Whats up with simple LR questions?

[quasi-stellar]

Ok, so I am beginning to wonder what makes me miss some of the easiest questions on the LR. I generally make about 5-6 mistakes total per section, but its not like they are the toughest questions out there. In fact, i tend to do fairly well on those that are classified as difficult, but somehow about half of the questions I miss I can safely classify as those that I should have no problem getting right. I feel like if I eliminated those, I would be much closer to 170 :/

It would be interesting to know what kind of mistakes high scorers make... are they the hardest questions exclusively, or do they let some of those slip by?

[Nikrall]

Ok, so I am beginning to wonder what makes me miss some of the easiest questions on the LR. I generally make about 5-6 mistakes total per section, but its not like they are the toughest questions out there. In fact, i tend to do fairly well on those that are classified as difficult, but somehow about half of the questions I miss I can safely classify as those that I should have no problem getting right. I feel like if I eliminated those, I would be much closer to 170 :/

It would be interesting to know what kind of mistakes high scorers make... are they the hardest questions exclusively, or do they let some of those slip by?

Its (probably) because you are lacking confidence. You see an easy question, feel like its overly easy, and then look for a way to make it harder. This is, of course, only one thing that people do but I've found that its the most common reason that people who know the material get easy questions wrong.

[quasi-stellar]

Ok, so I am beginning to wonder what makes me miss some of the easiest questions on the LR. I generally make about 5-6 mistakes total per section, but its not like they are the toughest questions out there. In fact, i tend to do fairly well on those that are classified as difficult, but somehow about half of the questions I miss I can safely classify as those that I should have no problem getting right. I feel like if I eliminated those, I would be much closer to 170 :/

It would be interesting to know what kind of mistakes high scorers make... are they the hardest questions exclusively, or do they let some of those slip by?

Its (probably) because you are lacking confidence. You see an easy question, feel like its overly easy, and then look for a way to make it harder. This is, of course, only one thing that people do but I've found that its the most common reason that people who know the material get easy questions wrong.

I guess that partially explains it, but also I think it could be that I'm a type of free thinker/artistic kind of person, so I may get carried away from time to times making unwarranted generalizations or whatever. I'm quite smart, but I also need to learn to think in a more linear fashion, i.e. take everything in LSAT literally.

[youknowryan]

Ok, so I am beginning to wonder what makes me miss some of the easiest questions on the LR. I generally make about 5-6 mistakes total per section, but its not like they are the toughest questions out there. In fact, i tend to do fairly well on those that are classified as difficult, but somehow about half of the questions I miss I can safely classify as those that I should have no problem getting right. I feel like if I eliminated those, I would be much closer to 170 :/

It would be interesting to know what kind of mistakes high scorers make... are they the hardest questions exclusively, or do they let some of those slip by?

Funny, I tend to miss the easy ones also, and I score well on the PTs I am working on. My girlfriend is in law school and she also scored well on the LSAT.

She's been working on and off with me during my LSAT prep. She's well familiar with both me and the LSAT and here's her take: the simple questions do not require much analysis or creativity, while the harder ones do. I tend to over-think every question and consequently I am more likely to miss ones where reading between the lines or looking for tricks is not needed. We were going through some LR the other day 2 hard ones stumped her (remember her LSAT score was way up there). I got them just fine. The 2 that I missed were super easy. Even after minutes of looking at one, I simply could not figure it out. When she told me the answer, I am sure I looked like a deer in the headlights of a car. Her explanation made clear why I was wrong to select the answer I did. MY reasoning way simply way too complex given the question while hers was just right. (I do not remember the PT but it was a politician saying a 5 cent gas tax should be raised to 50 cents). My point is that high scorers can miss any kind of question. If you are like I am and miss a majority of easy questions, then slowing down at the beginning of the test will help you out a lot.

[Nikrall]

Ok, so I am beginning to wonder what makes me miss some of the easiest questions on the LR. I generally make about 5-6 mistakes total per section, but its not like they are the toughest questions out there. In fact, i tend to do fairly well on those that are classified as difficult, but somehow about half of the questions I miss I can safely classify as those that I should have no problem getting right. I feel like if I eliminated those, I would be much closer to 170 :/

It would be interesting to know what kind of mistakes high scorers make... are they the hardest questions exclusively, or do they let some of those slip by?

Its (probably) because you are lacking confidence. You see an easy question, feel like its overly easy, and then look for a way to make it harder. This is, of course, only one thing that people do but I've found that its the most common reason that people who know the material get easy questions wrong.

I guess that partially explains it, but also I think it could be that I'm a type of free thinker/artistic kind of person, so I may get carried away from time to times making unwarranted generalizations or whatever. I'm quite smart, but I also need to learn to think in a more linear fashion, i.e. take everything in LSAT literally.

This probably wouldn't make you get easy ones wrong. Its the harder questions where people tend to make unwarranted assumptions/generalizations/assertions.

But regardless of which ones you are getting wrong, yes, you need to think in a completely logical fashion...but not a linear fashion.

Logic is, at its base, either true, false, or you don't know. No in between. If something is 99.9% true the correct answer when asked if it is true is "I don't know". Same if you are asked if its false. This is just a different way of thinking that hardly anyone finds easy, prior to the LSAT. Its something you need to learn because in the real world, it is an incredibly stupid way to act.

[Nikrall]

Ok, so I am beginning to wonder what makes me miss some of the easiest questions on the LR. I generally make about 5-6 mistakes total per section, but its not like they are the toughest questions out there. In fact, i tend to do fairly well on those that are classified as difficult, but somehow about half of the questions I miss I can safely classify as those that I should have no problem getting right. I feel like if I eliminated those, I would be much closer to 170 :/

It would be interesting to know what kind of mistakes high scorers make... are they the hardest questions exclusively, or do they let some of those slip by?

Funny, I tend to miss the easy ones also, and I score well on the PTs I am working on. My girlfriend is in law school and she also scored well on the LSAT.

She's been working on and off with me during my LSAT prep. She's well familiar with both me and the LSAT and here's her take: the simple questions do not require much analysis or creativity, while the harder ones do. I tend to over-think every question and consequently I am more likely to miss ones where reading between the lines or looking for tricks is not needed. We were going through some LR the other day 2 hard ones stumped her (remember her LSAT score was way up there). I got them just fine. The 2 that I missed were super easy. Even after minutes of looking at one, I simply could not figure it out. When she told me the answer, I am sure I looked like a deer in the headlights of a car. Her explanation made clear why I was wrong to select the answer I did. MY reasoning way simply way too complex given the question while hers was just right. (I do not remember the PT but it was a politician saying a 5 cent gas tax should be raised to 50 cents). My point is that high scorers can miss any kind of question. If you are like I am and miss a majority of easy questions, then slowing down at the beginning of the test will help you out a lot.

You basically said what I did, but in a different way. Your reasoning was too complex...you expected the question to be harder than it actually was.

The LSAT is a hard test, don't get me wrong. But some of the questions are, frankly, idiotically simple. Which then makes them hard because everyone talks about what a difficult test it is. Its sort of like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo

[LLB2JD]

Maybe not someone pointed this out - But it could be a certain kind of questions that you miss. In other words, do you think you generally miss "must be true" questions regardless of whether it is an easy or hard question?

[Lokomani]

Quite frankly, I think you have nothing to worry about. You simply need to get used to the question types until you know them like the back of your hand. There are far more types of LR questions than other LSAT sections, the cues can be hard to pick up on.

If you have the LR Bible, I'm currently working through it myself and it can really help for nailing down the nuances between questions types. Don't sweat it, and just do your best to work slowly and carefully through a few sections of problems after doing an extensive review. Also, once you see some improvement, try and keep track of what questions are consistently stumping you. I intend to use the LR spreadsheet on the LSAT blog once I'm ready to start taking full sections (found here: http://lsatblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/ls ... sheet.html)

Of course, if you already have an idea of the question types you need to work on there's a fairly comprehensive list of the LR question types in the PT's ( 9-59, excluding 17).

Cheers, Here's to both of us making this test our bitch.

[quasi-stellar]

Maybe not someone pointed this out - But it could be a certain kind of questions that you miss. In other words, do you think you generally miss "must be true" questions regardless of whether it is an easy or hard question?

Unfortunately, no clear tendencies regarding particular question types. Perhaps it's about the content of certain arguments. Plus the answer choices they construct are pretty good, gotta give them that.

In general, my strong areas are flaw, method, inference and assumptions. The type of question that gives more trouble than others is strengthen.

[quasi-stellar]

Of course, if you already have an idea of the question types you need to work on there's a fairly comprehensive list of the LR question types in the PT's ( 9-59, excluding 17).

Cheers, Here's to both of us making this test our bitch.

I just had a shot to that

[Unshake]

Disclaimer: I've not yet taken the LSAT but am currently doing significant prep and am currently doing LR.

I've never had a situation where I feel that I over thought a question. If I get questions wrong, it's usually faulty logic or not reading closely enough (the latter especially when I do a 30 question drill and fatigue gets me by misreading or losing focus). I would just reread some sections of the LRB (maybe Chapter 7 or 8?) and keep plugging on practice problems.