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High Scorers in RC---Timing Strategy Advice to close BR gap?

Heinz DoofenshmirtzHeinz Doofenshmirtz Member ⭐
in Reading Comprehension 481 karma

To those who score well in RC:

What does timing look like for you in a section? Not in terms of breakdown per passage, but how much time you have left over and how many questions you left yourself go back to?

My BR for RC is consistently -1 or -0, but under timed conditions it ranges (from -2 to -8). I'm trying to close this gap, since I think my BR indicates that it's a timing issue and not an understanding issue?

Thank you :)

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Comments

  • seriouslyseriously Alum Member
    199 karma

    Do you know where you're spending the majority of your time? Are you taking longer on passages, or on the questions themselves?

  • Heinz DoofenshmirtzHeinz Doofenshmirtz Member ⭐
    481 karma

    @seriously said:
    Do you know where you're spending the majority of your time? Are you taking longer on passages, or on the questions themselves?

    I spend more time on the passage but sometimes do spend a little extra time waffling between answer choices. My last PT I finished the section with about 2 minutes to spare but I had a lot of flagged questions--and ultimately ended up getting a lot of them wrong. When I BRed, it was easy for me to select the right answer but just wasn't able to under timed conditions.

  • intellectualplasticintellectualplastic Alum Member
    243 karma

    My scores improved by 2-3 points (now I usually miss 0-3 per section) when I began spending more time on the passage. After I committed to spending 3+ minutes (occasionally a little less) reading, and/or rereading, and summarizing, lingering on questions became rare.

    In BR, I really, really took the time to 100% understand why right answer choices were right, and what made other ACs worse. This helped sharpen my intuition, and I usually get flagged questions right!

  • seriouslyseriously Alum Member
    199 karma

    @Deepika7 said:
    I spend more time on the passage but sometimes do spend a little extra time waffling between answer choices. My last PT I finished the section with about 2 minutes to spare but I had a lot of flagged questions--and ultimately ended up getting a lot of them wrong. When I BRed, it was easy for me to select the right answer but just wasn't able to under timed conditions.

    My personal philosophy is that understanding/proficiency > timing strategies. I would say to go back to those questions that you flagged and identify:

    (a) Why you flagged them in the first place: Was their something about them that confused you? Is there a common trend between all the ones that you flagged?

    (b) What made the right answer unattractive and the wrong answers attractive?

    (c) How did your reading of the passage impact your understanding of the question?

    (d) What approach did you take in the moment to resolving your confusion on the question? Did you prephrase? Go back to the passage? Work based off of your memory?

    I think once you can isolate what led you to choosing the wrong answers, you can start working on habits, tailored to your specific issues, that will lead you to the right answer faster.

    This post has a great review method for RC: http://www.thelsattrainer.com/lsat-reading-comprehension.html

    Hope that helps!

  • Heinz DoofenshmirtzHeinz Doofenshmirtz Member ⭐
    481 karma

    @seriously said:

    @Deepika7 said:
    I spend more time on the passage but sometimes do spend a little extra time waffling between answer choices. My last PT I finished the section with about 2 minutes to spare but I had a lot of flagged questions--and ultimately ended up getting a lot of them wrong. When I BRed, it was easy for me to select the right answer but just wasn't able to under timed conditions.

    My personal philosophy is that understanding/proficiency > timing strategies. I would say to go back to those questions that you flagged and identify:

    (a) Why you flagged them in the first place: Was their something about them that confused you? Is there a common trend between all the ones that you flagged?

    (b) What made the right answer unattractive and the wrong answers attractive?

    (c) How did your reading of the passage impact your understanding of the question?

    (d) What approach did you take in the moment to resolving your confusion on the question? Did you prephrase? Go back to the passage? Work based off of your memory?

    I think once you can isolate what led you to choosing the wrong answers, you can start working on habits, tailored to your specific issues, that will lead you to the right answer faster.

    This post has a great review method for RC: http://www.thelsattrainer.com/lsat-reading-comprehension.html

    Hope that helps!

    I will definitely try this, thanks so much!

  • Heinz DoofenshmirtzHeinz Doofenshmirtz Member ⭐
    481 karma

    @intellectualplastic said:
    My scores improved by 2-3 points (now I usually miss 0-3 per section) when I began spending more time on the passage. After I committed to spending 3+ minutes (occasionally a little less) reading, and/or rereading, and summarizing, lingering on questions became rare.

    In BR, I really, really took the time to 100% understand why right answer choices were right, and what made other ACs worse. This helped sharpen my intuition, and I usually get flagged questions right!

    I think this is what I'm lacking--confidence in my intuition. Even when I get questions right, it happens that I was unsure about them. Thank you for the advice, I will do a deeper BR process!

  • Heinz DoofenshmirtzHeinz Doofenshmirtz Member ⭐
    481 karma

    @intellectualplastic said:
    My scores improved by 2-3 points (now I usually miss 0-3 per section) when I began spending more time on the passage. After I committed to spending 3+ minutes (occasionally a little less) reading, and/or rereading, and summarizing, lingering on questions became rare.

    In BR, I really, really took the time to 100% understand why right answer choices were right, and what made other ACs worse. This helped sharpen my intuition, and I usually get flagged questions right!

    sorry one more question--do you usually have time for a second round to check out the flagged questions? Or do you rely on your intuition to be good enough the first time around?

  • intellectualplasticintellectualplastic Alum Member
    243 karma

    sorry one more question--do you usually have time for a second round to check out the flagged questions? Or do you rely on your intuition to be good enough the first time around?

    This is a late reply, but for posterity:

    I move on from each question with the expectation that I won't have time to go back, and I nearly always cut timing pretty close (with 1-2 minutes to spare on a good day).

    My score improved once I stopped marking questions lazily with the thought that "oh, I'll just come back to it." That said, there are normally a few questions that I feel very uncertain about (even after blind review), but when timed I move on once I think I've chosen thoughtfully.

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