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2 Likes
For those getting 173/175 +... what's your breakdown per section?
adam.wojcik10
Alum Member
For those getting 173/175 +... what's your breakdown per section?
Comments
LR: -2 to -3.
LG: -3 to -4.
I think I'm slightly unusual, however. I get the feeling most people score higher on the LG but lower on the LR.
RC: -1~-2 (bad day: -3/-4)
LR: -0~-2 (bad day: -3/-4)
LG: -0~-1(bad day: -3/-6 when I completely bomb one of the games)
usually when I mess up it's my 6th section..
176: LG -3, RC -2, LR -2
177: LG -3, RC -0, LR -2
174: LG -3, RC -4, LR -1
178: LG -2, RC -1, LR -1
LG is a work in Progress - I usually finish with about 1-3 minutes left and am yet to hit a perfect one.
LR I feel very comfortable with. I ususally finish with 10 to 15 minutes spare. This can be an issue though as I have occasionally used that time to convince myself a correct answer is actually wrong. That 177 was a 179 until I changed two LR answers... Grrr.
RC can be extremely frustrating - it's the section I feel least consistent on. I usually finish with about 10 minutes spare, but have occasionally failed to spot glaring errors, even when I re-read the question twice. Hopefully it's a focus problem that will be sharpened on test day. I had the same issue with the SATs but got a perfect score on test day - I think it forced me to concentrate. Fingers crossed.
I would refrain from reading the questions first - no need to waste brain resources that could be better spent trying to understand the passage. That said, I would definitely note the structure of the argument as soon as you finish reading. Doing so only takes a second and should save you some time later on.
Also, this may sound stupid, but make sure you understand what you're reading. After reading each paragraph, I usually summarize it (briefly, but specifically) in my head. It's not really a strategy, it's just something I've grown accustomed to doing while reading semi-dense passages. Worse mistake you can make is to lazily read through a few sentences and miss what the author is saying.
Not sure what the "Memory Method" is. Sounds like it's working pretty for you, though. It's really tough to gain ground on RC sections, and -5 is a pretty damn good start!
These sections have 26-27 questions so getting through them in 20 minutes would allow time to fix mistakes. I'm scoring 170+ in PTs but I leave LR/RC with little to no spare time and that kills the score.
1. Predicting the answer before you look at them. Often, especially in questions 1-15/16 or so, you can tell what the answer is going to be by the stem alone. The flaw will be obvious, etc. Knowing what you might be looking for cuts down on the time it takes to parse the 5 answer choices.
2. Combine that with total confidence - if you know for sure the answer is right, then move on. Why bother crossing out the other 4 if you are certain you got it correct? There is only one right answer. (I stop doing this for the later questions because they get more subtle, and I need the reassurance.)
3. Calm combined with urgency. I like to move fast - I enjoy the 10/15 minutes I have at the end of each LR section to go over the questions I circled as potentially problematic, so I move through them with a sense of urgency. However, I also need to be calm and relaxed about each question or you start doing things like reading without really reading. I underline with my pencil, just long bold strokes of things that look important in the more complex questions - I don't use the highlighting at all, it just keeps my mind utterly on the task.
4. Take advantage of the easy questions. Questions 1- at least 10 take at most 3 or 4 minutes. The next few go a minute each, and then 20-26 are usually more time consuming whether it's because of the length of time it takes to read them, or the subtlety they are written with.
RC varies a lot more. I just finished PT 65, and got a 176 because I dropped 5 questions on the RC, and finished with a minute left. Yesterday I did PT 64 and got a 178 with none wrong on the RC and a solid 10 minutes at the end to review. The latter is more common but I think with RC you/I just need to take a deep breath before hand, and apply that urgency/calm to the passages. I don't know what makes an easy passage vs. a hard one - sometimes the questions just strike me as a lot more obscure, especially when they want parallels - that takes more time to think.
I try to predict/pre-phrase the answer for many questions and that usually works. I take about 5-6 seconds to predict the answer. For the ones where it's hard to predict or pre-phrase within this time, I jump to the answer choices and go one by one. By the time I am done reading the five choices, I have gotten a better sense of the question and am able to narrow it down to a choice or two. There are some hard to parse questions, however, where I have to (re)read the Q and choices and such Qs take upwards of 2 minutes .
Q1-10 are easy(er) but I don't find them so easy that I finish them in 3 minutes and that may be the difference. Some tests have a couple of tricky ones in the beginning. Do I understand correctly that you finish first-10 in 3 min and first-15 in about 8 minutes? If so, that could make a lot of difference. Even if one moves on after picking the right choice without eliminating others that's still very fast (about 15-20 secs per Q). Is there any specific way you read (not subvocalize etc)? Do you read/do RC any differently?
However, I definitely believe you can speed up through technique - Logic Games, which were a nightmare for me, I now am finishing up with 2/3 minutes spare. If I can do that, you can knock a few minutes off your LR time and give yourself a crucial moment to review at the end.
That time breakdown sounds about right, yes. Throughout the test, but mostly in the beginning there are several questions which take about 20 seconds or less - taking advantage of that is really a matter of being able to physically read the question quickly enough, and then having the confidence to not get hung up on anything.
I don't think I read in a particular way. Having wikipedia'd subvocalization though I would hazard a guess that I do not subvocalize for the simpler questions, and that I manually kick it in on more complex stuff. My tendency to speed read is why I force myself to underline stuff - especially on RC if I don't do that I will miss small details. Again, for RC my strategy is not complex at all. Read the passage, approach the questions. Very possible I could have a better strategy, but I'm tending towards -0 with the occasional screwup, so I don't know necessarily what I would do differently. Some of them are just genuinely very hard for me, though perhaps not for others.
How is your time distribution in RC to initial-read of passage/do questions and among different passages in general?
I may be doing the first read of passage too slow and still going back to the passage for detail questions.
About 3:30 to read the passage, about 3-4 minutes to the questions. Usually finish with a few minutes to spare at the end.
For the earlier PT's (0-38) I was reading the passage more quickly (around 2 minutes), but the LSAC has stepped their game up in the later PT's (60-70) so I decided to read a little more carefully. I think it's important not only to understand the argument, but also to pick up (and remember) as many details as possible. Saves me time when I'm trying to eliminate wrong answer choices.
Ike, you take PT 65 yet? Not sure if it was just me, but I thought some of those RC questions were pretty obscure. Dropped a -5 on the section and got 173 overall. I'm still pretty confident for test day, but I could be in trouble if we get a section like that on the 9th
What Qs did you get wrong? I missed 7, 13, 15, 16 and 23.
Did better on my prep test today, thankfully. I honestly just wish I could walk in and take the test tomorrow. Want to get this over with already haha
Al - To be honest, LR and RC have never given me many problems but LG was far from naturally intuitive...
Remember now the first rule is to be nice. You guys are doing such a great job of that!
Take a look at the title of the thread and let's try to stay on topic. I deleted a bunch not relevant comments.