Making Dumb Mistakes

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• 1 Like

  jdawg113 Alum Inactive ⭐

  March 2015 2654 karma

  drill drill drill.
  
  It is really all comfortability and understanding. You want to just keep hammering away at questions along with PT's. Theres a good chance you are making these mistakes bc you want to get through the section and make sure you don't miss any questions, so you kind of rush and make these silly mistakes. The more comfortable you get and that the quicker you will become. With speed comes more time to make sure you read and process properly. Just make sure when you BR to note if you see all the mistakes then or after you grade. Also make sure you completely break down your reasoning at the time of answering vs reviewing and why you thought how you did when it was timed. It just takes time and effort. Keep pushing and you'll start to see less and less mistakes
• 3 Likes

  brna0714 Alum Inactive ⭐

  March 2015 edited March 2015 1489 karma

  I agree with @jdawg113. Additionally, what has helped me is to stop thinking of them as "dumb mistakes." Like you, initially I was frustrated because I kept making mistakes that I thought were inexcusable. I eventually realized that there is no such thing as a dumb mistake on a test as difficult as the LSAT. The questions are specifically designed to create opportunities for those "dumb" mistakes. The stimulus will present a chance for confusion and then the answer choices will cash in on that confusion in the form of a trap answer choice. I now work to try to deconstruct the questions; I think about the writers and why they chose to present information the way they did or why an answer choice was worded a certain way. This strategy was translated into fewer "dumb mistakes" because I can (sometimes) see the traps before I fall in them. Hope that helps.
• Alejandro Member Inactive ⭐

  March 2015 2424 karma

  @brna0714 that's some Yoda talk right there..
• brna0714 Alum Inactive ⭐

  March 2015 1489 karma

  @alejoroarios Yoda talk is the best kind of talk.
• brna0714 Alum Inactive ⭐

  March 2015 1489 karma

  "Patience you must have, my young padawan." Okay, I'm done.
• Matthew LLC Free Trial Member

  March 2015 114 karma

  Thanks for the replies. I guess I'll just keep drilling until I see improvement.
• 1 Like

  emli1000 Alum Member Inactive ⭐

  March 2015 edited March 2015 3462 karma

  Drill and BR. The more you BR the easier it be for you to learn the patterns of the LSAT. You'll also be able to spot your own mistakes.
• 1 Like

  Nilesh S Alum Inactive ⭐

  March 2015 edited March 2015 3438 karma

  ^^ this... it gets much better as you go along.. just drill and BR properly. Remember every LSAT question is a lesson and has a genetic twin and your LSAT is going to be made up of these "sister questions" for lack of a better term. When you drill and BR, your LSAT question sense gets better... you spot questions from the same family better and do not make the mistakes that you made the first few times on their genetic twins... and that shaves off time when you answer a section... consequently, you feel less rushed and pressured when you go through it and make fewer mistakes.
• 2 Likes

  Allison M Alum Member Inactive Sage

  March 2015 edited March 2015 810 karma

  I think that making dumb mistakes is fairly par for the course. I got practically every point at issue: agree question wrong, simply because I assumed it was a PAI: disagree Q. I found it helpful to accumulate a list of these errors and review it before PT (along with a list of solutions). For instance, I made a habit of double-checking all of my LG rules before proceeding to the questions, simply because I had made so many dumb mistakes as a result of improperly written rules. Being aware of these vulnerabilities can definitely help you avoid them.