Advice on how to improve LR

Comments

• Sami Live Member Sage ⭐ 7Sage Tutor

  April 2017 10789 karma

  Hey,

  So you are not behind anything especially if you just finished CC two weeks ago. I would say don't stress out. And keep learning from your mistakes. The logic behind these questions is redundant, the ones you are getting now will appear again in another form and you can get it right then. The important thing is to learn right now.

  I guess a good question to ask yourself is are you circling the questions you are getting wrong or did you think you had that question correct and then you got it wrong?
• TimLSAT180 Alum Member

  April 2017 619 karma

  Hey @Sami! Thanks for responding. So, looking back on my LR sections, it seems like I'm being overconfident. I made a note to myself that the next time I attempt a timed individual LR section, I would 1. actively read and spend the bulk of my time with the stimulus and get clarity on argument structure and the argument flaw 2. anticipate the answer before going into the answer choice 3. read each answer choice with a critical mindset. I feel like a lot of the errors I made were because I wasn't consciously doing these 3 things. Maybe I'll see a difference in my score next time hopefully, but I think it was a good assessment. Also, I don't see a general pattern in which questions I get wrong the most. I think it's because I've only done 4 sections, it's still difficult to tell. But, maybe I'll go over NA, Point at Issue, Flaw, Parallel Reasoning, Parallel Flaw, and Method of Reasoning before doing the next timed section. Progress is slow, but I hope my score improves eventually!
• Sami Live Member Sage ⭐ 7Sage Tutor

  April 2017 edited April 2017 10789 karma

  Hey yeah, I think you hit the problem square in the head. You are new : ) . You are still learning the basics so at this point its hard to tell if its the question type thats giving you trouble or the logic or grammar. So definitely just take your time and really blind review the questions well.

  I do want to say don't focus on doing all those things you talked about during timed portion of the test. If you focus on thinking/structure you will miss out on grammar or logic or something else that's key. The LSAT is very nuanced and your brain can only do so many tasks at one particular time. You want to blind review so well that during timed test you only just want to read the stimulus. Because you have broken down a similar argument so many times your mind will see the repeated pattern/type of argument/structure without you consciously trying. You brain should only focus on the nuances of the language of the stimulus during timed portion. That's all you really have time for. That's key to scoring well. But how you get here is through really good blind review.
• TimLSAT180 Alum Member

  April 2017 619 karma

  Thanks @Sami! Correct me if I'm wrong but I feel like under time pressure, doing well on the LR section really depends on our intuition because like you said, we don't have the luxury of time to break down every single aspect of the stimulus. So basically, we do the breaking down of the stimulus during BR which helps our understanding and presumably improves our intuition so that the next time we encounter a similar problem, our intuition can just handle it in a breeze. Am I correct?
• xtrfalcon Alum Member

  April 2017 148 karma

  Hey Tim! IMO, it sounds like you're taking the right steps when you're sitting through the timed sections. It's also amazing that you are able to have a full 5 minutes at the end while implementing a skipping strategy. Let me just ask- is finishing the section in 30 minutes worth the pacing you're at right now? I would just see if you're skipping the right questions; are those the ones you ultimately miss? If that isn't the case, I'd recommend against feeling pressured to finish the entire section the next time you sit down for a timed section. Try to focus on upping your accuracy (just spend more time up front; your last post indicated that you felt you didn't have the luxury of breaking down ALL of the stimulus). This will ultimately help you with item choices 2 and 3 you listed for yourself above. Keep your skipping strategy the same, and see where your score is at after.

  I'm interested to see whether the gap between your timed and BR scores go up or down.. that should also tell you where to go next. Hope this makes sense!
• 1 Like

  Sami Live Member Sage ⭐ 7Sage Tutor

  April 2017 edited April 2017 10789 karma

  @TimLSAT180 said:
  Thanks @Sami! Correct me if I'm wrong but I feel like under time pressure, doing well on the LR section really depends on our intuition because like you said, we don't have the luxury of time to break down every single aspect of the stimulus. So basically, we do the breaking down of the stimulus during BR which helps our understanding and presumably improves our intuition so that the next time we encounter a similar problem, our intuition can just handle it in a breeze. Am I correct?

  It depends what doing "well" means. I think its perfectly fine to break down an argument under time if you don't see the argument right away. But you want to do that in your second round after you have answered all the questions you do know. This should be very fast and should not take you more than a minute for each question. So skip the questions in your first round where you feel like you will have to break down the argument to see it. If you break every argument down on your first round it will take too long. If you do end up getting wrong the questions you thought you had it on your first round, these are your over confidence error, that means you need to re-learn something. For questions you could not do on your first round, you need to break the argument down in various ways until you feel that you can answer this question fast even if it was presented to you in another form.

  So for now, on your first round skip the question on your first read if you don't understand the argument right away. Come back to the ones you had trouble with on your second round and then break it down like you were talking about. That way your time is spent on questions that you actually need to break down arguments.

  I am a little apprehensive to call it intuition because that speed on the first round comes from hard word and skill of finally feeling like that particular argument is second nature. So its more like a skill. I think an analogy can be drawn to learning to play a piano. In the beginning we still have to think about each key stroke and mentally train ourselves. But eventually after thousand of repetitions you become better and eventually with more repetition you become a master -your fingers fly on the key board and you can play music without focusing on every little thing that goes into playing that particular music; you simply have to read the sheet of music in front of you. It looks like intuition to others but its just practice over and over so that the brain can handle it without thinking about multiple things. It still has to think and read that sheet of music and be focused. Scoring 98 percentile on LSAT is not that different from becoming a master piano player. Each stimulus is still new and you still have to focus and actively read it. But you don't have to focus on everything all at once. You should have already done the argument form so many times that you know it very well and now you just have to read it. This is where you eventually want to be for at least 23 out of your 25 LR questions. There might be two curve breaker questions in there that will still require you to break it apart under time.

  I hope this helps.