How do you drill ?

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• 2 Likes

  runiggyrun Alum Inactive Sage Inactive ⭐

  April 2016 2481 karma

  I never noticed missing a specific "type" of question in LR, so I can't really speak from personal experience, but I'd say it might be beneficial to go over the appropriate curriculum video and drill a handful (about the length of a "problem set" worth). People recommend saving some problem sets when going through the curriculum exactly for this purpose, so you have a ready made chunk of questions, but in the absence of that you can use the question bank and make your own, tailored to the level of difficulty you feel you need help with.
  
  Because of the lack of a pattern, I just go back to my ledger of questions I've missed and redo them in lieu of "drilling". I don't have a set number, it depends on how much time I have available.
  
  I do drill games daily - just grab a couple of sections from my "to do this week" stack and do them as full sections. I also don't have a specific "type" of game I'm weak at, they all hate me just about equally.
• KevinSage Alum Member

  April 2016 260 karma

  @runiggyrun fortunately, I have the cambridge packets so I still have a ton of "new" questions. Revisiting the appropriate videos seems like a good idea. thank you!
• 3 Likes

  danielznelson Alum Inactive Sage Inactive ⭐

  April 2016 edited April 2016 4181 karma

  Off of what @runiggyrun has noted, find the areas you're weak in, review the curriculum on those areas, and drill according to the techniques employed in the curriculum. For example, with Strengthening Questions, really try to focus on finding the reasoning binding together the premise(s) and conclusion(s) even and ESPECIALLY the easier questions of that type. In this way, you build a foundation for understanding what you should be doing with the particular question types you are weak at, so that you will be able to tackle the trickier questions when intuition alone isn't enough to figure them out.
  
  I actually write from experience. After noticing a weaker performance in Strengthening Questions relative to other question types, I reviewed the curriculum and meticulously approached each Strengthening Question by the book. This allowed me to avoid trap answer choices or altogether distracting ones, especially ones that may "strengthen" a part of the argument (say, the conclusion) but not the REASONING of the argument - big difference there. This helps a lot with Weakening and Evaluate questions, as well.
  
  Drilling is key as well, but if you're underperforming with a particular question type (or with multiple types), drilling more without reviewing and taking a step back to recalibrate your mindset on those types will probably get you nowhere.
• MrSamIam Inactive ⭐

  April 2016 2086 karma

  I never limited myself to a certain number of questions. Here is how I've done it in the past:
  1) Figure out which type of question you haven't quite mastered yet.
  2) Go through 7Sage and pick out 5 easy, 5 medium level, and 5 hard questions. Drill them in a random order.
  3) BR them
  4) If you're still having trouble, do this again.
  5) Keep doing this until you have an "Aha!" moment
• nantesorkestar Alum Member

  April 2016 431 karma

  I have access to many old Prep Tests so I've been drilling sections. I've been using Pacifico's LG method with 4 clean copies, recording my time and score. Drilling them over until I get a perfect score within J.Y.'s recommended time.
  
  For LR and RC, I've been drilling timed sections and blind reviewing them afterwards. This is my third postponed test so I am using the next two months only drilling 1-35 and using the curriculum to shore up weaknesses until I feel confident for 36-77.
  
  Lastly, I am keeping organized binders of all my drilled sections with notes so I can go back and review where I went wrong.