170+ scorers - do you eliminate all 4 AC's/timing issues

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• 2 Likes

  Seeking Perfection Alum Member

  November 2017 4428 karma

  It varies by section and depending on how much time you have like you implied.

  I'll take whatever way I can get the answer first in logic games whether that is elliminating the wrong choices or choosing the right ones.

  In LR I proved all the right answers correct and the wrong answers incorrect since there is so much less material to read through than RC and therefore so much more spare time.

  In RC I took sort of a hybrid approach going through all of the answer choices unless I noticed myself getting behind in which case I would just go with whichever method confirmed an answer choice first. On the actual test I took the first two readings too slow so I sped up for the next two and didn't bother proving wrong answer choices wrong if I already knew what the right choice was or confirming the right answer choice was right if I knew all the others were wrong.

  I'd practice both methods of getting the answer ellimanting wrong answers and confirming correct ones and use both to check when you have time, but whichever seems faster if you don't.
• 1 Like

  Harmmanb-1 Alum Member

  November 2017 edited November 2017 126 karma

  I do try to eliminate all wrong answer choices as a general principle. However, there are very few questions in the beginning of the LR set where my confidence level in what the correct AC is at 95 -100%. Here, I just pick the correct answer and move on. These questions tend to be necessary and sufficient assumption questions, because you can mechanically get to the correct AC. Also for some MBT questions as well. Other than that, I always eliminate all the wrong AC, especially so later in the section. Process of elimination is an absolute must in LR and RC. I don't use it as much in LG.
• 2 Likes

  TheLogician Member

  November 2017 edited November 2017 43 karma

  I think your most productive move would be to select the test-section you want to work on, then try out a practice where you rely a bit more heavily on your intuition. See if your scores get better or worse!
• shermankrs Alum Member

  November 2017 80 karma

  Thank you everyone for your advice!!
• 2 Likes

  dantlee14 Free Trial Member

  November 2017 617 karma

  I rarely eliminated all 4 ACs in any section unless I was really struggling between two choices. In LR especially, I made a big jump when I was able to more confidently and quickly choose an answer choice on that "gut instinct" you described.
• 1 Like

  FerdaFresh Alum Member

  November 2017 561 karma

  In my last few PTs I've gone anywhere from 166-172, so I don't totally meet your criteria... That being said, I think I know what would be a good, general response to your good, general question.

  LG - unless they're brute forcing their way down through answer choices and the answer's (E), a top scorer typically won't eliminate all AC's for questions. For MBT/MBF questions, they'll often already know what they're looking for when skimming over the AC's anyway.

  RC - unless you're time-strapped, it is (more often than not) a good idea to look at all the answer choices, especially for inference questions. The right RC answer choice will not always "leap out" as right like LR ones do; they can be considerably weaker and less definitive than LR's right AC's.

  LR - a rule of thumb is, in "hunt mode" type question types (e.g. assumption questions), you can know definitively that you have the right answer without reading the other choices. For other types of questions, top scorers may be inclined to be "aggressive" and "move on" when they've found the answer they're 99.99% sure is right, and with zero/few confidence errors. The irony is, however, these are the people that are in least need of extra time, as an LR section can be completed with ample time to spare once you start getting good with them. The way I see it, if you have time to spare after completing the section, you could have read over those others AC's on your first lap to ensure you didn't lose an easy coconut. Invest in easy questions. They're your friend. The seconds you saved not reading three extra lines probably might not be worth the chance of losing an easy point.

  https://7sage.com/lesson/why-you-must-skip-questions-on-the-lsat/
• NotMyName Alum Member Sage ⭐

  November 2017 5320 karma

  Not a 170-er... yet. But I'd like to add a very important piece of advice I was recently given. My LR scores are anywhere form -2 to -6 and so I need to get consistent. My tutor told something like this "Are you trying to go -0? Stop doing that. If you're avg is -5+, your goal shouldn't be -0. You need to get to -3 first"

  That's really great advice for a few reasons. First, going -1/-0 consistently likely means that you have a second-nature/consistent approach to skipping/timing, that you have a very strong sense of when a question is hard, you rarely misread, you rarely suffer over-confidence errors, and you've masters most of what LR tests from a content standpoint. When you are -4+, you've got major gaps somewhere in the areas I just listed. With regard to eliminating all AC, if you are suffering from over-confidence errors (which not eliminating all AC can contribute to) then you are probably not ready to trust your confidence as to whether or not you can move on to the next question without looking at the remaining AC.

  But that doesn't necessarily mean you need to thoroughly analyze remaining AC either. If you've been working with time test for some time you probably have gotten good at finding red-flags in wrong AC. I suggest reading for those after you've selected an AC you really like.
• 2 Likes

  g00g00sh Member

  November 2017 119 karma

  For me, the thing that really started to speed up my time and pushed me into 170s was pre-phrasing and going into "hunt mode." Please note that I am not advocating getting tunnel vision and having an inflexible conception of what could or could not be the right answer; but I found that predicting a rough idea of what the answer is BEFORE approaching answer choices helps to avoid paralysis and wasting time. REMEMBER: the answer choices are not your friends, so if you go into the answers with no idea what you're looking for, in general you will fall into a cleverly placed rabbit hole of distraction and three minutes will go by as you compare answers to each other. Conversely, if you have a prediction of the right answer choice, you can quickly skim ALL the answers and go looking for that answer. When you find it, double check that it makes sense, pick it, and move on.

  Another key part of going up in scores for me was quickly paraphrasing things back to myself as I was reading them. This applied to both RC and LR. A danger of the test is having information come in one ear and immediately out the other, and not being able to sort out the VITAL info on each question: namely, the premises and conclusion. So as you read the question stimuli, look first for the conclusion and then the premises, and before you start to prephrase and go hunting, sum it up quickly, back to yourself, in your own words. Paraphrasing is a useful leaning tool because it FORCES your mind to actually engage with the material, and you're much more likely to remember something in your own words than just rotely memorizing what the stimulus says. When you paraphrase to yourself, it doesn't have to be complicated or wordy; on most questions, the challenge is simply to hold in your mind what the author's conclusion is, what the support is, and what your task is in regards to that info. (Strengthen, weaken, na, psa, sa, etc.) For example, a good paraphrase might be: "Conclusion: The factory is responsible for the pollution. Premises: all the birds near the factory have been dying."

  After you've developed your paraphrase of the stimulus, it's easy to attach that to a prediction of the answer. Continuing the above example, this may be a good flexible prephrase: Strengthen: We need something that shows that it is the factory pollution causing the bird's deaths, and not some other cause."

  FURTHERMORE, you can take this active mindset into Reading Comprehension and see improvements. Just focus on quickly paraphrasing each paragraph to yourself after you read it, and you will see your mind retaining more information and finding it easier to form a mental map of the passage. Basically, anything you can do to take your mind out of passive/receptive mode and into the critical attitude/driver's seat during the test will help your scores to improve.
• nicole.brooklyn Alum Member

  November 2017 edited November 2017 341 karma

  For LG, no. Once you see the right answer, you don’t need to read the rest. For example, “Which of the following could be true?” means that only one AC could be true. Once you find an AC that could be true, pick it and don’t read the rest. There’s only one—have confidence in your diagram.

  For LR, no and yes. Most questions I can prephrase strongly; others, I can’t, or for whatever reason, my prephrase isn’t in the list of ACs. If I’m struggling, I’ll aggressively eliminate obviously wrong answers and then decide between the final two.

  For RC, it also depends. For a main point question, I’ll read at least the beginning of all the ACs. For a recall question, once I see something that was plainly stated in the text, there’s no point in reading the other ACs.

  I think, in general, there’s a huge benefit to not reading all the ACs and, in particular, to not reading entire ACs once things have gone awry. For example, if you’re looking at a SA question in LR and there’s no prescriptive language in the stimulus, the instant you see the word “should” in an AC, you should stop reading the AC. It’s already wrong, and nothing can save it. Skipping half sentences does add up to extra time... In a 25 question LR section, there are 25 stimuli, 100 wrong answers, and 25 right answers. Spend as little time as possible handling the 100 wrong answers.

  IMO the less of the test you read (and the fewer LG ACs you test on your diagram), the faster you can complete sections. The test parts you NEED to read to score 170+ are the passages, game set ups, and LR stimuli... the test parts you don’t need to read are the wrong ACs. In blind review, be sure you can eliminate every single wrong AC, but don’t get in the habit of doing this in PTs... it’s a hard habit to break once you set it! (Speaking from experience!)
• 1 Like

  Cant Get Right Yearly + Live Member Sage ⭐ 🍌 7Sage Tutor

  November 2017 27901 karma

  Nah, at that level you've got to trust yourself when you think you've got a winner. I may miss one of these every 4 or 5 tests, but well worth the cost. A lot of people I talk to are very disillusioned about how the test plays out for me. They think I take the test and understand all the stims and ACs and just break everything totally open with complete clarity and confidence. In reality, I finish my typical LR section at around -5. The difference is I've banked about 10 minutes and I'm able to go back and essentially BR the whole thing. To be sure, my fundamentals are rock solid, but that isn't enough for me. I still commit every careless mistake in the book. But I always have the opportunity to correct it, and for me that's the difference. Without banking that time and moving on as soon as I think I've got a right answer, that's not going to happen.

  This does play out a little differently in different sections.

  In LG it's fairly absolute. When you know it you're pretty much 100% and you've really got to get on with it. I once did an entire section twice under time.

  In LR it's a little more variable. I never allow myself 100% confidence in LR, I cap it at 95%. But at about 80% confidence I'm done. Good enough. Move on.

  RC is theoretically the same as LR for me, but I rarely hit that 80% threshold without a look at everything. There's just more subtleties to account for, so it just doesn't happen with quite the same level of frequency.
• Kayyyyyyy Free Trial Member

  November 2017 346 karma

  For LR I actually think once you get to a certain comfort level you can save a lot of time by picking the answer out immediately without eliminating all 4 wrong answer choices. I found that doing that with any questions I could gave me enough time at the end to go back and really meticulously wrestle with the answer choices for those 5 or so questions that had me stumped. By the end, I would pick answers immediately for about half the questions, would eliminate all wrong answers for about the other half, and then would have 5 or so questions that I had to go back to that really had me struggling. Let me know if you want to talk more about this strategy!
• 1 Like

  TabbyG123 Member

  November 2017 711 karma

  @Max_henry91 Everything you just said. Yes. I'm snapping my fingers right now.

  Going to rewrite your post down on a sticky note and paste it on my forehead.
• Seeking Perfection Alum Member

  November 2017 4428 karma

  @jkatz1488 said:
  Not a 170-er... yet. But I'd like to add a very important piece of advice I was recently given. My LR scores are anywhere form -2 to -6 and so I need to get consistent. My tutor told something like this "Are you trying to go -0? Stop doing that. If you're avg is -5+, your goal shouldn't be -0. You need to get to -3 first"

  That's really great advice for a few reasons. First, going -1/-0 consistently likely means that you have a second-nature/consistent approach to skipping/timing, that you have a very strong sense of when a question is hard, you rarely misread, you rarely suffer over-confidence errors, and you've masters most of what LR tests from a content standpoint. When you are -4+, you've got major gaps somewhere in the areas I just listed. With regard to eliminating all AC, if you are suffering from over-confidence errors (which not eliminating all AC can contribute to) then you are probably not ready to trust your confidence as to whether or not you can move on to the next question without looking at the remaining AC.

  But that doesn't necessarily mean you need to thoroughly analyze remaining AC either. If you've been working with time test for some time you probably have gotten good at finding red-flags in wrong AC. I suggest reading for those after you've selected an AC you really like.

  Not to criticize too much, but I varied from -0 to -2 on LR and never had many of these features describe me.

  I didn't have an approach to skipping since I never skipped a question on LR. I intended to get them all right and complete. I didn't really have an approach to timing since I was good enough at the section to take the time I needed and have plenty left over.

  I didn't have a great sense of which question were "hard" and could never identify the ones others would claim were "curve breakers" ahead of time because I knew how to answer all the questions and there were just questions which clicked quickly for me and ones that took a little more time.

  So I don't think getting to a good score on LR requires those things.

  In fact, I think skipping strategy largely becomes irrelevant as you become effective at a section. Maybe there is still a small benefit at -5, but if you actually get to near -0 you can just stop wasting energy thinking about skipping.

  It's the same thing with games or RC. Once you are capable of finishing them all, it doesn't matter what order you attack the games or passages. You give every problem the time it needs for you to get an answer and then circle back to review the hardest questions or ones of a type you often miss. Skimming the games ahead of time to pick an order to attack them might make sense if you only expect to get through 2 or 3. If you are going to get through all of them it's a waste of time that could be used checking.
• NotMyName Alum Member Sage ⭐

  November 2017 edited November 2017 5320 karma

  @"Seeking Perfection"

  So I don't think getting to a good score on LR requires those things.

  In fact, I think skipping strategy largely becomes irrelevant as you become effective at a section. Maybe there is still a small benefit at -5, but if you actually get to near -0 you can just stop wasting energy thinking about skipping.

  Clearly these things are not necessary if you haven't had a use for them (I also never said they were). But then again, I read somewhere that you started out at near perfect in LR and RC so I'd say you are not representative of most students or even most of the top 10% of students. For a student like me, executing a skipping strategy consistently is key to managing difficulties on the test consistently to minimize wrong AC. If one experiences so few difficulties that such a strategy is unnecessary (maybe you?), then great. But very, very few people can use your approach (trying to earn a 180) without it backfiring and falling into time-sinks.

  So yes. I agree. If one is able to get to the point of understanding that you have reached, skipping loses it's value. But that is actually in line with what I am saying. Skipping is an important stepping stone to go from mid/low 160s to 170s for most test takers. That improvement does not come strictly from growing one's knowledge base.

  Like I said, skipping has been a keynote topic for many of the Sages including cantgetright, JY, and accountsplayable. So while these things don't apply to you, they seem to be extremely important for most across all scores.
• Seeking Perfection Alum Member

  November 2017 4428 karma

  @jkatz1488

  I'm not saying skipping has no use. I'm saying their usefulness decreases as you get better at any section.

  At -10 or more the return to a good skipping strategy is probably huge (me on games at first). At -5 it may still help you eek out another point or two. At -3 or fewer it seems unlikely to me that skipping questions is going to have a positive return. After all, to get a -3 or fewer you have to invest time into nearly every question since you get nearly all of them right. If you are skipping, then you have one more thing to think about, to distract you from finding the right answer. If that distraction nets you more points than it costs, then it is worth it and should be done, but you shouldn't paint it as a pantheon of goodness which has no costs. This applies to everyone not just me.

  Thankfully, it's not as though people have to blindly guess at whether skipping helps them or even just guess based on their scores. You can compare by taking the test or relevant section a few times without skipping and a few times with skipping (after you have practiced skipping enough to do it effectively). Then you can make your choice.

  The other thing is that this choice isn't final. If you are at say -5 get down to -3 by skipping and then prep for a prolonged period of time you may find that the route to a better score involves discarding the skipping. Why? Because the time savings from skipping decrease as you get better at the test, but the cost (having to use time and thinking to evaluate whether to skip questions) remains roughly the same.

  Just for fun, let's look at the argument structure of your last paragraph.

  In response to my argument that skipping becomes increasingly less helpful at higher scores in any one section you said something which translates to logic roughly as follows.

  Skipping is a Keynote Focus of Some/Many Sages --> Skipping is Extremely Important for Most People Across All Scores

  Presumably to make this remotely valid we would have to have an intermediate step along the lines of...

  All strategies which are a keynote focus of multiple sages --> are strategies which are extremely important at helping the majority of people across all score levels.

  That should seem absurd. I think sages and 7sage have done a great job, but sages certainly often focus on advice which helps subsets of the overall population of test takers. Maybe it's somehow different for the keynote advice? But I doubt it.

  As a brief counter example, JY routinely talked about skipping in logic games explanations which was relevant to me at first, but it's certainly not as relevant or important to those who have games foolproofed to a -0 to -1 level.
• NotMyName Alum Member Sage ⭐

  November 2017 5320 karma

  @"Seeking Perfection" to each their own
• Seeking Perfection Alum Member

  November 2017 4428 karma

  @jkatz1488 said:
  @"Seeking Perfection" to each their own

  Exactly, rather than to all skipping!
• OlamHafuch Alum Member

  November 2017 2326 karma

  J.Y. once said that if the LSAT had come easy to him, he would have been a terrible teacher. Sometimes, those with an innate ability to do something at a very high level are so unrepresentative of the norm, that it is hard to learn how to succeed from them.