappointed...
People say it takes time to see improvement but why?
If you know fundamentals, shouldn't you see improvements very soon??
If not, doesn't that mean you still do not understand the basics?
I don't know whether my way of reviewing is not good or it just takes time or...just frustrating...

Stevie C

There's a difference between knowing the fundamentals (lawgic, question types, argument parts) and being able to quickly apply those fundamentals to real problems.

If you keep following the 7sage methods (PT, blind review, explanation videos, revisit core curriculum as needed) then you will surely improve over time

Not Ralph Nader

@"Tina Cho" there is a difference between knowing the fundamentals and mastering them. When someone knows the fundamentals she can get the questions right but takes longer time on the other hand when someone master the concepts she develops a feeling for the right answer choice especially in LG. Knowing the fundamentals is necessary for improvement of score but it is not sufficient. Time management, going through enough number of similar questions and being able to anticipate the right answer choice while reading the stimulus are also required.

I think mastering the fundamentals is a continuous process where one learns the concepts, then applies them, finds gaps in her understandings and refers back to core curriculum to refine her understanding.

It took me more than six to eight months to see improvements and most of it occurred after I went through core curriculum and fool proofing all the Games in PT 1-35.

Tina Cho

@"Stevie C"
Thanks.
Are you the one who made a thread about improvement on LR?
It sounded like you saw your improvement pretty fast...did you do all up PT 35 LR questions or...

@"Not Ralph Nader"
Oh I mean LR...
so do you think anticipating answers are kind of improtant for all LR questions?

Not Ralph Nader

@"Tina Cho" what I said was about LR and LG sections, but it happens that for some people including me feeling the right answer choice came sooner on LG. For most of the LR questions anticipating answers is important because it shows that you understand the reasoning structure of the argument.

Alex

@"Tina Cho" said:
People say it takes time to see improvement but why?
If you know fundamentals, shouldn't you see improvements very soon??

I agree and like what @"Not Ralph Nader" says about learning the fundamentals vs. mastering them.

The short of it is that you'll likely see improvements right away and long-term improvements as you begin to get better.

I was stuck missing 4-6 questions on an LR section for months... It took a lot of timed sections and review to get that down to -3 or better.

Just keep on going, you'll get there!

Stevie C

@"Tina Cho" said:
Thanks.
Are you the one who made a thread about improvement on LR?
It sounded like you saw your improvement pretty fast...did you do all up PT 35 LR questions or...

I did the vast majority of core curriculum. I skipped a few problem sets (for example, if there were 5 problem sets I'd do 1 for warmup and then I'd do 4 & 5) because I was crunched for time, but I watched all the lessons.

I would focus more on understanding a question (you can facilitate understanding by watching the explanation video, reading comments from other 7sage users, and potentially trying question again later) than on the raw number of questions. Fully understanding 100 questions is more useful than sleepwalking through 1000 questions (and I'm not saying that you sleepwalked through anything, I'm just making a general point)

Vickpetrosian1

@"Alex Divine" @"Tina Cho" Yes Alex has it spot on improvements come from just hardcore practice your brain literally just gets better at noticing small details and at one point it becomes almost natural to spot things that you wouldn't be able to before.

My word of advice is to look at what qualities certain answers have under different types of questions. For example , Inference questions usually require something softer so you start scanning for something soft as hell. Think of it this way you should be looking for something you can squeak by with the info provided.... Most people always look for whats the most i can't prove...when in fact this is much more difficult than proving something that requires less assuming... IDK i guess people tend to like strong words but not in the case of inferences, off course it happens time to time but they tend to be soft.

Parallel reasoning: ignore content---look at how many conditionals are present and which ones are proving or disproving another.

Strengthen: pump that baby stimulus full of roads--- pretty much either see if you can cancel out alternatives of what provided, or try to amplify the effects of the premise so that it makes the conclusion more likely.

Weaken: do the opposite of strengthen- make it less possible for the conclusion to occur, find something that could be a alternative cause of Y instead of the X the argument assumes to have caused Y., or make it less likely that X leads to Y by cracking premises, don't say the complete opposite of the premise but rather that the premise provided leads somewhere else.

Flaws: pay attention to the silent assumption... sometimes its very silent but the answer choice will usually say something that points to this assumption and how the author automatically assumes it.(there lots of flaws i just can list them all)

I dont know if this mini explanation did anything ... LSAT EXPERTS I tried... just trying to help my anxiety lol by helping.

Alex

@Vickpetrosian1 Great advice!!

Tina Cho

Thank you all!
Those are really helpful...I guess I will just keep practicing.