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What do you call this? careless? or fatigued mind?

Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2012 2:25 pm
by naillsat
I have problems with being consistent in LR sections.

If I slow down and loosely timed, I can score -2 to 0 on the LR (time: 40 +/- 2minutes), however, if I get the nerves on under strict 35 minutes timing, I usually get -5 to -8 when I do two LR sections back-to-back (first LR usually has fewer mistakes than the second LR section).

When I review the missed questions, I found that I have very good understanding and pre-pharased answers, they are not that hard at all. Same things happened to my RC as well. When I work on an RC section, I usually get -1 to 0 missing on the first two passages, however, things get much worse in the last two passages (-4 to -6).

In addition, I noticed a pattern for my missed LR questions - weaken/strengthen questions account for more than 90% of my mistakes. For RC, I do pretty well in social and law-related, but poorly in science-related passages, which is a big shame to me, because I have a PhD in science already and have been reading so many dense papers from Science and Nature.

What do you guys call this? careless or fatigued mind? What should I do to make a significant improvement? thanks!

Re: What do you call this? careless? or fatigued mind?

Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2012 3:10 pm
by MLBrandow
naillsat,

I recommend taking maybe a week off and doing these:

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If you're against buying these packets, for LR at least you can use the following list of LR questions by type:
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 6&t=108425

Instead of blaming fatigue, try practicing areas you're weak. Instead of reading Science magazine, try reading science LSAT passages. Your LR speed will increase as you do more questions. Ask yourself what is taking you the longest on these questions? Are you reading every answer choice in the first few questions even though you can clearly identify the correct answer? If you can breeze through the first 5 or so in 30seconds each, that already earns you 2-3 minutes of extra time to spend on the questions giving you trouble. If you're consistently slow on strengthen and weaken questions only, drill only those questions for a few days and you're likely to increase your speed and accuracy.

Ask yourself why things are much worse in the latter passages. Are you spending more than 10 minutes per passage? Are you spending 3-4 minutes reading the passage or 1-2 minutes? Are you highlighting and boxing and marking every single word, or only marking very important things, if any? Which questions are taking you the longest? Answering these questions are key in reviewing and learning from your mistakes. Use your practice time to identify and annihilate your weaknesses, not acknowledge and wallow in them.

Good luck!

Re: What do you call this? careless? or fatigued mind?

Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2012 4:45 pm
by princeR
@MLBrandon

I've noticed several differant threads you have given advise in, just want to thank you, you have some very encouraging words, but more importantly sound advise that everyone needs to hear.

Re: What do you call this? careless? or fatigued mind?

Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2012 4:59 pm
by 20130312
princeR wrote:I've noticed several differant threads you have given advise in, just want to thank you, you have some very encouraging words, but more importantly sound advise that everyone needs to hear.
The only "careless" thing ITT is this sentence (if you can call it that).

Re: What do you call this? careless? or fatigued mind?

Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2012 5:02 pm
by t14fanboy
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Re: What do you call this? careless? or fatigued mind?

Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2012 5:45 pm
by princeR
InGoodFaith wrote:
princeR wrote:I've noticed several differant threads you have given advise in, just want to thank you, you have some very encouraging words, but more importantly sound advise that everyone needs to hear.
The only "careless" thing ITT is this sentence (if you can call it that).
lol, just reread that sentence... ya, its been a long day.