LR Improvement? Forum

[Anaconda]

I just started reading the LR Bible, and I've been doing Must Be True/Support questions after reading the corresponding chapter twice in the past 2 days. However, I got only 67% of the questions I tried yesterday (21), and today I only got 73% of the questions I tried so far (37). Is it normal to see no/such limited improvement after reviewing the LRB chapter and trying over 50 questions?

Note: All questions were of varying difficulty, so they weren't all "hard" or "easy questions".

How did everyone's progression in LR go, and how many problems, or how much time did it take to see significant improvement?

[brickman]

I just started reading the LR Bible, and I've been doing Must Be True/Support questions after reading the corresponding chapter twice in the past 2 days. However, I got only 67% of the questions I tried yesterday (21), and today I only got 73% of the questions I tried so far (37). Is it normal to see no/such limited improvement after reviewing the LRB chapter and trying over 50 questions?

Note: All questions were of varying difficulty, so they weren't all "hard" or "easy questions".

How did everyone's progression in LR go, and how many problems, or how much time did it take to see significant improvement?

The quantity of questions covered isn't the best way of measuring how well you understand the material. What you should be more concerned with is whether or not you could understand the linkage of the premises to the conclusion or how the set of facts operated with each other. Did you write out an explanation for why everyone one of those answer choices that was wrong was wrong for a definitive reason or reasons? Did you write out why the right answer was right? Did you get an abstract understanding of what could be inferred or by what principle the stimulus operated under? Make the most of these techniques and rip apart the question and look at all the little bits. Then, after having done that do it to every other question and keep dissecting and analyzing. Eventually things just start to appear to be more familiar, the wrong answer choices are more obviously wrong, you understand the trend of the premises or where the fact set will take you. Just focus on deep practice through thorough examination and I'll bet you see some improvement.

It's not necessarily how many questions you cover, rather the quality with which you cover the questions that is of importance for meaningful gains in comprehension of the question types. In general, I also like to take general notes on a legal pad while I am studying (Cornell note taking method is pretty effective for reviewing and instilling understanding of concepts) to more abstractly understand how the questions are constructed, what is being looked for, and how to better see what is being looked for.

hth.

[Anaconda]

I did another set of questions and took my sweet time, noting the reasons why every answer I thought was wrong for what reason(s). Idk if I'm burned out today, but I did absolutely horrible. It's annoying that I'm understanding why the right answers are right/wrong choices are wrong when I go back and correct and read through the problem explanations, and yet I'm seeing no improvement in the past 2 days, in addition to using the LRB. This is really frustrating and depressing.

[xqhp82]

same situation here....i have spent the last few days to do about 100 Must be True questions, and 44 Main Point questions, and my scores were mediocre (about 1/3 wrong for MBT and 1/4 wrong for Main Point). they're all from PT1-20 by the way. A lot of times I have missed the 'most accurate' answer, but i'm so so close to it and in fact just missing a very minor point in the stimulus/answer choice. but that's something which varies for each question and i'm not sure how i can practice that. I have studied carefully why i got things right/wrong but little improvement is made. It is a rather discouraging start for my LR study.

[obsquared]

dun lose hope guys. i'm also having dome problems with LR but the trick is to stay positive and motivated. keep working at it and u'll get there eventually

[DrackedaryMaster]

Don't get me started on how much I hate this section. It get's frustrating cause I start off well, then about Q13 or so crash and burn before I know what hits me.

Just did the Second LR of PT 7. Missed 5, all after Q15

Q15 - Eyes played tricks on the "consistency/flavor" reversal in B

Q16 - I could not choose between the last two. Reason I went with my answer was it looked like
more than one premise was being challenged.

Q17 - Violated a numbers principle picking C. So what if the number didn't increase, if they had 50 or 50,000,000 customers prior to the law, and no mention that it decreased.

Q20 - Did not understand the wording. I see this is circular reasoning, I guess I assumed the language of the correct answer was too extreme with the words "absurdity" and "incontestable"

Q24 - I focused on the wrong part of the stimulus with the dictionary writers.

Super-frustrating, especially when I'm not too sure what to do. Some of the LSAT worded answer choices are proving really convoluted for me. I'm hoping I'll see enough of the pattern and repeat wording about all the Prep-Tests are done.

[queenlizzie13]

same situation here....i have spent the last few days to do about 100 Must be True questions, and 44 Main Point questions, and my scores were mediocre (about 1/3 wrong for MBT and 1/4 wrong for Main Point). they're all from PT1-20 by the way. A lot of times I have missed the 'most accurate' answer, but i'm so so close to it and in fact just missing a very minor point in the stimulus/answer choice. but that's something which varies for each question and i'm not sure how i can practice that. I have studied carefully why i got things right/wrong but little improvement is made. It is a rather discouraging start for my LR study.

I hate MBT. That is by far and away my worst question type. I definitely need to improve on MBT come October. That and strengthen questions definitely hurt my June score.

I think the Bible has helped me though. I am starting to notice the little words and intricacies that the LSAT makers use in order to throw one off the right answer. Or it could just be that I've seen the question before on some of the questions that I am doing in the bible...I hope it is the former.

[Unshake]

same situation here....i have spent the last few days to do about 100 Must be True questions, and 44 Main Point questions, and my scores were mediocre (about 1/3 wrong for MBT and 1/4 wrong for Main Point). they're all from PT1-20 by the way. A lot of times I have missed the 'most accurate' answer, but i'm so so close to it and in fact just missing a very minor point in the stimulus/answer choice. but that's something which varies for each question and i'm not sure how i can practice that. I have studied carefully why i got things right/wrong but little improvement is made. It is a rather discouraging start for my LR study.

Not sure if this is going to help but I rarely if ever get Main Point questions wrong. The strategy I use, and is somewhat from the LRB, is to find the conclusion of the paragraph and chose the answer that is a paraphrase of this. Finding the conclusion should be second nature and occur when you are reading any LR question (that is, if the stimulus contains a conclusion). You can immediately eliminate any choices that contain new information or extraneous information. Hope this helps. One thing that helped me is after choosing an answer, is to check to make sure it doesn't contain any information that isn't mentioned in the stimulus. For finding the the conclusion make sure you look for conclusion signifying words like "thus" "therefore" and "because of x then ..." If necessary you could bracket the conclusion while working through them, I know some people do this. Also, don't fall into the idea that the conclusion occurs near the end of the stimulus, many of the conclusions are the first sentence or are in the middle followed by additional premises or anecdotes.

I haven't had done any must be true questions since drilling those questions and but I got 20/20 19/20 25/25 (first 65 questions in the Kaplan Mastery) averaging ~1:10 a per question (though I took them with no time restraints, just timing myself for measurement purposes), but I'll review some tonight and post what my general strategy for tackling them has been.

Disclaimer: I'm a lowly 0L who has been studying for the LSAT for only a few weeks.

[xqhp82]

thanks Unshake, and congrats on your great performance in MBT questions! i realised one thing after i did more different type problems, that i tend to get roughly as many wrong answers for each type (quite sad!) but for other types, such as main point and weaken questions, i have no problem figuring out why i got them wrong - many of them are careless mistakes. however, it's more problematic for MBT, since even after knowing the answer, and knowing why i got it wrong, there is often still another answer choice which i don't understand why it can't be as correct as the right answer...if you get what i mean. i studied the LRB and learned the techniques, but sometimes when the wordy questions come out i just can't seem to keep things neat.

i think i read somewhere in the bible that MBT questions are often considered the easier questions...i wonder what i'm going to face next!?