How to Drill Properly

Comments

• EmergingAttorney180 Alum Member

  October 2015 133 karma

  DeeJayGee,
  
  That is a great resource to have for sure. If you are not seeing improvements from drilling, maybe you should go back and assess your grasp on the fundamentals? Have you finished the 7sage course and/or tried a supplementary text such as the LSAT Trainer?
  
  I usually drill questions depending on what I am struggling with at the time, but honestly I did not drill any other question types until I had a solid grasp on Flaw questions.
• Cayenne43 Alum Member

  October 2015 195 karma

  @EmergingAttorney180 I have finished the 7sage course and just finished the lsat trainer. My LR section improved alot with the LSAT Trainer and I am geting between -2 and -5 on LR. But I still get caught up on some questions and my timing is off-I tend to feel rushed towards the last five questions of each LR section. I also am trying to improve my RC score which is usally -10 to -15...
• EmergingAttorney180 Alum Member

  October 2015 133 karma

  @DeeJayGee said:
  I also am trying to improve my RC score which is usally -10 to -15...
  

  Are you having a lot of trouble finishing RC sections?
• 3 Likes

  GSU Hopeful Core ⭐

  October 2015 1644 karma

  Something that I have started doing while drilling is to mix the questions up. If you are spending a lot of time doing the same question type over and over, it might be making it harder for you to switch gears during the real thing. Also, I would advocate drilling whole sections if you can. If you have three or four types that are giving you a hard time, make a section of 25 questions from those types, mix them up and slap a 35 minute time limit on it. This way, you're still drilling while maintaining your test taking skills at the same time. Good luck!
• 1 Like

  Cayenne43 Alum Member

  October 2015 195 karma

  I do have the same problem with the RC. Tending to feel rushed for the last passage.
• Cayenne43 Alum Member

  October 2015 195 karma

  @"GSU Hopeful" - How do you mix up the 25 questions...cut them out? Write them down?
• 1 Like

  GSU Hopeful Core ⭐

  October 2015 1644 karma

  @DeeJayGee I have all the Cambridge Packets for the question types and PDFs for 36-76. I use the snip it tool on Windows and cut and paste them to Word. Do that for 25 questions and you have a full section.
• 8 Likes

  Pacifico Alum Inactive ⭐

  October 2015 8021 karma

  I'm going to challenge a bit of orthodoxy here and say that drilling is overrated. In my opinion drilling is only useful in two scenarios: minimally while going through a curriculum as needed to learn different question/game types, and then minimally during PT phase to shore up any glaring deficiencies in one area.
  
  Once you start PTing then timed PTs along with in depth and excellent clean copy BR is pretty much all you should need. If you suck in one area then use that as your fifth section.
  
  If your LR is that good then there is no reason your RC should be that bad. LR is just a bunch of dickishly written RC paragraphs that you have to employ a host of various skills to answer an finite assortment of questions. RC is just a scavenger hunt for clues and evidence.
  
  If you have PDFs I would recommend going back through your analytics and making a spreadsheet of every LR question you got wrong (25 questions per sheet) and then build fifth sections out of that. I guarantee they will be the hardest LR sections you ever do even if you went through all the answers the first time. For RC you can do the same, just pick passages that you got say -3 or more and then put four of those together for an RC fifth section.
  
  If you feel rushed in RC then you are probably taking too long on the easy questions. POE is very important but when you get an easy question with a quick answer then you need to move on. You have to have some sense of urgency in case you encounter a truly difficult passage. Ideally you want to finish 3 of the 4 passages in under 8 minutes a piece. And you need to learn when to cut bait and move on.
  
  Feel free to hit me up if you have any additional questions. Good luck!
  
  
• GSU Hopeful Core ⭐

  October 2015 1644 karma

  @Pacifico said:
  If you suck in one area then use that as your fifth section.
  

  Still owe you alot for this idea! I improved a ton when I was PTing.
  
  

  @Pacifico said:
  dickishly written
  

  Lol, very fitting term. At times, this entire test can be "dickishly written".
• 1 Like

  c.janson35 Free Trial Inactive Sage Inactive ⭐

  October 2015 2398 karma

  @Pacifico said:
  I'm going to challenge a bit of orthodoxy here and say that drilling is overrated.
  

  Agreed. Drill PTs. Drill by complete sections. Drilling by question type can quickly lead to diminishing returns--like a pencil factory. The one place where I think pure drilling is most beneficial is when learning logic games because the games are pretty consistent. So if you're struggling with sequencing games, then drilling them can help to improve your timing and performance on them. Same goes for in and out games, etc. I don't think the results are as replicable on the other sections though, and even with games it gets to a point where if all you are doing is drilling then you're not getting all you can out of them. A huge part of doing well on games--and the rest of the test, too--is being nimble and flexible enough in your knowledge so that you can identify a game/question type immediately and know exactly what to do if and when LSAC throws you a curve ball. Pure drilling isn't best suited to accomplish these goals; varied practice is, in my opinion. Luckily for us all of the sections are already varied!
• mysojuli Alum Member

  October 2015 98 karma

  Quick question..
  
  What does drilling by PT mean? Does that mean I should take an entire PT and do it timed, BR it and review the wrong answers and do that everyday (assuming I have enough PTs to do this) instead of going through every section and drilling by type?
  
  Thanks
• c.janson35 Free Trial Inactive Sage Inactive ⭐

  October 2015 2398 karma

  @mysojuli I was being a little facetious when I said to drill PTs because what I really mean is to just take PTs. This definitely doesn't mean to take one every day, but I do believe the best way to get better at the test is to actually take the test. And always do a great BR!
• Cayenne43 Alum Member

  October 2015 195 karma

  @Pacifico I have the sets of 10 LSAT preptests from LSAC. Is there a way to do this without having the PDFs? I think this also applies to my PTs because I BR on the same copy of my PTs because I only have the hard copies. Also I think I was a bit misunderstood earlier I am getting -2 to -5 on each LR sections so still between -4 and -10 for the total LR... Would the best way to improve be to buy pdfs of the tests?
• louis2014 Alum Member

  October 2015 190 karma

  So if you drill by section, would you eventually be able to see the patterns in each question type? I keep jumping between the two ideas: drill by type versus by section.
• 1 Like

  Pacifico Alum Inactive ⭐

  October 2015 8021 karma

  You could slice the binding off and then just make double sided copies of all the PTs so you have clean master copies. Or if that sounds like too much work then I would just buy the PDFs.
  
  You should notice patterns regardless once you hit a high enough number of questions completed. You might see the patterns sooner with drilling by type, but I still agree with @c.janson35 that this is essentially cheating your brain out of valuable practice in negotiating the varied terrain of LR sections.
• louis2014 Alum Member

  October 2015 190 karma

  Thank you @Pacifico