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Related Discussions
PTs for December
Which PTs should I use to study for December? I've only done 12, and December is a rewrite for me, so I've pretty much finished studying, and I want to focus as much as I can on PTs and improving my weaknesses. Also, which order should I do the PTs in, and how many per week from now until December? My ideal score is a 155-157, so you guys don't need to worry about where I'm at in terms of PTing (in case anyone was suggesting to postpone), I tend to get around that score fairly consistently, but there are random times (3 times) where I get like a 152-154. I'm also pretty much ALWAYS going -12 to -14 on RC, how can I improve this in 2 months time? Would you guys suggest trying to implement the Memory Method? I'm kinda stumped.
PTs Completed:
36
41
52
53
54
55
56
58
63
67
70
71
PTs Completed:
36
41
52
53
54
55
56
58
63
67
70
71
Comments
Since we're only two months away and since you have room to improve, I wouldn't bother reading outside material in hopes of improving your reading ability. Your best bet is just to do RC passages. Definitely do BR for each passage if you are not already doing so. BRing for RC is perhaps more important than BR for LG and LR, in some instances.
As I already stated, you have room to improve. I think you can make some steady progress by keeping up with RC, BRing each passage you do, and taking advantage of previously used sections. During BR, really focus on what the question is asking you. Many of the questions look like LR questions (Most Strongly Supported, Must Be True, Main Point, Weaken, et cetera). Attaching more specific strategies to some of these questions can be very helpful to promptly eliminating incorrect yet attractive answer choices.
Stick with 1-2 PTs a week. Especially if you have no desire to postpone till next cycle, you should expose yourself to all of the most recent tests (65+ generally speaking). If you for some reason want to save some of the newer tests for perhaps a February take or a take even later, I would still recommend taking 72, 75, 77, and 78. Take a few of the 70s soon, maybe 71 and 74, since both will be discussed in BR groups this week, I think. Also, taking a few 70s now will allow you some time before you could retake them just before test day. Maybe take 71 now and consider taking it a week or two out before the test to nail down strategies, learn from new mistakes and lucky guesses on your first take, brush up on newer material, and boost your confidence. Keep up with some of the older stuff, if only for borrowing RC passages and exposing yourself to weird LG. There was a circle game in an experimental section a few tests back. Maybe look at those before test day.
***
As probably everyone finds, I see RC as the most abstract of the LSAT sections and therefore the most difficult to practice for. However, I also believe that RC provides the best opportunity for steady increases as well as for avoiding major lapses in progress. This is probably at least in part due to the fact that RC doesn't have a lot of room for technical methods of reasoning such as with SA, NA, Parallel Method of Reasoning, et cetera, in LR or with Logic Games in general. With these other sections, fundamentals are key and will destroy you if you forget any one of them.
I've noticed a big part of RC conversation is centered around the passages, as it should be. But I do think there are some strategies capable of helping with the questions themselves. I'll list some of the tips I've taught myself, all of which have helped me significantly.
- Do not accept an answer choice unless it is 100% correct. This is beyond obvious on paper, but in reality, I used to constantly select answers that I felt were "75%," maybe even "95%" correct, only to miss the respective question because of the inclusion of one, out-of-scope word or term. I've noticed this is especially tempting with inference, principle, and most likely to agree questions. Be prepared to not only look for an answer choice 100%, dead-on and especially within scope, but to also eliminate answer choices that are "95%" correct and "5%" incorrect.
- When in doubt with questions on a particular word (e.g. "Which one of the following most accurately expresses the meaning of the word _____") look to immediately preceding sentences to help gather some context. Relevant sentences can comprise an entire paragraph or perhaps a line or two. Sometimes, the word asked about may be a part of a conclusion, with its "premises" coming before the use of the word. In some other instances, the word may be a part of an example of what is discussed just prior.
This technique has also helped me with questions asking for the primary purpose of a particular mention (e.g. "The author of the passage mentions ____ and ___ primarily in order to), which may include a person or a comparison between persons, among other things. Looking to context before and sometimes ahead of the words or phrase asked about is especially helpful in avoiding trap answer choices.
- For primary function/primary purpose passages, scrutinize attractive answer choices that do not properly convey what the author is actually doing. For example, if a passage is used to defend a viewpoint against criticism, an answer choice claiming that the author's primary purpose is to "explain" the topic defended is probably not going to be the correct answer. Nor would be an answer choice using a phrase like "argue for" when the author isn't taking a stance on the topic discussed.
- Author's attitude questions generally, if not always, are asking about the author's general attitude in the passage. Finding an AC that may explain his or her attitude on a very particular part of the passage has not been the correct answer, in my experience, and looking at least primarily for the word or phrase that most generally describes the author's attitude should give you a better chance of finding the correct AC. Though this tip has helped me, and in my experience has never failed, I would be especially interested in hearing others' perspective on this tip.
- Do not allow yourself to be baited by words you may not know in term/attitude questions (e.g. "With regard to their respective attitudes toward ____, passage A differs from passage B in that passage A is more..." or "Which one of the following pairs of terms would most likely be used by the authors of passage A and passage B, respectively, to describe ____?").
Occasionally, these questions will have among the ACs words to which I simply cannot assign definitions. In the past, I've fixated on those words with the concern that the correct AC is the one I don't understand. Yet more often than not (if only due to the fact that this type of AC is one of five total), the correct AC is a different one. But with an obsessive focus on the elusively worded incorrect AC, I miss the much easier and correct AC staring right at me. While the correct AC may use terms you are not familiar with, carefully eliminate the others first before selecting the one you cannot be sure about. Ignore what you cannot determine is wrong or right until after you've eliminated every other AC.
- With some of the trickiest RC questions, answers are often not found explicitly, even if its a question other than an Inference Question. I ran across a question just recently where the answer was found in two different paragraphs - a type of something was discussed and a characteristic of that something was referenced much later. This particular question was asking for the characteristic of that something. Since I didn't catch that the two were linked, I missed the question.
It was expected that you essentially connect the dots. If you cannot find an answer where you think it should be, nor in the immediate surrounding context, it may be in a different part(s) of the passage altogether, though a clear understanding of what the passage is addressing will illuminate this more clearly. In other words, if you track referential phrasing and follow the ins and outs of the passage, two sentences not adjacent to one another (and possibly even in different paragraphs) will be very relevant to one another.
If you feel overwhelmed by the time you've read all of this, mission accomplished..........
http://media.giphy.com/media/wfQ4smiVBy8WQ/giphy.gif
Print this out and live by it folks.
Forget Powerscore and Kaplan. This is the real deal.
Also, @"Cant Get Right" I want you to do a webinar on your 20+ point score increase when you get your Sage title!
I can't imagine I'm the best for an RC webinar, but I think just about anyone could just follow verbatim @"Quick Silver"'s webinar and be just fine. Again, I'm happy the advice is helpful.