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Hey Guys
Would some please help on how to deal with dense LR stim. Some of the stims confuse the heck out of me. I mean some stim I have to reread 5 times and even then I am kind of lost. Thanks for the help.

God bless

Been there. Just keep reading and exposing yourself to more LR problems. Eventually, it will become old hat.

glucose101 wrote:Been there. Just keep reading and exposing yourself to more LR problems. Eventually, it will become old hat.

yeah what he said. I don't even really have to read them now.
disclaimer: I go -8 on LR in total

I feel most confident about the LR section (haven't missed more than 2 in one section in a long time), but there are still some stims that I have to reread multiple times to get. As long as you can finish in time, I wouldn't worry about it.

For me though, there's still a difference between reading the LR passages, and answering them correctly.

Some of the very long ones are actually very straightforward flaws, assumptions etc. The shorter a stimulus is the more scared I usually get. There is one flaw question that for the life of me I can't remember that demonstrates my point. It's about risk taking in business school and ethics and a whole bunch of crap. The only thing you have to know though is that the argument conflates correlation for causation.

But I get what you mean. Practice reading them more than just once or twice. A very underrated technique is to cut out all of the questions you get wrong and paste them on some sort of a study guide. If you keep reviewing all of your wrong answers I think it might help you out a little.

ETA: It's question 6 on PT 57. I know it's question six. That definitely makes a difference but what I said I still believe is true. Most of the longer stimulus questions just take practice reading through.

First, I would like thank everyone for the replies. I really appreciate all your advice. Second, Not only are some stims dense but I get tired of reading them and the really LONG AC specially the Parallel and Parallel Flaw. I have tried practice reading more often and longer by reading the New Yorker and the Economist but they are actually much easier then some of the stims and AC.

God bless.

The New Yorker and The Economist won't really give you such complex arguments as presented in the LR section. Just re-read LR problems you've done already.

nmop_apisdn wrote:

meandme wrote:First, I would like thank everyone for the replies. I really appreciate all your advice. Second, Not only are some stims dense but I get tired of reading them and the really LONG AC specially the Parallel and Parallel Flaw. I have tried practice reading more often and longer by reading the New Yorker and the Economist but they are actually much easier then some of the stims and AC.

God bless.

Yeah dude. Don't be afraid of the long questions/answer choices. They are normally the ones that will be easier.

Also, if you come across a long question, such as a parallel, in questions 11-25, I would skip it and come back to it at the end. It's better to waste 1 point to a guess than 5.

Also, for a question with a longer stimulus, make sure that you try and locate the conclusion of the argument (if it's an argument) and then find the evidence that the author uses in support.

Lastly, if its a long parallel flaw, make sure you know what flaw the stimulus has committed (its usually pretty obvious in parallel questions for some reason) and match the flaw in the answer choices.

Good luck and God bless America!

This is great advice (though personally I'm not a fan of jumping around/skipping questions).

Keep in mind that when you are given a long stimulus, more often than not, the test writers are testing your ability to prioritize--to recognize the components that are important to pay attention to--rather than your ability to keep a lot of things in your head at once. In fact, thinking that your job is to hold the entirety of a complex stimulus in your head as you deal with the answers is a surefire way to make the questions harder than they need to be. I think nmop_apisdn offers some stellar tips about how to see the trees rather than the forest.

Thank you guys so much for all the help. One question I have is are there any key words to help me out. For instance, in RC I know to pay close attention to the author attitude and keep in mind which pay the passage is going. I am not talking about the conditional statement indicators to help diagram in LR. I am aware of those but something to underline or circle to help understand the stim and the AC. I did my first LR section today. I got a 10/25. I am hoping to improve this to at least a 20/25 or somewhere close to that.

Thanks
God bless

meandme wrote:Thank you guys so much for all the help. One question I have is are there any key words to help me out. For instance, in RC I know to pay close attention to the author attitude and keep in mind which pay the passage is going. I am not talking about the conditional statement indicators to help diagram in LR. I am aware of those but something to underline or circle to help understand the stim and the AC. I did my first LR section today. I got a 10/25. I am hoping to improve this to at least a 20/25 or somewhere close to that.

Thanks
God bless

Okay, I'm not exactly sure about what you're asking, but here are a few tips off the top of my head.

Practice circling words like some, many, most, all, at least one, etc... this are called quantifiers, as they quantify the amount of X that they are talking about. By practicing to circle these words, you'll become more familiar to pay attention to them, as they are important.
When reading the stimulus, circle the conclusion and underline the direct support it has for that conclusion. Soon enough, you'll be able to see these two as separate things without having to underline the support; I still think its a good idea to circle the conclusion.

nmop_apisdn wrote:

meandme wrote:Thank you guys so much for all the help. One question I have is are there any key words to help me out. For instance, in RC I know to pay close attention to the author attitude and keep in mind which pay the passage is going. I am not talking about the conditional statement indicators to help diagram in LR. I am aware of those but something to underline or circle to help understand the stim and the AC. I did my first LR section today. I got a 10/25. I am hoping to improve this to at least a 20/25 or somewhere close to that.

Thanks
God bless

Okay, I'm not exactly sure about what you're asking, but here are a few tips off the top of my head.

Practice circling words like some, many, most, all, at least one, etc... this are called quantifiers, as they quantify the amount of X that they are talking about. By practicing to circle these words, you'll become more familiar to pay attention to them, as they are important.
When reading the stimulus, circle the conclusion and underline the direct support it has for that conclusion. Soon enough, you'll be able to see these two as separate things without having to underline the support; I still think its a good idea to circle the conclusion.

Agreed. The trick to the super long and confusing stims is to be able to recognize what is importaint. Being able to spot the conclusion, supporting evidence, and fluff will make those questions much more manageable. I, personally, use [brackets] for the conclusion.

Also, Read the question first. Knowing what you are looking for helps.

Nova wrote:

nmop_apisdn wrote:

meandme wrote:Thank you guys so much for all the help. One question I have is are there any key words to help me out. For instance, in RC I know to pay close attention to the author attitude and keep in mind which pay the passage is going. I am not talking about the conditional statement indicators to help diagram in LR. I am aware of those but something to underline or circle to help understand the stim and the AC. I did my first LR section today. I got a 10/25. I am hoping to improve this to at least a 20/25 or somewhere close to that.

Thanks
God bless

Okay, I'm not exactly sure about what you're asking, but here are a few tips off the top of my head.

Practice circling words like some, many, most, all, at least one, etc... this are called quantifiers, as they quantify the amount of X that they are talking about. By practicing to circle these words, you'll become more familiar to pay attention to them, as they are important.
When reading the stimulus, circle the conclusion and underline the direct support it has for that conclusion. Soon enough, you'll be able to see these two as separate things without having to underline the support; I still think its a good idea to circle the conclusion.

Agreed. The trick to the super long and confusing stims is to be able to recognize what is importaint. Being able to spot the conclusion, supporting evidence, and fluff will make those questions much more manageable. I, personally, use [brackets] for the conclusion.

Also, Read the question first. Knowing what you are looking for helps.

+100. Reading the stem first should be necessary. They put it second to fuck with you, making you think it should be read second.

IMO.

nmop_apisdn wrote:Practice circling words like some, many, most, all, at least one, etc... this are called quantifiers, as they quantify the amount of X that they are talking about. By practicing to circle these words, you'll become more familiar to pay attention to them, as they are important.
When reading the stimulus, circle the conclusion and underline the direct support it has for that conclusion. Soon enough, you'll be able to see these two as separate things without having to underline the support; I still think its a good idea to circle the conclusion.

Agreed. The trick to the super long and confusing stims is to be able to recognize what is importaint. Being able to spot the conclusion, supporting evidence, and fluff will make those questions much more manageable. I, personally, use [brackets] for the conclusion.

Also, Read the question first. Knowing what you are looking for helps.

Quoted to reinforce how great these two recommendations are. I underline the conclusion; anything else must be a premise. I do recommend circling logical force keywords (may, might, can, etc...) because your brain is used to skipping over those words.

I find a lot of times if I just keep reading the question and answer choices (vs getting hung up and rereading the prompt before the answer choices) it becomes more clear. Not sure why... sometimes you get that LR too which is just "How does XXX play a role in the argument?" which you really don't even need to understand the subject matter in that instance. I say just keep reading and read the answer choices.