Consistent high 160s- low 170s - my approach to get to mid-170s consistently

ahnendc-1ahnendc-1 Member
in General 642 karma

Any input/feedback on my approach of how to close the gap between my last four timed PTs (172, 172, 168, 168) and their associated BR scores (176, 176, 177, 177) would be much appreciated.

Timing (and also confidence in my timing) has seemed to be a big issue in RC. To mitigate this I have been doing full fresh RC sections and redoing full-RC sections (1 of each/day). I’ve been doing this for ~week now and am now much more comfortable with an full RC section. I plan to continue to just do this. And also thoroughly analyze the mistakes I make in both my repeat and fresh sections. My BR for a fresh RC section is typically -3 to -1 but seems to be a downward trend which is good so I think I’m making gains in accuracy as well.

Timing in LR is sometimes okay and sometimes not. It just seems that when I’m in a good section I can have up to 8 minutes left after giving each question an attempt. Other sections I only have 5. I don’t think I have a particular weak point in terms of a question type so my strategy here is to just get into a rhythm with taking PTs and really BR and analyze any question that gives me trouble. I don’t know if doing LR sections would be super beneficial to practice timing since it seems that my speed just tends to correlate with how good I feel in the questions. I typically make 1-2 mistake I feel like I could have avoided and fall for 2-3 curve breakers.

LG has been pretty consistent with usually -1 or -2. I never get a question wrong when I blind review the games (which I just do timed a second time) so I’m hypothesizing my issue to be with the initial setup. Also, I find that I can just make stupid mistakes (like not manipulating symbols correctly in my head). My goal here is to just continue to full-proof LGs and do full LG sets such that my speed in making inferences allows me to “buy” extra time in working out the questions so that I don’t feel as under pressure or can even write more things out. Also, after every game I think I am going to take a second and reflect on what aspects of the game mandated that specific setup; hopefully that will give me a greater comfortability in setting up a new game.

I’ve taken about 10PTs and have been studying for 6 months. Any feedback or comments from the other side if you were in a similar spot and how long it took you to reach your goal would be greatly appreciated!

Comments

  • 99thPercentileOrDieTryin99thPercentileOrDieTryin Free Trial Member
    652 karma

    When your prep test and BR scores are at that level, the logic is solid. What are your time-saving tactics? Do you skip the hardest LR questions? Do you complete all the IF questions before going back to the global questions in a logic game? Can you summarize the big picture of an RC paragraph in three to five words, then do the same for the passage?

    When I was where you are, mastering my time gave me the boost into the mid-170s.

  • ahnendc-1ahnendc-1 Member
    642 karma

    @99thPercentileOrDieTryin

    For logical reasoning I do skip the hard questions - never seem to get too bogged down in the difficult ones though (the days of catching myself spending 2-3 minutes upfront on a question that I should skip and return to are over, thankfully). For parallel reasoning my strategy is to find the first AC that fits my generalized form, select it (flag the question and then move on) (this saves me probably 45 seconds/question and it hasn't steered me wrong yet). My BIGGEST time syncs are always Must Be True's/SA's with complex logic which is stupid because those should be provable but I think sometimes I just am so afraid of getting that question wrong that I want to be extra sure. So I'm trying to work on getting faster with mapping out logic (doing drills every morning for ~15-30 minutes).

    For RC my explicit strategy is to "invest in the passage" such that I have a solid understanding of the structure and use the memory method (2.5 for easier passages, average of 3.5 though and up to 4.5 for super difficult passages). For the comparative passage I do read both at the same time (seems more comfortable to me) and do a 30 second chicken scratch outline for each (this helps me solidify any differences in my mind). From there I try to be as aggressive as I can in the questions; flag/skip anything that gives me trouble and return back when I've completed everything. If I still have extra time after I have given all of my flagged questions another look then I will choose the passage that I thought was the most challenging and confirm my answers.

    For LG, I don't ever jump around the questions to complete the IF questions first. I typically try to attack most games with completing some portion of the game boards (even if it is somewhat sparse). I think the digital format has really discouraged me from trying this out - like clicking through the different questions, idk that just seems like kind of a time sink. Am I wrong here though?

    Any additional feedback based on this would be really helpful.

    How long would you say it took you to master timing and bump up into the mid-170s?

Sign In or Register to comment.