Templates for keeping track of LR Questions Forum

[penguinbrah]

Does anyone have any efficient ideas for keeping track of LR questions on word or excel?

I'm trying to figure out the best way to keep track of every single question I work. I want to write down a paraphrase of the argument, any recognizable patterns, why I chose the answer, why the wrong answers are wrong, etc., but I'm finding it is very time consuming to re-type the entire questions again in word. Do any of you guys have a good system of doing this?

[Oscar85]

What's wrong with the good ol' Prep Test Number, Q Number, S Number approach? That way you don't have to type it out, but can always reference to it from your spreadsheet.

[North]

I've found the clerical aspects of LR very hard to work with too -- in fact, I'd say I'm more frustrated with that than the actual questions. It's just not easy to keep track of patterns because there are so many damn questions.

I've recently decided upon this practice: I keep a master version of all the LR sections I've worked on wherein individual questions are labeled by their type. I use the blank backs of the pages to write out the sorts of things you mentioned for questions I got incorrect. When I repeat a question during drilling, I go back and update the corresponding back of the page with any new tendencies, patterns, or mistakes I noticed. It took a lot of paper and a lot of time to label the questions by type, and I'm still not even sure that it's the most efficient (in the long run, of course, because my entire last week was a huge time sink of clerical bullshit with little real studying) way to go about it. Once I've done all the questions one time through, I'll be able to do some crude analyses of my performance -- like determining the frequency at which I miss question types. If that system interests you (and I doubt it does) I can send you what I have to save you some time.

Yeah, I though LG was difficult to approach in an organized manner. LR is keeping me up at night...

[cgw]

I prefer to hand write things rather than type. I think it helps my memory. I write out all the things you're mentioning: conclusion, why the answer is wrong/right, etc. on lined paper and then just paperclip it to the test. I do this for the ones I get wrong and the ones I thought were hard. When I drill by type, I do it for almost all of them.

[penguinbrah]

I've found the clerical aspects of LR very hard to work with too -- in fact, I'd say I'm more frustrated with that than the actual questions. It's just not easy to keep track of patterns because there are so many damn questions.

I've recently decided upon this practice: I keep a master version of all the LR sections I've worked on wherein individual questions are labeled by their type. I use the blank backs of the pages to write out the sorts of things you mentioned for questions I got incorrect. When I repeat a question during drilling, I go back and update the corresponding back of the page with any new tendencies, patterns, or mistakes I noticed. It took a lot of paper and a lot of time to label the questions by type, and I'm still not even sure that it's the most efficient (in the long run, of course, because my entire last week was a huge time sink of clerical bullshit with little real studying) way to go about it. Once I've done all the questions one time through, I'll be able to do some crude analyses of my performance -- like determining the frequency at which I miss question types. If that system interests you (and I doubt it does) I can send you what I have to save you some time.

Yeah, I though LG was difficult to approach in an organized manner. LR is keeping me up at night...

That does seem interesting although I'm a little confused as to what your master list looks like. I'd appreciate it if you could share it with me - I'll pm you.

I prefer to hand write things rather than type. I think it helps my memory. I write out all the things you're mentioning: conclusion, why the answer is wrong/right, etc. on lined paper and then just paperclip it to the test. I do this for the ones I get wrong and the ones I thought were hard. When I drill by type, I do it for almost all of them.

I just got tired of handwriting because it was so time consuming. I was writing the question number and type in a legal pad and I ended up not even going back to look at it for the June test. I might try to make an excel document to do this same exact thing because I type way faster than I write.