Why am I not improving?! Forum

[Edmonds4]

I'm feeling so defeated right now! I know it's still early (I'll be testing in October) but I am seeing no improvement in RC and especially LR. I already read the PS trilogy and now I'm working through the PT's (curently on PT-15). I constantly study the questions I miss, and understand why I missed them, but that doesnt seem to be helping yet. Today, I did a LR section (section 4 of PT-14), felt like I nearly aced it, and missed 11!! After confirming several times that I was scoring the appropriate section, I briefly thought about jumping out of the library window..

Is this normal for RC and especially LR? Was anyone else frustrated by a period of complete stagnation before you made gains? Maybe I'm just not comfortable with the timing yet? Help!!!

[bk1]

People on TLS say this is helpful for RC: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... f=6&t=7240 (Voyager's RC Strategy)

Are you rushing? Do you have time left at the end of each section or are you hitting the time limit? Is there a pattern in the type of LR questions you miss?

[Edmonds4]

Thank you bk! I will look into that..

I don't FEEL like I am rushing, but I have to assume the time is indeed affecting me. I say this because, due to the time constraints, my appoach is generally to perform well on the section as a whole rather than putting everything I have into each question (if that makes sense).

I don't run out of time, but then again, I am the type of person who will rush through the entire section in order to finish. Would it be better to slow my pace and then guess at the end if I have to? I hate to do that, but that does seem like the obvious solution.

My two most commonly missed LR question types are parallel reasoning, and the must be true questions (where I usually find several answers attractive)..

[FuManChusco]

you shouldn't slow down and guess at the end. you should get down accuracy before timing though. if you're taking the October test then you have plenty of time for PTs and timed sections. just do them untimed for a little. try to get your accuracy to 100% so you understand the concepts better and then start shaving minutes off. that worked for me at least.

[Edmonds4]

Thanks for the advice FuManChusco.. That makes complete sense, and I think that IS what I will do for now..

How many prepests did you use untimed before you felt comfortable enough with the concepts to do it timed??

[FuManChusco]

well I went through the LG and LR bibles first so that definitely helped me. I don't remember doing too many untimed. It shouldn't take that many sections to get under -5 untimed. Once I got that kind of accuracy, I started taking timed sections with heavy review. Then I moved on to timed PTs with heavy review. I was always good at LG, but with alot of practice anyone can do this. At some point, LR and RC just kind of clicked. I probably did about 40 PTs worth of questions though and I would say 30-35 of them were timed.

[goawaybee]

Throwing this out there.

It really may just be time. I think people stress time SO much, that is a HUGE factor during the test and during PT's leading up to the test but if you are not accurate it doesn't matter.

I think some people can benefit a great deal from doing untimed work on the front end after they have done a few timed PT's. YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND what is going on before you can own this test. Do some untimed sections/PT's and get your confidence/accuracy up. Then if you feel the NEED to institute a time limit start at 40-42 minutes and drop it by two minutes every 3rd PT or something. There are enough PT's out there that you can do this and have plenty of "real" test material to prep with.

You can do 4 section untimed PT's to save the tests you would breakdown for 5th sections for the last 15-20 PT's. I am one of those people who ruined June b/c I stressed time more than I stressed accuracy for the june 10 test. I was on a very short study cycle and if I would have focused on accuracy vs. speed I would have been able to perform well on the june test. Lesson learned. For example I would rather maintain 90% accuracy on 23 questions in LR/RC sections and scrap a few that I always have difficulty with vs. rushing myself to answer all the questions. Often times I have noticed that rushing when I got down to 2 answer choices pushed me to select the wrong answer just so I could do the same thing on 7 other questions in the section vs. cooling out and staying focused and letting go of a few q's which would have had a much more positive impact on my score.

Not saying it is THE way, but it is option. No reason to stress yourself out day 1. The bibles are a good tool, but I would say all the info out there can be useful if you know how to use it. What good is a nail gun for framing a house if you don't know how to use it or work the compressor it is running off of ? You could have spent 30 minutes figuring out how to use it on the front end to save you hours of frustration during construction.

I always benefited from walking away from it for a bit. I think some people could benefit from taking a few breaks during the study process to allow it sink in and penetrate vs. being something they are familiar with. Just because you have seen it and "kind of" understand it means very little when the counter gets turned on. Others do better with the beast approach, relentlessly pouring over it day in and day out until they see nothing but LG's and flaw questions while they are on the checkout line at the grocery store.

You will get it, don't stress yourself out. It will click. Be patient and keep working on it. Tweak your method until you find the best way for YOU. Time is on your side.

GL

[Edmonds4]

Thank you both goawaybe and FuManChusco, I really appreciate your input!..

I've decided to take your advice and work on some PT's untimed for now (and aim for accuracy). Goawaybee, I couldn't agree more about the stress factor. Personally, I have a major sense of urgency right now because I was going to test Monday, but as the postponement deadline drew near I realized that I could/should do more to prepare for such an important test. I just don't want to go in October feeling that I should have done more. I DO have a little vacation to Chicago coming shortly though, so I will use that time to give my brain a rest..

It's very encouraging to hear people keep saying that it will eventually click.. I really hope that will be the case for me..