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Guessing strategy based on stats
Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 3:59 am
by justbubbles
I guess in the interest of time, if on a time crunch, this might come in handy. The stats are also quite recent. Thoughts?
Re: Guessing strategy based on stats
Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 6:11 am
by voice of reason
I remember seeing this when I was studying for the LSAT. It irked me then and it irks me now, because it's sheer nonsense and a misuse of statistics. It's the equivalent of saying that a coin that came up heads 55 times in the last 100 flips is more likely to come up heads on the next one. That's just not true, and they should know better.
The LSAT answer letters are assigned randomly. That they have deviated a little from the expected probability distribution in the past does not imply that they will deviate the same way in the future.
So if you've run out of time and need to fill bubbles, guess however you want. It doesn't matter. Don't waste time memorizing which letter was "best" for which section in the past.
/rant
Re: Guessing strategy based on stats
Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 6:36 am
by tourdeforcex
my thoughts are, if you are on TLS and have a general i'm on top of my shit mentality... why are you guessing like this on the LSAT?
read this kind of stuff when you're nervous out of your mind 2 days before the test, don't dedicate your precious time thinking about this stuff. go do some games. how about the birds in the forest game.
Re: Guessing strategy based on stats
Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 1:34 pm
by boosk
tourdeforcex wrote:my thoughts are, if you are on TLS and have a general i'm on top of my shit mentality... why are you guessing like this on the LSAT?
read this kind of stuff when you're nervous out of your mind 2 days before the test, don't dedicate your precious time thinking about this stuff. go do some games. how about the birds in the forest game.
F those birds in the forest! I hate that ish
Re: Guessing strategy based on stats
Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 2:34 pm
by Manhattan LSAT Noah
Fun stats. Looks like you should guess (D) and do a 1 or 2% better on those last five questions.
Time to get back to studying!
Re: Guessing strategy based on stats
Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 2:44 pm
by 09042014
voice of reason wrote:I remember seeing this when I was studying for the LSAT. It irked me then and it irks me now, because it's sheer nonsense and a misuse of statistics. It's the equivalent of saying that a coin that came up heads 55 times in the last 100 flips is more likely to come up heads on the next one. That's just not true, and they should know better.
The LSAT answer letters are assigned randomly. That they have deviated a little from the expected probability distribution in the past does not imply that they will deviate the same way in the future.
So if you've run out of time and need to fill bubbles, guess however you want. It doesn't matter. Don't waste time memorizing which letter was "best" for which section in the past.
/rant
You don't actually know that they are randomly assigned though. Order of options might be part of the difficulty of the question. A brute force solution works better if it's A than if it's D. So there could be a reason why there is a slight deviation.
Re: Guessing strategy based on stats
Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 3:20 pm
by soj
If you're out of time, just pick D in every remaining question, don't think twice about it, and focus on doing well on the next section.
Re: Guessing strategy based on stats
Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 12:38 am
by BrightLine
In my opinion, this is the exact type of thing that is NOT helpful to focus on for the LSAT.
But ok, I dont have to take the LSAT so ill play. The deviation from 20% is so small that it is to be expected, in fact, it would be odd if the breakdown was exactly 20%. But past deviation should have no bearing on future deviation.
Re: Guessing strategy based on stats
Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 12:39 am
by BrightLine
soj wrote:If you're out of time, just pick D in every remaining question, don't think twice about it, and focus on doing well on the next section question.