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Related Discussions
Best way to Utilize LR Drill sections?
gparmar92
Alum Member
Take a look at this link:
https://7sage.com/lesson/lr-drills-preptest-70-to-79/
I think this a fantastic tool for really going in-depth on improving specific areas of LR, because it splits up questions according to question type.
However, I need some advice. I need to work on arg.part, pseudo-SA, MBT, and MBF questions, so I plan on printing out the sections for those question types. But I'm not sure how to approach actually using these questions. Is it best to set a 35 min window and try to complete one of these question compilations, one at time? If I just go through the questions without a time constraint I know I will get most of them correct just because I have the luxury of time, however some of the compilations only have 22 questions (instead of a usual LR of 25 or 26), so I don't know if setting the timer would actually make a difference.
Does anyone have any advice on how best to use these questions?
If it helps, I'm a low 160 scorer, and my biggest issue (one that I feel wrecked me on the Dec. exam) is my inability to know when to move on from a question. Given enough time, I'm very confident in my fundamentals leading me to the correct answer. Under timed conditions my ego gets into it. For example I'll read a question, not get it right away, read it again, not get it, and then force myself to slowly work through it, which hurts my ability to pick up other points. To bring it full circle, the question types that I listed above are usually always the ones that I can't seem to just move on from right away, so I figure by practicing them now and being more competent with them I will improve my timing on a PT and definitely on the real deal in Feb.
Comments
@gparmar92 Hey!
I think the LR drill by type packs are great to use. I would start using some earlier tests and save the 62+ for full length PTs (at least for now)
Otherwise, I recommend doing question type drilling untimed. Here's why: when you're drilling by question type, you're presumably trying to get better at a particular skill or question type, maybe both. Speed, however, should not be a main concern. Learning and improving is the concern with question type drilling. If you learn a new skill or improve on a question type, practice it repeatedly, then speed will take care of itself.
If you're mostly getting them all right even untimed, then you should focus on your strategy. You may not be approaching them with the best technique or strategy.
Untimed work is king!
Yes definitely, my strategy is no good. I need to be more cognizant of what I'm doing during the entire exam (E.g. looking to knock out the "hunt mode questions" on my first pass through). I've re-read JY's coconut analogy a few times since the Dec exam. I have a few clean PT's left that I'm saving to actually utilize the strategy of knowing when to move on and see how that affects my scores.
As usual thanks for your insight man I really appreciate it. And you're right the speed will take care of itself, I should focus on improving my overall approach to questions mentioned above since they are the ones that kill my momentum in the first place.
I would usually skip a question if I couldn't get a firm grasp on what it's asking me to do in approximately a minute. If it was a really long/tricky/wordy question, sometimes I would skip after reading a line or two because I know the question is a curve-breaker. If I skip a question that I had the opportunity to read/attempt, I would usually return to it after attempting the next 2 or 3 questions. I also sometimes work through sections out of order towards the middle/end due to the difficulty curve.
I would usually finish my best sections with 2-5 minutes to go over questions I was less certain of. My best sections were definitely the sections on which I was confident enough to skip a lot of questions and work out of order. Working strictly linearly on the LSAT can be tough for some reason. (I think this is part of what the test-makers are testing us on?)
My two cents.
That's for timed LR work. Maybe you meant for untimed work??
That thought process is what I'm trying to practice. Knowing my limits and trying to really maximize what I'm capable of per section, instead of getting sucked in by a curve breaker. And I 100% agree I think not working linearly, and being able to weigh costs and benefits are both definitely a major aspect to success on this test (whether or not the makers are testing it directly).
With some solid practice on the question types I mentioned in my first post I'll be able to get to where you are in terms of how you go through the LR
Thanks for your advice, I appreciate it!
For drilling, I would do it untimed or alternatively just record how much time it takes to do them all. If you can get to the answer eventually, that is an excellent start. You just need to repeat it until it feels more and more natural and is not difficult, methodical, or time consuming. Eventually, if you prep for long enough, the time pressure on LR entirely fades away. You get so natural at the vast majority of easy questions that you have as much time as you want for the harder ones. The same is definitely true for logic games although I never quite got there. The RC section is a little different in that most people can never escape the time pressure.
You still need to practice skipping on PTs in case you don't study long enough that time pressure becomes irrelevant on LR. But you should experiment with skipping and such strategies on practice exams or normal sections. You shouldn't do it when you are drilling and trying to get better at harder questions.
I'm a big fan of timed individual sections. It takes a lot of the pressure off compared to a full 5-section exam. Grading a single timed section was sometimes like gambling, in that scoring it gave me a pretty huge rush as I began to have confidence in my abilities.
weird
@gparmar92
I think you have two different issues you need to work on. One of the things you need to work on is question type related and the other one is that you have a hard time moving on from questions. These two cannot be addressed in the same drill effectively.
For addressing question type I would take the questions from an older PT like 30-35 and first revisit the core-curriculum for that question type, write down the strategy for that question type, and go through those questions in that packet one by one. I would keep a timer. If the question was a 1 star question, you want to get it in 25-45 seconds. Anything longer and you want to watch the video for that question and figure out what stopped you from getting it in that time. For a 3 star question a minute is a good marker. For a 4 star, a minute and a half and 5 star maybe 2 minutes max.
To address your issue of not moving on in time and not being able to score other points you have to do section drills. Because you cannot see the time for each question in a section you have to rely on how hard it feels to you. The rule of thumb is to read a stimulus and ask yourself do you get the argument? If not, do another quick read and that's it. If the stimulus is still hard and you have no idea what's wrong with the argument either you take a quick look at the answers and see if something jumps out quickly or you move on. The worse thing you can do is spend time here. If after first read you felt like you understood the argument, you want to read the answer choices, if you are down to 50-50 see you have an idea how to differentiate the two answer choices, if you do not, you need to circle this question and move on. If you thought the stimulus was easy and you spot the right answer choices before reading the rest of the answer choices and you feel 75% confident you need to pick this answer and move on and the time you save on this question you can use it for a hard question that you need more time for. You want to practice relying on a good form when you drill sections. For this drill, my suggestion is to use sections you have taken before preferably older ones. For any drill, you want to use older materials.
I hope this was helpful. Let me know if you have any more questions.
First off this was unbelievably helpful, thanks so much!
I never thought of keeping a timer for questions based on type, that's definitely something I should do. I'll take a look at the sections I'm weak at and drill those LR types from older PT's after labeling the difficulty level of each question in the packet.
As for the second part of your post that I bolded, that entire thing is the internal conversation I need to be comfortable having with myself right after reading a stimulus. It would help improve my score greatly, or at least make the scores more reflective of my actual knowledge of the questions. One issue I have that's specific to me is that I have a great memory. So even when I re-do a LR section with the proctor timing, I find that the ones that I got the first time I remember the answer so I can pick it after reading a few lines of stimulus, and the ones that I got wrong I remember the JY video on it, so I can curb my urge to pick the wrong answer and pick the right one (I usually always get the wrong answer by bringing it down to 2 choices, and then zigging when I should have zagged). I don't find it particularly helpful to do this kind of test based on memory. Luckily I still have 5 PT's that are clean that I can use before Feb, so I will emphasize practicing the question types I'm weak on for the next week or so and then hopefully translate those skills, and practice the "LR awareness" (haha) onto the PT's.
Overall thanks to everybody who gave their 2 cents. 7sage community is the best!
Yaaay!!! I am glad
You are pretty much on point. Having that internal conversation and being aware and in control of the process can mean the difference between scoring your potential or below it.
You can't cheat here. : ) You still want to ask yourself, do you get the argument itself? Can you identify what's wrong with it? etc
I see what you mean for sure. But I guess I should have clarified it. The ones I get the first time, I got em because I did understand them (even if i made mistakes with the timing) so what ends up happening is I read a few lines and remember the issue. For the ones I didn't get, I remember the JY explanation, in terms of what the flaw was, where this specific question throws people off, trap answer choices etc. and because I've spent deliberate time reviewing the question I remember the answer.
Prior to my Dec write I used to do this method of timed LR sections with tests in the 60's, to practice that ability to grab the lowest hanging coconut. I found I was finishing with 10 minutes left just because I had done the tests recently. Regardless though I'll give it another shot, I might just be picking PT's that are way too recent in my memory. It seems like too good of a strategy/method of practicing that dialogue, without burning through my limited number of PT's and not having that skill honed.
Thanks again for your response!