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Long time listener, first time caller here.

Studying for OCT LSAT and plan to do a few more PTs before test day.
Here's my idea. Instead of a 5th experimental section I plan to include 25/26 parallel reasoning questions from the cambridge packet....Or 4 Natural science passages etc.

Thoughts? Will this throw me off? Anybody done this before?

Half of the challenge of working in testing conditions is being able to switch from one mode of reasoning to another from question to question. I certainly don't think it would hurt you, but it won't actively help you either.

Beyond this, half of the purpose of drilling -- at least in my eyes -- is to spend more time working on fundamentals: evaluating the core of the argument, identifying an author's purpose, etc. I generally do drilling untimed and take more time per question than I would on a test so I can more thoroughly dive into the arguments and thereby enhance those fundamental skills. Basically, by trying to drill within a PT, you would be sacrificing one of the primary benefits of doing a timed section in testing conditions (switching between question types) for the sake of drilling in a manner that won't actually provide you with one of the main benefits of drilling due to time pressure.

So yeah, I say no. It would probably do nothing. Just drill those materials outside of your PTs.

rumandredbull wrote:Long time listener, first time caller here.

Studying for OCT LSAT and plan to do a few more PTs before test day.
Here's my idea. Instead of a 5th experimental section I plan to include 25/26 parallel reasoning questions from the cambridge packet....Or 4 Natural science passages etc.

Thoughts? Will this throw me off? Anybody done this before?

Well, the whole point of doing a fifth section is doing a fifth section, under timed conditions and everything. If you design your own section (which is effectively what you're doing by taking it from the Cambridge packets), you will invariably create a faux-section that cannot be completed in 35 minutes.

An assortment of 25 questions does not a true section make, IMO. What you're doing if you go ahead with your plan is one 4-section PT + some Parallel LR drilling.

JWP1022 wrote:Half of the challenge of working in testing conditions is being able to switch from one mode of reasoning to another from question to question. I certainly don't think it would hurt you, but it won't actively help you either.

Beyond this, half of the purpose of drilling -- at least in my eyes -- is to spend more time working on fundamentals: evaluating the core of the argument, identifying an author's purpose, etc. I generally do drilling untimed and take more time per question than I would on a test so I can more thoroughly dive into the arguments and thereby enhance those fundamental skills. Basically, by trying to drill within a PT, you would be sacrificing one of the primary benefits of doing a timed section in testing conditions (switching between question types) for the sake of drilling in a manner that won't actually provide you with one of the main benefits of drilling due to time pressure.

So yeah, I say no. It would probably do nothing. Just drill those materials outside of your PTs.

That makes sense. Thanks for your response.