Hello, I am seeking advice on how to improve accuracy in LR section.
So currently my biggest problem is in LR. Under time constraint (in 5 section preptests) I get 5-7 questions wrong in each LR section. When I look back at them upon review (without knowing what the correct answer is), I can see the correct answer quite quickly for 3-5 of them. Sometimes I miss out 1 or 2 questions because of time constraint. Otherwise, I recall being slightly hesitant in choosing answers for most of those I got wrong but I do not see how I can improve myself. I do not think I am unclear about the question type since all those I get wrong are of various types. I do go through POE all the time and either am left with 2 and end up choosing the wrong answer or pick the correct answer then end up feeling unsure and 'correct' myself to pick the wrong one.
It has been like this for quite a while already, and there isn't much time till the June exam (24th). I really feel that I can reduce the number of questions I get wrong significantly but I am not too sure what would be the most effective way to reach that within the limited number of days I have.
Would it be better to keep doing 35 mins LR sessions? Or longer? Shorter?
Or would it be better to redo those I got wrong? (I have gone through all of them at least once already)
Any advice is appreciated.
Thank you!
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Re: Getting them right
I think that high scorers routinely face this problem: I'm missing some of the harder problems, but there's no "type" as far as I know. I get a lot of them right during blind review.
One specific thing you should look at is "Why are you switching your answer during blind review?"
If you're fixing 3 to 5 answers, then you're obviously seeing something upon a re-read that changes your impression about what the best available answer is.
Make a log of these. As you're blind reviewing a question, if you're sticking with your original decision, write down (like in a spreadsheet or Word doc) why the 'wrong' one is wrong and/or why the 'right' one is right.
It's going to turn out that some of these reasons are valid, some aren't (once you check the correct answer AND once you check an expert's explanation). Put a strikethru on the reasons that turned out to be invalid, so that they're still there on the page but your brain sees them as ruled out.
Sometimes these invalid reasons we're applying are TENDENCIES of wrong answers for that question type. But on harder individual examples of a given question type, the correct answer frequently is different from the typical correct answer.
(For example, correct answers on hard Necessary Assumption questions are often very strongly worded. Correct answers on miserably difficult Strengthen/Weaken questions are often very weakly worded)
Even though your wrong answers don't fall into a given question type, it could be that you still need to add some content awareness to how each question type behaves when it's a really hard one.
When you find that you HAVE changed from wrong to right during blind review, think about what part of your process was missing in realtime:
Are you changing your answer because you previously didn't notice something about the paragraph?
Or changing because you previously didn't notice something about the answer you picked/rejected?
That might be the most precise doorway into the types of thinking that are not coming together during the timed performance. It might tell us whether we're rushing our reading of the stimulus, or whether we're not being sensitive enough to critical words during our reading of answer choices.
If it seems to mainly come down to time, then you probably need to focus more efforts on doing speed drills to get your timing quicker on easier stuff, and to do prephrase drills to increase your ability to "see the answer coming" (only about 40% of the questions lend themselves to strong ideas of what's coming, but that's still enough of the section that if we get better at anticipating these answers, we save some time and brainpower for the tricky, flexible thinking stuff)
SPEED DRILLS:
Try doing the first 10Q in LR in 10 mins (without sacrificing normal accuracy). If you can do that, work it up to 1st 12 in 12 mins or even 1st 15 in 15 mins.
PREPHRASE DRILL:
Do about ten LR questions untimed, and write down your prephrased answer before you look at the answer choices. Compare your prephrases to those of the experts on the forum's Official Explanations. See if you're fighting a harder battle than you need to by not being as in tune to what's being tested as you could be.
Spending time trying to really get ready for what a correct answer will say or do might initially feel too slow, but ...
Having a sharp sense of what we want + actively finding it in the answer choices
is usually faster than
Having a vague sense of what we want + getting to your answer via elimination
Some question types lend themselves way more to the former, some to the latter. Part of what we need to be good at is knowing in what situations we can hone in on what the answer should be vs. when we're more at the mercy of the ideas they offer us.
Finally, you might be due for a break. If you've been studying steadily and you haven't taken at least 3 days off in a long time, you might get an uptick by just giving your brain a rest and letting it process what it's got. Sometimes when we come back with fresher eyes, we see the test a little better.
Hope this helps.
One specific thing you should look at is "Why are you switching your answer during blind review?"
If you're fixing 3 to 5 answers, then you're obviously seeing something upon a re-read that changes your impression about what the best available answer is.
Make a log of these. As you're blind reviewing a question, if you're sticking with your original decision, write down (like in a spreadsheet or Word doc) why the 'wrong' one is wrong and/or why the 'right' one is right.
It's going to turn out that some of these reasons are valid, some aren't (once you check the correct answer AND once you check an expert's explanation). Put a strikethru on the reasons that turned out to be invalid, so that they're still there on the page but your brain sees them as ruled out.
Sometimes these invalid reasons we're applying are TENDENCIES of wrong answers for that question type. But on harder individual examples of a given question type, the correct answer frequently is different from the typical correct answer.
(For example, correct answers on hard Necessary Assumption questions are often very strongly worded. Correct answers on miserably difficult Strengthen/Weaken questions are often very weakly worded)
Even though your wrong answers don't fall into a given question type, it could be that you still need to add some content awareness to how each question type behaves when it's a really hard one.
When you find that you HAVE changed from wrong to right during blind review, think about what part of your process was missing in realtime:
Are you changing your answer because you previously didn't notice something about the paragraph?
Or changing because you previously didn't notice something about the answer you picked/rejected?
That might be the most precise doorway into the types of thinking that are not coming together during the timed performance. It might tell us whether we're rushing our reading of the stimulus, or whether we're not being sensitive enough to critical words during our reading of answer choices.
If it seems to mainly come down to time, then you probably need to focus more efforts on doing speed drills to get your timing quicker on easier stuff, and to do prephrase drills to increase your ability to "see the answer coming" (only about 40% of the questions lend themselves to strong ideas of what's coming, but that's still enough of the section that if we get better at anticipating these answers, we save some time and brainpower for the tricky, flexible thinking stuff)
SPEED DRILLS:
Try doing the first 10Q in LR in 10 mins (without sacrificing normal accuracy). If you can do that, work it up to 1st 12 in 12 mins or even 1st 15 in 15 mins.
PREPHRASE DRILL:
Do about ten LR questions untimed, and write down your prephrased answer before you look at the answer choices. Compare your prephrases to those of the experts on the forum's Official Explanations. See if you're fighting a harder battle than you need to by not being as in tune to what's being tested as you could be.
Spending time trying to really get ready for what a correct answer will say or do might initially feel too slow, but ...
Having a sharp sense of what we want + actively finding it in the answer choices
is usually faster than
Having a vague sense of what we want + getting to your answer via elimination
Some question types lend themselves way more to the former, some to the latter. Part of what we need to be good at is knowing in what situations we can hone in on what the answer should be vs. when we're more at the mercy of the ideas they offer us.
Finally, you might be due for a break. If you've been studying steadily and you haven't taken at least 3 days off in a long time, you might get an uptick by just giving your brain a rest and letting it process what it's got. Sometimes when we come back with fresher eyes, we see the test a little better.
Hope this helps.
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