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I need help understanding why I am a statistical anomaly. In over 80% of questions I see with 2 AC's left that I need to debate, I get them wrong. Most of the time the answer is clear but almost every recent PT I have taken (last 7) I have missed 5 or so that I debated between 2 AC's and incorrectly chose in 4 to 5 of them. In fact, statistics indicate that I would probably just do better if I didn't think at all and just guessed between the final 2.

This problem is single-handedly keeping me out of consistent 170's as I continue to score 167 -168 and those 4-5 points would get me to my goal.

Here are some of the ones off my recent PT that I missed in this manner. If someone can take a look at those questions and help me understand if I am simply falling into a trap or am over thinking or something, it would help tremendously with this problem. Or let me know if these mistakes are just me being stupid. If I could get even 3 of these 6 questions correct, it would have put me at a 170 exactly which is my goal.

PT 59:
section 2 #8 - stuck between B and E, chose E incorrectly
section 3 #11 - stuck between B and C, chose C incorrectly
section 3 #16 - stuck between D and E, chose D incorrectly
Section 3 #18 - stuck between A and D, chose A incorrectly
Section 4 #20 - stuck between C and E, chose C incorrectly
Section 4 #21 - stuck between B and E, chose E incorrectly

When down to 2, forget about which one is right and focus on which one is wrong. The correct answer may not always be clear cut, but the 4 wrong ones will be.

Do you need help understanding why on PT 59 the ones you chose were wrong?
It's not a matter of guessing, there is always a clearly wrong answer and you are missing that it seems.

Anomaly wrote:When down to 2, forget about which one is right and focus on which one is wrong. The correct answer may not always be clear cut, but the 4 wrong ones will be.

This. Once I understood that wrong answers were just as important right answers, I jumped from around 163-165 to 168-171 immediately. I ended up pt'ing in the high 170s and scoring in the low low 170s.

Helping me understand the ones that I missed would certainly help, but at times I cant seem to figure out why one of the two is wrong. That seems to be the biggest problem, figuring out why 1 of the last 2 is clearly wrong.

8. For flaw questions focus first on the author’s conclusion and second, how he arrives at it. You can usually predict the flaw before reading the choices.

(B) is correct. Ice cream sales have declined and cheddar cheese sales have doubled. But then the author concludes “people have decided to get their calcium from cheese instead of ice cream”. Huh? This is obviously flawed logic. There are a million things that could have caused ice cream sales to decline and/or cheese sales to rise. Maybe it’s winter time and people are buying less ice cream?

(E) is wrong. “The author assumes that people who eat cheddar cheese never eat ice cream”. This is just out of nowhere. For flaw questions, the correct answer has to be something that the author ACTUALLY DOES. He definitely doesn’t assume that people who eat cheese don’t eat ice cream.

11. Since this is a strengthen we want to stay super tight on the conclusion. The author concludes that “the predictions that printed books will be replaced by electronic are exaggerated.” Why? Because public libraries will keep stocking books in “formats desired by the general public (non-electronic)”. The correct answer needs to support this idea that printed books are here to stay.

(B) is correct because it makes the conclusion more likely and closes up a potential hole in the argument (that publishers will stop publishing printed works).

(C) does not help the argument or hurt it. The author is not concerned with where scholars and scientists do their research. His conclusion relies on public libraries continuing to stock printed books.

I have a feeling you chose C because you got distracted from the author’s argument. It is absolutely critical to stay focused on the conclusion and how it is being supported!

I hope this helps.

If the problem is two answers that seem similar, make sure you understand the exact difference between them. That should help make the CR stand out.

Part of the problem may just be a bit stressed on time and lack of focus. Not merely thinking I'm focused but actually being focused. I took the first 2 parts of a preptest this morning and went -1 LR, -1 LG, about to finish the last 2 sections.

Try to rule out why there wrong and in doing so here is a nice little analogy to help you along the way...

If your going down the answer choices and one seems like it looks like it could work and you flag it as highly possible and then you see another further along the way then try thinking about it like this...

Something made you pick that first answer choice out from the rest, It was looking pretty good. Then some other choice came along and looked good too. Its sort of like some situations in life. Say your dating a perfect 10 supermodel babe who's effing hilarious to boot. After a few years, once your used to her, another pretty amazingly hot woman shows up in your life. The second one seems like a 10 too. Its pretty likely even that you think even more attracted because you had gotten used to the first one.

What is the first thing you should do in that situation??? Well before you make a decision you better make damn sure that the new girl is all she appears to be. It's pretty likely you have overlooked something that you assumed to be there. In having pretty much committed to the original choice it's easy to do this. You just assume normality out of this new girl when the case may not be so. It could be anything. Like something small. Maybe she has a good since of humor but a horrifyingly annoying laugh. You follow me on this?

Don't give up what you have unless you know its a sure thing. If you cant find anything wrong with the new choice then move on and dump a bitch (also of course realizing her faults ie finding what's wrong with the answer) but if not stick with ol' reliable.

happy hunting.