Recording Yourself - What do you look for?

Lsat taker22Lsat taker22 Alum Member
in General 315 karma

LSAT warriors,

What do you look for when you watch yourself taking a full PT?

I recently began recording myself doing full 6-section practice tests under timed conditions and upon reviewing my performance on the computer was when I realized - I have no clue what to look for.

That's an over-exaggeration, I have 2 things I know to look for: 1) lingering on a question for too long and 2) spazzing out from time to time. But, these are just 2 things... I would absolutely love it if you can share your strategies and what you look for. And, ultimately, if you apply your new knowledge into real timed PT's.

Comments

  • SamiSami Yearly + Live Member Sage ⭐ 7Sage Tutor
    10806 karma

    Hey,

    I think this is a great question. I definitely remember for a long time I had a similar question. So I hope this helps. I wrote in a very general way what I am looking for when I watch myself.

    For LR, I like to see that I have a handle on question and If not I moved on in a decisive way. This means making sure that I don't hesitate to move on, I circle or mark the question appropriately if it was difficult. I also have a sheet I complete for each section where I write how long each question took me, whether I had a second round on it and what difficulty level that question was. Based on that I determine if my timing was right. For example, if its a 1 star difficulty level I want to see that I was able to do that question under 30-40 sec. A 3 star question under a minute and a 4-5 star question under a minute and a half.

    For LG, I again complete the sheet and break down the time. I compare it to what JY recommends how long those games should take. I also make sure that I executed the game with all the good habits. For example did I circle my signals? Did I mark off each rule as I wrote it? Did I circle my floaters? Did I take the time to consider all my rules and inferences? Did I again circle my signals in question stems and wrote down next to it what it was saying? Are my sub game boards neat? etc

    For RC, apart from breaking the timing down for the passage and each question I just like to make sure that I had stopped for a few seconds after each paragraph to make sure that I had a low/high resolution summary. I also like to see that I took my time to carefully read the question stems that are especially long and underline any key details.

    Good luck. I am sure seeing yourself in videos will help you improve tremendously. I can't wait to hear how you do in subsequent PT's.

  • Lsat taker22Lsat taker22 Alum Member
    315 karma

    @Sami said:

    Hey,

    I think this is a great question. I definitely remember for a long time I had a similar question. So I hope this helps. I wrote in a very general way what I am looking for when I watch myself.

    For LR, I like to see that I have a handle on question and If not I moved on in a decisive way. This means making sure that I don't hesitate to move on, I circle or mark the question appropriately if it was difficult. I also have a sheet I complete for each section where I write how long each question took me, whether I had a second round on it and what difficulty level that question was. Based on that I determine if my timing was right. For example, if its a 1 star difficulty level I want to see that I was able to do that question under 30-40 sec. A 3 star question under a minute and a 4-5 star question under a minute and a half.

    For LG, I again complete the sheet and break down the time. I compare it to what JY recommends how long those games should take. I also make sure that I executed the game with all the good habits. For example did I circle my signals? Did I mark off each rule as I wrote it? Did I circle my floaters? Did I take the time to consider all my rules and inferences? Did I again circle my signals in question stems and wrote down next to it what it was saying? Are my sub game boards neat? etc

    For RC, apart from breaking the timing down for the passage and each question I just like to make sure that I had stopped for a few seconds after each paragraph to make sure that I had a low/high resolution summary. I also like to see that I took my time to carefully read the question stems that are especially long and underline any key details.

    Good luck. I am sure seeing yourself in videos will help you improve tremendously. I can't wait to hear how you do in subsequent PT's.

    First of all, that's very impressive. Your explanation about watching for hesitancy is definitely something I'm starting to see a lot of in my own videos. I keep saying to myself, while watching, "c'mon! circle something and move on! You can come back to this later!".

    Your practice in regards to question ranking and how long it takes you to answer that question (1 star - under 30-40 seconds) is priceless advice. I would not have thought of doing this and I can see the potential of improvement from analyzing this. I will be applying this method to my next practice test.

  • LCMama2017LCMama2017 Alum Member
    2134 karma

    Thank you for this! I've never even heard of video taping yourself until now. Wow, I guess I'll have to figure out how to do it. Thx for the tips!

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