Ah, so I shouldn't review wrong answer choices, DUH Forum

[MiracleNeeded]

I guess this is obvious to most, but I think many people are still this way and this might help. I hear time and again from the big lsat folks that you wouldn't go and check the wrong answers just move on when you find the right one. That's why I run out of time so often.

This happens with gems and LR to a lesser extent. I check in games in case I missed something. In LR to make sure there isn't a more attractive answer which I guess is fine for really hard questions.

[mellow]

For games, I agree 100%. The answer choice can only be right or wrong, so move on once you know it's right.

I'm going to have to disagree though for LR and say that you should check all answer choices for a question regardless of its difficulty. Obviously you don't want to be wasting minutes after you find the right answer, but you should still take some time to skim over the other choices. Many times I would circle A or B but then have to change my answer because it was a trap answer and C/D/E was correct. And this is true whether it's #12 or #20 (and even some in #1-10 on the most recent test which many TSLers thought was getting slightly more front-heavy).

I did try out the the "find right answer and move on" tactic for LR before extensively, and while it got me to finishing with a lot more extra time than if I hadn't done this, I found myself making a lot more careless mistakes. A slight term shift I didn't notice, a "right" answer but not the best answer, etc.

[Jeffort]

I guess this is obvious to most, but I think many people are still this way and this might help. I hear time and again from the big lsat folks that you wouldn't go and check the wrong answers just move on when you find the right one. That's why I run out of time so often.

I wouldn't consider anybody that recommends not considering all five LR answers once you find one you like/you think is correct to be 'big LSAT folks'. That is terrible advice, for RC as well. It sounds like something Kaplan would tell students to do. With games it is ok to do with some questions if you are 100% with your work and not taking a little bit of a leap of faith after some but not full thorough analysis of the implications of the relevant rules. Even in those cases, if you have done enough work to conclusively prove the CR, that same work is usually also sufficient to conclusively eliminate the wrong answers in seconds to verify the validity of your analysis and insure you didn't make any mistakes.

In short, that is terrible advice for people trying to score above 150s range. Anyone that recommends this as a general strategy is not an LSAT expert since it will insure you pick many trap answers just to hopefully save a little bit of time. People pick trap answers all the time because they made up their mind about an answer before analyzing everything as carefully/deeply as they should because the answer sounds/looks good superficially on first read and they decide not to analyze things much further/more deeply. This is exactly what trap answers are designed to do, sound good on first read without much thought/analysis to act as attractive distractors that sucker you in and away from thinking much about the CR so if you do read the CR you won't pick it because you already made up your mind to go with an attractive trap!

I guess for people scoring in the 130s-150s that have a lot of timing trouble and cannot get through all of the questions per section that always have to guess on a good amount per section due to not enough time, the strategy could work to increase overall score by a couple points just by getting to attempt a few more questions per section. If your goal is 160+, this is a terrible strategy, but if you are just looking to inch up a few more points from somewhere in a lower score range and are unable to fully attempt a good amount of questions per test due to time, you might be able to go up a few points in those lower score ranges with a pick an answer and run type of strategy, but no guarantee it will work.

[iamgeorgebush]

Agree with above posters, you should always check all five LR answer choices. Same goes for RC. Only for LG should you immediately move on once you find the credited response.

This not, however, mean that you should agonize over what you think are wrong answer choices. You'll have to find a balance between thoroughness and speed.

[bp shinners]

This not, however, mean that you should agonize over what you think are wrong answer choices. You'll have to find a balance between thoroughness and speed.

What Jeffort and the above said, with a highlight on this. If you've just diagrammed a MBT question and have your correct answer choice, don't spend as much time looking at the other ones. If you know you have a sampling fallacy, find that answer choice and don't agonize over that exclusivity answer choice.

[MiracleNeeded]

How about breaking down the argument core by marking conclusion and premise? Should I take time to do that? I haven't been, it might help to break arguments down into pieces.

[iamgeorgebush]

That could be useful as an exercise in your preparation, but in my experience, it would take up too much time to do during the real thing. Bracketing the conclusion is ok though. Of course, you could be different. Experiment and see what works for you.

[Daily_Double]

.

[Jeffort]

How about breaking down the argument core by marking conclusion and premise? Should I take time to do that? I haven't been, it might help to break arguments down into pieces.

Absolutely yes!!!! Doing that and comparing the evidence to the conclusion to figure out the gap between the evidence and conclusion is crucial to being able to spot the correct answer choice easily as well as to be able to quickly and easily discard the wrong answers with confidence. Taking the time to understand the argument properly dramatically cuts down the amount of time it takes you to analyze and make decisions about the answer choices.

If you don't have a good grasp of the structure and reasoning of the argument before diving into the answers, you will have trouble making sense of them quickly in terms of figuring out which ones are clearly irrelevant, etc. and will end up spending more time debating answer choices than if you had simply taken a moment to break down the arg to understand it well before jumping to the answers.

A lot of time students waste that causes them to not have enough time to fully address all the questions is time spent bouncing around debating answer choices and randomly re-reading parts of the argument because they are confused about exactly what is going on in the argument.

Not taking a moment to simply breakdown the argument is actually counterproductive time management because it makes you spend more time debating answers than you save by skipping the arg breakdown step. It also leads to selecting trap answers since the correct answers typically relate to the assumption/flaw and if you didn't spot it by breaking down the core, you will be less likely to recognize how the CR relates to it and in turn to the conclusion and whatever the question stem is asking, making you prone to pick an attractive wrong answer instead.

[LSAT Hacks (Graeme)]

You should absolutely read all five answers. And when you review after a timed section, you should make sure you know why the wrong answers are wrong.

I want to make a distinction when choosing the right answer under timed conditions. The distinction is: did you prephrase?

Consider these two students:

Student A: "I think that the flaw is that the argument reversed sufficient and necessary. Answer D states this error. I'm very certain D is right"

Student B: "I'm not sure what the flaw is. I'll look at the answers to see if they give guidance. Ooh, answer B sounds really good!"

What do you think the odds are that the second student has fallen for a trap answer?

If you know what you're looking for, and you find it, you don't have to give much consideration to the other answers (though you should still read them). If you don't know what you're looking for, then you have to work harder to make sure you haven't fallen for a trap. There are so many traps.

[KingJamesLBJ]

You should absolutely read all five answers. And when you review after a timed section, you should make sure you know why the wrong answers are wrong.

I want to make a distinction when choosing the right answer under timed conditions. The distinction is: did you prephrase?

Consider these two students:

Student A: "I think that the flaw is that the argument reversed sufficient and necessary. Answer D states this error. I'm very certain D is right"

Student B: "I'm not sure what the flaw is. I'll look at the answers to see if they give guidance. Ooh, answer B sounds really good!"

What do you think the odds are that the second student has fallen for a trap answer?

If you know what you're looking for, and you find it, you don't have to give much consideration to the other answers (though you should still read them). If you don't know what you're looking for, then you have to work harder to make sure you haven't fallen for a trap. There are so many traps.

I used some of your books. Not bad, not bad

[sashafierce]

Consider these two students:

Student A: "I think that the flaw is that the argument reversed sufficient and necessary. Answer D states this error. I'm very certain D is right"

Student B: "I'm not sure what the flaw is. I'll look at the answers to see if they give guidance. Ooh, answer B sounds really good!"

What do you think the odds are that the second student has fallen for a trap answer?

If you know what you're looking for, and you find it, you don't have to give much consideration to the other answers (though you should still read them). If you don't know what you're looking for, then you have to work harder to make sure you haven't fallen for a trap. There are so many traps.

Thank you for making the distinction because for some questions (first 10-15) I am student A, for other questions (16-25) I am student B. When I am student A I waste time doing what student B should be has to do which cuts down on the time I have to answer the harder questions (16-25)

[bp shinners]

Thank you for making the distinction because for some questions (first 10-15) I am student A, for other questions (16-25) I am student B. When I am student A I waste time doing what student B should be has to do which cuts down on the time I have to answer the harder questions (16-25)

Yep, and knowing what type of student you are for each question helps your approach. It's unrealistic to think that you'll prephrase an answer for every question - and if you can't, don't force it. But knowing that you don't have a prephrase means you need to spend more time on each answer choice, and not buy into one 100% until you've read them all.