LR Improvement? Forum

[Sh@keNb@ke]

Well tried a few more and got 9/12:

1 Star: 1/1
2 Star: 4/4
3 Star: 2/4 (on one, I made a stupid mistake of crossing off the right answer, when I mean to circle it, so I never went back to it, had I been more careful I would have gotten it right...)
4 Star: 2/3

I also thing with strengthen questions, it might be best to select an answer that seems acceptable and move on unless its shaky.

Are you diagramming enough? I feel that diagramming has really helped me spot the correct answer and spot it quickly.

[Anaconda]

Are you diagramming enough? I feel that diagramming has really helped me spot the correct answer and spot it quickly.

How would I diagram weaken questions?

[Anaconda]

Were people's improvement in LR made apparent by drilling the question types, or once you started taking regular PT's? I'm hoping my accuracy will improve once I take PT's, since there doesn't seem to be much improvement through drilling.

[wadeny]

I would keep trying to work slowly and identify your mistakes before moving on to full PTs. Improving on LR can take a lot of time and can be frustrating, but hang in there. I would also echo the advice from other posters and switch up your sections every now and then. Sometimes just taking a couple days off from LR to focus on RC/LG can be strangely refreshing and give you an added boost of confidence.

[northwood]

I find that if I do around 20 questions of the same type and write out the reasons I chose or crossed of an answer choice- I notice my tendencies and patterns that are in the questions. Right now, I do the questions, read the explinations for the ones i got wrong, and if I get more than 25 % wrong, I go back and re read information about the question type. I then go on to games, or improve RC. I will go back and re do the section the next day ( but in diffferent order- and i hvae made copies of the questions so i cant see any previous work)

I find that this way helps me get the question type fundamentals down. I tried doing sections of old p ts, but I was not able to see patterns or understand why i got a question wrong or right. I also am doing the sections untimed the first go around, and timed the second one.( 2o questions with 28 minutes to do so.) If i run out of time, I mark where I was, pick a letter of the day, then finish the rest of the section- but only count the ones I marked within the timeframe ( right or wrong- to help get a grasp of timing)

I plan on doing full prep tests in mid august. IF I get all of the fundamentals down, I will start earlier.

[Albatross]

IMO, considering we have 84 days until the OCT exam, I would be more concerned with accuracy than anything at this point. There is plenty of time to take PT's. You need to zone in on what you are missing and why. Including the answers you got right. You need to have LR mastered by the beginning of OCT if you plan on having a competitive score. PM me if you need any more advice.

[Ssoto0055]

I should be getting 100% of them after drilling for two straight days.

(

2 days of studying a specific question doesn't mean anything. The LSAT is unlike any other test you have taken. It takes alot more than two days to get it. There are people that take this test 2,3 and evne 4 times and don't do well. Right now you are frustrated and I guarantee you that your frustration is making you miss questions. Like others have said don't do stuff under times conditions. Worry about understanding the logic behind the question and the steps to getting it right. Isolate the conclusion. Find any casual or conditional reasoning first. Then go through the answers and see how each effects the conclusion. Things like that. Then once you've mastered that (which will take more than two days) work on timing.

[northwood]

one thing that I found works well for me is to do everthing question 3 times. I make sure to do each attempt on different days,( make copies of everything) and in different order. I try to do around 20 LR questions ( of similar type) a day, and 2-4 games each day, taking consideration for time and fatigue.

LR
first attempt goals
correctly identify question stem
correctly id premesis, subsid conclusions and main conclusion
find any lanugage shifts or gaps

second attempt:
correctly answer the question
explain why the other answers are wrong ( sep sheet of paper)

thrid attempt
correctly answer the question, and
explain how and why it is correct, in my own words ( sep sheet of paper)

LG
first attempt
get all rules and most of the deductiosn correct

second attempt
make all deductions possible before starting individual questions
correctly answer all questions

thrid attempt

focus on speed, while keeping accuracy high

[Anaconda]

Well, today I focused on repeating previous LR problems I've done (MP, MBT, Support) writing mini explanations for each answer choice, and then actually going back and typing out detailed explanations for every answer choice on the 3 star and 4 star questions.

Accuracy is kind of irrelevant, since I already did all of these in the past 1-2 weeks, although understanding why each answer is right/wrong is important.

Accuracy for Main Point was 10/11 (the 4 star I got wrong was very difficult and abstract)

Accuracy for MBT was 13/15 - one wrong was a stupid mistake - really careless reading on a one star (grrr), and the other one I got wrong was a pure conditional logic question (4 star), which according to Kaplan doesn't appear on the LSAT anymore.

Here's an example of one of my explanations:

PT 4 LB, Number 7. The correct answer is D.

Basic conclusion of the stimulus is that there is either a holiday sale or a manager’s sale, or both going on every month.

A is incorrect because this scenario is never addressed in the stimulus. It only mentions what will happen when these is extra merchandise in the warehouse, not when there is none.

B is incorrect because it states that if a holiday sale is not running for any given month then it is a manager’s sale. This would mean the other 11 months of the year are only holiday sales, which is ridiculous at worst and unsupported at best. We have no idea what is true for the other months because they are never mentioned.

C is incorrect because it assumes that it can only be a manager’s sale or holiday sale, but not both. This is untrue. Stimulus directly states “or both,” so there can be a manager’s sale AND an excess in merchandise in the warehouse, and if a holiday falls within the month, it would also be a holiday sale. C connects two unrelated points as well, even if you missed the “or both” in the stimulus.

D is correct. Either or, or both, means that the options are: a) manager’s sale, b) holiday sale, c) manager’s sale & holiday sale. If there is no manager’s sale THERE MUST BE a holiday sale.

E is incorrect because it ignores the fact that other months can also have no excesses

[Anaconda]

Yesterday, I get 6/7 on 3 star flaw questions, and I seemed to have a great grasp on them. Today I get 6/10 on 3 star questions and 4/12 on 4 star questions. I don't understand how I get progressively worse on the second day for each question type, I was basically acing flaw questions yesterday. WTF?

[jjlaw]

Yesterday, I get 6/7 on 3 star flaw questions, and I seemed to have a great grasp on them. Today I get 6/10 on 3 star questions and 4/12 on 4 star questions. I don't understand how I get progressively worse on the second day for each question type, I was basically acing flaw questions yesterday. WTF?

Flaw questions can be tricky, mostly because the stimuli and answer choices can throw you off, even if you're familiar with the "stock" answer choices. My advice is to just keep drilling them, figure out the logical structure behind each stimulus, and pay attention to why the answer choice is correct or incorrect. Occasionally there will be flaws that aren't "stock" or don't appear very often, but just take note of them for next time.

[Anaconda]

Just did 4 more 4 stars, and got them all wrong. 7 straight incorrect 4 stars....

[jjlaw]

Just did 4 more 4 stars, and got them all wrong. 7 straight incorrect 4 stars....

Are you writing out your own explanations for these incorrect questions? It is very helpful to verbalize your thought process and spot patterns and traps that you might fall into.

[3|ink]

Just did 4 more 4 stars, and got them all wrong. 7 straight incorrect 4 stars....

When you review these questions, are you finding that you missed the answer because you missed something in the stimulus or because you missed something in the answer choices. Assuming these are all flaw questions, are these the abstract flaw questions (i.e. "name the flaw" in technical terms).

[Anaconda]

Just did 4 more 4 stars, and got them all wrong. 7 straight incorrect 4 stars....

When you review these questions, are you finding that you missed the answer because you missed something in the stimulus or because you missed something in the answer choices. Assuming these are all flaw questions, are these the abstract flaw questions (i.e. "name the flaw" in technical terms).

My problems mostly arise because I'm not interpreting the stimulus the way the testmakers expect you to in order to get the question right. It doesn't help that the answer choices are so freaking abstract.

[3|ink]

Just did 4 more 4 stars, and got them all wrong. 7 straight incorrect 4 stars....

When you review these questions, are you finding that you missed the answer because you missed something in the stimulus or because you missed something in the answer choices. Assuming these are all flaw questions, are these the abstract flaw questions (i.e. "name the flaw" in technical terms).

My problems mostly arise because I'm not interpreting the stimulus the way the testmakers expect you to in order to get the question right. It doesn't help that the answer choices are so freaking abstract.

Those are said to be the hardest question types. No joke. In Testmasters, they call them Type 4 questions. They are hard because the answer choices are technical. Practice makes perfect.

[Barbie]

I only read the original post so I apologize if I am repeating, but
OP- I improved drastically on my LR just be getting used to the wrong answer types. I am still far from perfect, but I went from missing 8-10 per section, to missing 2-4 per section. That is what really helped me. I also got really good at predicting the correct answer. Just from the little practice I did, I became more accustomed to the way the correct answer would be created from the information provided. Being able to predict the answer made it a LOT faster for me too ,as I finished each LR section in June with 5-10 minutes remaining. HTH

[Anaconda]

Just did 4 more 4 stars, and got them all wrong. 7 straight incorrect 4 stars....

When you review these questions, are you finding that you missed the answer because you missed something in the stimulus or because you missed something in the answer choices. Assuming these are all flaw questions, are these the abstract flaw questions (i.e. "name the flaw" in technical terms).

My problems mostly arise because I'm not interpreting the stimulus the way the testmakers expect you to in order to get the question right. It doesn't help that the answer choices are so freaking abstract.

Those are said to be the hardest question types. No joke. In Testmasters, they call them Type 4 questions. They are hard because the answer choices are technical. Practice makes perfect.

Well that makes me feel a lot better, but it's annoying because I was doing so well with flaw questions yesterday. Reviewing some of the 4 stars I got wrong slowly and carefully actually seem fairly straight forward now. The language is so damn convoluted it's almost torture. It's especially crappy when the flaw is obvious yet the answer choices are so abstractly worded it's extremely difficult to make distinctions between them.

Also, in probably 2/3 of the flaw questions I get wrong, I actually get the right answer down to the last two, even writing an "ok" or "yes" next to it before settling with the wrong answer. Uggghhh.

[Adjudicator]

I was averaging -2 on timed LR sections. Then I got the PowerScore Logical Reasoning Bible and worked through a few of the sections on problems that I was having trouble with, especially parallel reasoning type problems.

Today I scored -0 on an LR section with 8 minutes left at the end. I'm feeling really confident about LR now.

[3|ink]

I was averaging -2 on timed LR sections. Then I got the PowerScore Logical Reasoning Bible and worked through a few of the sections on problems that I was having trouble with, especially parallel reasoning type problems.

Today I scored -0 on an LR section with 8 minutes left at the end. I'm feeling really confident about LR now.

Wow.

[AverageTutoring]

If you're taking all the time in the world to complete questions and you're still getting a good percentage wrong there is a serious problem here that needs addressing.

Ask yourself: why did you select the wrong answer, why did you cross off the correct answer, was your mistake in reading the stimulus or in reading the answer, etc.

We take for granted that this test is logical but what it means is that there is a specific and IDENTIFIABLE reason why the correct answer is right and the wrong answer is wrong. Technical or not, there is a reason. So if you are routinely having to pick between 2 answer choices (one correct and one not correct) find out what it is that you missed in the answer choice or what you missed in the stimulus. Once you find it, the wrong answer will scream out at you.

[nillumin]

I also am terrible at logical reasoning....but I haven't put in very much studying as of yet, just started this week after taking a break since the June Exam which I studied about a month for.

I recently bought the Kaplan Mastery which has a bunch of LR material. I plan on going through that and then starting practice tests. This is because last night I took two LR sections in their Pacing Book without a break and got -8, -7. Not very encouraging. Point is, you are not alone. On the June LSAT I got a -13 on one section and -2 on the other, the -13 killed my score.

I will be checking this thread to check your progress...It is my hope to be averaging around 2/3 wrong per section by the October Test.

[nillumin]

do you read the stem or stimulus first?

[3|ink]

If you're taking all the time in the world to complete questions and you're still getting a good percentage wrong there is a serious problem here that needs addressing.

Ask yourself: why did you select the wrong answer, why did you cross off the correct answer, was your mistake in reading the stimulus or in reading the answer, etc.

We take for granted that this test is logical but what it means is that there is a specific and IDENTIFIABLE reason why the correct answer is right and the wrong answer is wrong. Technical or not, there is a reason. So if you are routinely having to pick between 2 answer choices (one correct and one not correct) find out what it is that you missed in the answer choice or what you missed in the stimulus. Once you find it, the wrong answer will scream out at you.

TITCR

do you read the stem or stimulus first?

Good question. However, since he's doing these untimed, that probably isn't what's throwing him off at this point.

[Anaconda]

Update on flaw questions:

Today I wrote out explanations for every question I got wrong yesterday.

Tonight, I did 12 more flaw questions:

2 Star: 4/4
3 star: 3/4
4 Star: 3/4

Yesterday I got an abysmal 4/14 on 4 stars, so I think I did a little better today . The good news is that on both questions I got wrong, I never "eliminated" the right answer, I had to struggle to pick the answer. Both questions I got wrong also were about self-interest and altruism (so random) and the 4 star was extremely abstract, I honestly didn't understand the last 2 answer choices I had left, so it was basically a 50-50 guess. My process of elimination was much better, I was 100% confident on 5 of the questions I answered, and got those all right.

At least I have some much needed confidence back.