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blind review is my best friend...
hey all,
just wanted to share a bit of my experience... after completing the core curriculum i was eager to jump into prep-tests. at first i would focus well during my actual prep-test, but when it came time to blind review i was so excited to see my score that i quickly agreed with myself and did not spend enough time with each question. my score plateaued in the low 160's.
then, while reviewing the material in the curriculum and the webinars (shout out to the LSAT Prep for 170+ webinar) i learned three important things about the blind review:
focus on your blind review score. your actual score tends to be about 10 points lower than your blind review score. thus, if i could get my blind review close to 180, then i could get my actual score above 170. my entire focus shifted from the prep-test to the blind review. rather than getting discouraged by a low actual score i became excited by a high blind review score.
blind review on a blank copy of the test. thanks to allison for this suggestion in the LSAT Prep for 170+ webinar. without access to my answers from the timed prep-test i stopped arguing with my ego and was able to really dig into the material. my blind review score became a more accurate representation of my knowledge base.
review your blind review score thoroughly. this is discussed in the curriculum, but after finishing a prep-test and blind reviewing it i was usually eager to move on to the next test. i would check a couple of the harder questions, watch jy's explanation and be done. this was not educative. i began to dive into accumulated answers to discover the subjects i struggled with the most. 7Sage's analytics are great for this. i returned to the curriculum to review most strongly supported and parallel flaw questions. reviewing the material helped me re-learn it.
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.
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shifting the focus of my emotional well being from the timed prep-test to the blind review helped me get over my frustration and my plateau. i just broke 170 for the first time and it feels great!
i still can't believe kaplan doesn't teach the blind review...
Comments
Thank you -- this was helpful and encouraging.
Awesome info. Congratulations
You nailed it, man. The process you lay out speaks to so many important topics: BR = actual LSAT knowledge, managing discouragement with the help of BR, approaching weaknesses intelligently, and overcoming ego.
Thanks for sharing and good luck!
This is so incredibly helpful... thank you!
Fantastic! Thanks for sharing the detail!!
@runningthroughthemountains @jkatz1488
How do you respond when you get stuck on a question that you don't quite understand?
I'll go through a dozen explanations from different people sometimes on various forums. I'll sink 30-45 minutes in to a question, which seems like a complete waste of time, since it'll only click 1/4 times maybe.
Any advice on reviewing tough questions? I got so manic today I just glanced at the explanations for the questions I didn't understand and moved on. This usually only happens with one, sometimes two questions per section, but I don't know what to do when I can't understand how to discount an AC or see why one is right.
Also, nice handles both of you.
How do you guys BR LG and RC?
Do you guys do a clean BR and do the entire section?
Sounds like you figured out the secret man! I love how you were able to shift your excitement from seeing your actual score to your BR score!
I just use a clean copy of the entire test when BR'ing. For LG, I just re-do the section untimed and make sure I don't have any issues diagramming or missing any inferences. For RC, I try to go back to the passage for every question and locate specific lines that prove/disprove answer choices.
@extramedium Sometimes it's helpful to step away. Just give your brain some space from the problem. It's the same principle as skipping during timed sections: we just don't get it at that moment, but with some time and space upon our return it just click for some reason.
I also lean on JYs explanation videos as well as the comments to those videos.
But if you still have trouble, it may be a good idea to collect these questions and look for some deeper commonality among them beyond their question type. Is it grammar that blocks your understanding? Logic? If that's the case, you may think your weakness is MBT, SA, and Strengthen (just making this up), when really your weakness lies with stimuli which are heavy in abstract, referential phrasing.
@extramedium
Hey, I've been running into the same problem. What I've been doing is this:
I created a template on my word document similar to how most people put under the comment sections. I physically type out the stimulus, premise, conclusion and then try and answer the question. Writing out the stimulus and pinpointing the reasoning structure will make things click for me.
My biggest weakness is abstract/referential phrasing. I think the only way to get better at these is to do a lot of them unfortunately.
I would go back through problem sets you have already done and practice not only identifying these things but also employing the strategies JY mentions early on.
Referential phrasing: "These methods"... what methods? Those methods. Reading in this way conditions you to identify it passively (eventually)
Abstract language: Try replacing the ideas with arbitrary variables like A or B.
That list isn't exhaustive. I definitely recommend returning to the sections on grammar early on in the cc.
@extramedium
taking down the hard questions in blind review can be really challenging and frustrating. here's my approach:
i read the stimulus and the prompt until i understand it as best i can. i'll draw out any referential phrasing or annotate it in ways i wouldn't have time to during a timed prep-test.
i review the answer choices. i remind myself that i have two tasks: identify the right answer and identify the wrong answers. if i'm struggling, then i start with the wrong answers. i can usually identify at least one wrong answer right away which gives me a boost of confidence. i keep eliminating answers. i really struggle with most strongly supported questions (i studied continental 19th century existential philosophy in undergrad so everything is relative and all truth is flexible) and i have to remind myself that there is only one correct answer. usually a close reading will reveal the ONE word that makes an answer choice wrong. eliminating answer choices usually gets me down to the two best possible answer choices.
at two possible answers choices i would start to argue with myself (see previous reference to existential philosophy...). this was a trap for me. i would spend so much time debating which one was correct, but i wasn't learning anything or improving at all. now, if i can't pick quickly between the last two options i make my best educated guess and mark the question.
marking the question is key! i realized that when i am struggling with a question and cannot pick the correct answer during blind review i was having an educative experience. what i am learning in that moment is not what the correct answer is for that specific question, but that i have not yet mastered that TYPE OF QUESTION. Rather than spending 30-40 minutes trying to solve one question, i mark it and move forward. when i complete my blind review i now have a set of questions that i know i have to review regardless of whether or not i got them right during blind review or the timed test. my minutes break down for that hard question went from 30-40 minutes of useless struggle to 5-10 minutes of a sincere attempt followed by 20-30 minutes of review of that type of question. it's the same amount of time, but i am actually learning/reviewing the material so that next time it will not be so challenging. 7Sage's analytics are so good for this! you can easily organize your answers from all (though I recommend just reviewing the last five tests as that is a more accurate gauge of your current abilities) of your prep-tests and blind reviews by priority.
here's a secret: i rarely watch the video explanations of individual questions. for me it's just too easy to watch the explanation and think to myself, "oh yeah! of course that was the right answer. i was just being dumb. next time i won't make that mistake." and then i move on without really learning anything.
for me this is the key to blind review: you are really testing your knowledge base of the core material. if a question is really tough during blind review that's because you don't yet have the knowledge base to complete it. that is such valuable information! don't fret or get frustrated when you get stuck. make a note and go back to review that type of question.
a couple of small things to keep in mind: blind reviewing on blank copy of the test is really helpful for this. when i wasn't doing that i often found myself agreeing with my timed-test answer way too quickly. i wanted to be right because that would mean that my score would be higher. don't waste your energy fighting with your own ego. also, keep your objective clear when blind reviewing. your goal is to test your own knowledge so don't look at any explanations or notes while blind reviewing. i do my blind reviews under regular testing conditions with two exceptions: no timer and chopin's etudes.
@jaefromcanada
i blind review the whole test, including RC and LG, on a clean copy. i approach them a little different though.
i treat RC the same as LR. i only blind review the questions i circled during the timed test. this is an important way for me to test my confidence with RC... i dread seeing that dark bright red "HIGH PRIORITY" sign after scoring the test because there was a question i felt i was 100 percent certain on, but was incorrect. i still reread each passage and annotate it as i would during a timed test. this has helped me build my annotation system into a second nature habit.
for LG i completely redo the whole section. LG, for me, are the free throws of the LSAT and the only way to score perfect (besides shooting underhand) is to practice over and over again. so i redo the section on a clean copy of the test. i usually blind review at least twenty four hours after i've taken the timed test and thus don't readily remember all the details of the games. then, i'll print another copy of that section and use it as a fifth section for my next prep-test. i'll also drill that section for practice between tests. i try to drill four games at a time (i'll mix and match from different prep-tests) with the goal of completing all four in under 35 minutes. again, free throws. i have noticed a correlation between how much i drill LG between prep-tests and my next prep-test score. now i drill two different types of games right before a prep-test to just warm up my mind. a shoot around if you will.
Thank you. This is great advice. I'd intended on dropping 3 PTs in the question bank today anyway.
this is great. just thought i'd add a tip that helps me:
After you finish blind reviewing LR and writing all your explanations, take a blank copy and do all those questions again. This sounds unnecessary because you're probably like, well I just did blank copy LR AND watched the videos/wrote explanations. But actually I think it really helps! Here's the thing, I feel like the LSAT is very psychological - when you see a question that is a weakness for you, your instinct is to freeze up or at least have some sort of negative emotions associated with it. You want to overcome that feeling on the real PT, so going back and tackling these questions again with your newfound knowledge is an excellent confidence builder, and lets you get used to the "oh I actually know how to do this" feeling of seeing a really hard question and methodically going through it like it's NBD. Also, even though you've just watched all these explanations, you'd be surprised sometimes how you might not remember why you eliminated that one answer choice.
This mindset just really helped me. I took a test yesterday and scored well below my expectations. I was immediately reminded of what you said here, and quickly shifted from disappointment to determination to blind review as well as possible. It was motivating rather than discouraging. And I ended up with a 180 BR, so I feel positive that the test was a learning moment and not just a negative mark on my abilities.
Thanks for posting this!
@AllezAllez21
glad to hear it! i'm sure you're actual score will continue to go up as you focus on the blind review. keep at it!