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Related Discussions
How do you practice "not rushing" and being efficient in LR?
lsnnnnn0011
Alum Member
I realized that the biggest problem holding me back is rushing to answer choices without fully and precisely understanding the stimulus in LR.
But since I've used all prep tests (used multiple times) I remember almost all questions and thus am really not sure how to effectively address this weakness. I tried to practice not moving on to answers until I fully understand the relationship between the conclusion and support and find out what is wrong with the argument. But since I've seen every question before, I remember the flaw and I am not sure if I can truly improve via such method.
My weaknesses I'd like to work on are:
1. Rushing to ACs w/o honing into the core of the argument and figuring out why the argument is wrong
2. Not recognizing subtle shifts in scopes (scopes in subjects/verbs/modifiers) between the support and the conclusion
For the past week, I drilled untimed focusing on honing in to the core but I have no problem identifying the structural role of each part of the stimulus during untimed practice. As you know, time pressure changes everything...once the timer is set on, I suddenly begin to rush and fail to efficiently prioritize the information in the stimulus. So I am not sure if untimed drilling would help at this point.
Does anyone have suggestions? Thank you so much! 
Comments
How many tests have you used? All 80+ of them?
For me, my skipping strategy has covered this. I don't feel rushed because if something doesn't click, I just skip it. That calms me down and I probably go even faster because I don't feel pressured to rush.
As for noticing subtle shifts, it's taken me months of writing question analyses in BR to sharpen this skill. It's still not perfect, but again, this is where skipping comes in. I may not catch the shift on my first pass, but if I'm sharp enough to know something is off, I will almost always catch it on my second pass.
For LR, once your fundamentals are down, I don't think there is much use in untimed. You need to train your internal clock and condition your composure. When I want to practice skipping, timing, tactile learning (consistently circling key words -- which also helps with shifts in meaning), I used whole sections that I've already seen. that lets me focus on what I need to without the added difficulty of fresh material. The idea is that when I see fresh material, the timing, skipping, and tactile learning will remain with me and it will be second-nature.
Best of luck!
Like logic games, do not leave reading the stimulus until you fully understand what it says.
do you know the subject of each sentence? can you tell when the author has chimed in on the matter? Is there another viewpoint mentioned? Does the author disagree? Could the author be prescribing a solution? could they be just pointing out a problem? Are there two variables being compared? Is there a cause and effect claim?
Really get to true understanding of the stimulus and I promise you, most of the answer choices will be obviously wrong.
This happens a lot. You're trying to compensate for slower speed by moving faster. But speed doesn't come from moving fast, it comes from acting confidently and decisively in the answer choices. You know you're rushing the stimulus, and you know that you need to stop doing that. What you don't know is how to do that and still move at a fast enough pace to finish the section. Here's how: As others have stated, you need to make sure you understand the stim before moving into the ACs. Move slowly. Take your time. When you get to the answer choices, circle the right answer and move on immediately. Don't POE unless you have to, and don't do any work that you may not have to do. Just as it's important to be able to skip whole questions, it's important to be able to skip ACs. A blatantly obvious right answer may be (and often is) sitting right below one that is specifically designed to be confusing as hell and takes a minute or two to figure out it's complete nonsense.
I've learned to be more efficient (and ironically faster) at LR by reading the stimulus a TINY BIT slower. I used to zoom through the stim but that didn't help. Try reading slightly slower but still at a fast pace, if that makes sense. This should allow you to really focus on the argument and will help you go faster in the ACs.
Thank you so much everyone for your helpful insights! I will definitely try what you guys suggested
By skipping ACs, do you mean outright skipping (not reading at all)? or just quick scanning after picking the right answer? Should I do that even for Qs in 15-25? For now, I pick the right answer and move on without looking at other choices for Q1-10, but I read every ACs for Q15-25 even if I think I have the right answer because it might be a really tempting trap AC. I believe your last sentence means I shouldn't dig into one confusing AC before I look at every other AC?
Honestly, checking the time totally psyches me out, no matter how far ahead I am. I can check the time at question 20 and be only 18 minutes in and still get psyched out. I refuse to look at the time until I am finished with the section, then I check to see how many minutes of review I have. My logic is that it is best to answer the questions I spend time on to the best of my ability than to answer every question and get 5 wrong because I was distracted by time. As you get better, you will always have time left over in the end, anyway.
So, what's the difference between question number 10 and question number 12? Don't worry about what number you're on. You have to make your decisions based on confidence, not the number next to the question. That is a very arbitrary thing to let determine your actions. If a question is harder for you, you should approach it with more caution. But you be the judge. You're letting the test dictate your strategy and you really need to be the one in charge.
Yes. Always try to avoid work when you can. Work isn't inherently bad, it just takes time. You need to avoid giving the section time whenever you can. By skipping a convoluted AC, you give yourself a chance to take charge. Of course, you may need to return to it. It may be the right answer. In that case, you'll simply use the time you would have used on your first time through anyway, nothing lost. But if it is just an AC that's designed to be a time sink, and the right answer is the next one down, great: You've just saved a lot of time hashing out nonsense.
Thanks again for your comment and it'd be really great if you can share your thoughts on this particular MSS Q (PT 66 S2 Q22). So I always approach a MSS Q with POE but when I first read (A), I wasn't quite sure if it's really wrong so I held any judgement and skipped it. When I got to (D), I felt very confident it was the right answer. Based you what you said, do you think I should pick (D) without reading (E) and going back to (A) to see why it's wrong? Doesn't LSAT always try to screw us with attractive trap ACs? Lastly, do you mind sharing for how many questions per section you choose to do POE? Thank you so much!!!