Best to study for LR and RC Forum

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sjohnson4382

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Best to study for LR and RC

Post by sjohnson4382 » Wed Oct 05, 2011 1:09 pm

Other than the book game throwing me for a loop due to a mistake in inferences LG is definitely my strong point. I normally do not miss any of these or maybe 1 at most, however my LR and RC are very suspect. I have taken God knows how many practice tests and studied the Logical Reasoning Bible endlessly, however when it comes to the actual test day I tend to throw all that out the window for some reason. The weaken questions appear to be my major downfall as I never feel like I can find the right answer. What program is best to help with these? Also I got the Atlas RC book and it was a help during practice tests, however when i get under test pressure I forget and tend to have to read the passage 3 times which obviously doesn't leave me the time I need for the last 2 passages and I end up rushing. What are some other programs that I can look at during the next 2 months to try to help with these sections?

totaltest.milan

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Re: Best to study for LR and RC

Post by totaltest.milan » Wed Oct 05, 2011 2:03 pm

Do you have issues with anxiety/nerves? That might be a reason why your preparation goes out the window on test day. Or maybe you didn't prepare under realistic test conditions and didn't have a good expectation of how much effort you'll have to put in. But I would guess it's test anxiety, assuming that you're doing well on the preptests but can't follow through on the actual exam. The quick answer is that anxiety is a result of a perceived loss of control and the best way to deal with it is to convince yourself that you have control. The standard way of doing that is through preparation so that you don't feel that you'll be surprised by any questions and so that you have a realistic expectation that you'll do well because you've already done well in practice. But if you've already practiced a lot and are doing well then I'll have to ask you to be a bit more specific about your problems with the sections so that maybe I can give you some more detailed advice. As for suggestions for prep material you can take a look at my site, Manhattan LSAT has good stuff, as does Velocity LSAT.

CodyRuegger

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Re: Best to study for LR and RC

Post by CodyRuegger » Wed Oct 05, 2011 2:22 pm

Hey, I had a similar problem - it took me about a week or two to get good at games, but the other two sections by nature are much harder to master.

First of all, if you're timing yourself at this point on practice tests, then stop. For now, just worry about getting everything you can right, then you can worry about doing them more quickly later on.

I'd also recommend getting the Cambridge LSAT compilation of hard problems, I think it's called LSAT Challenge or something along those lines. It's a compilation of only hard problems, and for me it was instrumental in improving my LR score. If you can teach yourself how to reason through the hardest problems, you'll be in much better shape on your practice tests. The problem with this book, however, is that it only pulls problems from PT's 1-40, and didn't seem quite as useful in the most recent PT's. In lieu of this, just focus on doing individual LR sections rather than pressuring yourself with whole practice tests.

RC is probably the hardest to do serious preparation for, but in general, the more of them you do, the better you'll be at them. Read aggressively and exude confidence while you work through the passages, and you won't miss too much key information.

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