Aside from the advice that is already posted on general improvement, I wanted to see if anyone had any specific advice for making this transition.
My last five test:
TEST 29 164
TEST C 161
TEST 31 160
TEST 32 163
TEST 33 163
Breakdown for my most recent test 33 was:
LR1:-8 (higher then normal, avg about -5)
RC: -6 (avg more around -8)
LR2: -7 (supra)
LG: -2 (avg-2 to -4)
My planned study schedule for the upcoming months:
March
M- LG 125, T-LR 125, W-PT, TH-125 RC, F-PT, SAT-PT, S- Off
April
M- LG 150, T-LR 150, W-PT, TH-150 RC, F-PT, SAT-PT, S- Off
May
M- LG 150, T-LR 150, W-PT, TH-150 RC, F-PT, SAT-Two PT's back to back, S- Off
Does anyone have any suggestions of whether or not I should add or remove some phase of studying. When I do a specific section, I do it in drill format. For example, Monday, I would Drill 150 LG questions using the various Cambridge packets. And as the months progress I would focus more and more on the problems I have the most issues with.
My usual review strategy is if I get it wrong, I will go back and re-try the question/problem now choosing from the 4 remaining answers(excluding my wrong answer). If I get it wrong a second time I either go to the Manhattan forum and read the explanation or I go watch the 7sage video(if it is LG).
Again, I am open to all comments, suggestions, and criticism.
Moving from 1 164 Avg to 170 Avg. Forum
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WaltGrace83
- Posts: 719
- Joined: Fri Apr 12, 2013 5:55 pm
Re: Moving from 1 164 Avg to 170 Avg.
Here is your problem. You should be doing the following...Mr.Esquire wrote:Aside from the advice that is already posted on general improvement, I wanted to see if anyone had any specific advice for making this transition.
My last five test:
TEST 29 164
TEST C 161
TEST 31 160
TEST 32 163
TEST 33 163
Breakdown for my most recent test 33 was:
LR1:-8 (higher then normal, avg about -5)
RC: -6 (avg more around -8)
LR2: -7 (supra)
LG: -2 (avg-2 to -4)
My planned study schedule for the upcoming months:
March
M- LG 125, T-LR 125, W-PT, TH-125 RC, F-PT, SAT-PT, S- Off
April
M- LG 150, T-LR 150, W-PT, TH-150 RC, F-PT, SAT-PT, S- Off
May
M- LG 150, T-LR 150, W-PT, TH-150 RC, F-PT, SAT-Two PT's back to back, S- Off
Does anyone have any suggestions of whether or not I should add or remove some phase of studying. When I do a specific section, I do it in drill format. For example, Monday, I would Drill 150 LG questions using the various Cambridge packets. And as the months progress I would focus more and more on the problems I have the most issues with.
My usual review strategy is if I get it wrong, I will go back and re-try the question/problem now choosing from the 4 remaining answers(excluding my wrong answer). If I get it wrong a second time I either go to the Manhattan forum and read the explanation or I go watch the 7sage video(if it is LG).
Again, I am open to all comments, suggestions, and criticism.
Complete problem/sets --> Review --> Check Answer --> Revisit.
Don't check and THEN review/revisit.
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Mr.Esquire
- Posts: 66
- Joined: Sun Sep 22, 2013 8:01 pm
Re: Moving from 1 164 Avg to 170 Avg.
Bump...let me know people
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Jeffort
- Posts: 1888
- Joined: Wed Jun 18, 2008 4:43 pm
Re: Moving from 1 164 Avg to 170 Avg.
Don't focus on quantity of questions per session. If you do, especially with your planned #s of 125/150 Qs/day, you'll have to sacrifice almost all of the important quality deep review and analysis of each question. The point of drilling with review is to learn a bunch of stuff from each question, figure out your reasoning and approach mistakes, and deepen your understanding/familiarity of the logic while also practicing and improving your analysis skills. That's where the real learning, skill building and actual score improvements come from, not from the act of blazing through a bunch of questions trying to get as many correct as possible over and over in a sitting and/or during most of your prep/drilling time.
You need to read or re-read some of the various study guides linked in the sticky thread and/or any of the many other threads where deep drilling and review is described in detail with the dos and don'ts. It's all about trying to get better at applying the proper analytical approaches/strategies to questions over and over to make sure you are thinking everything through properly and making answer choice decisions based on the right reasons to increase your accuracy. You must make sure you completely understand the logic of each question, including logically why each wrong answer is logically incorrect as well as why the CR is logically correct, why the attractive trap answer(s) are attractive but yet wrong, what the flaws/assumptions of the argument are, etc.
Properly drilling with proper review is a very deep involved process that involves way more than just trying to pump through 150 questions in a day, checking the answer key, just making sure you understand in hindsight why the CR is right and what you picked is wrong on some superficial level and then just continuing to blaze along hoping to get more correct as you go and 'try harder' to not screw like on a few before where you think your mistake was mainly just getting careless.
A huge part of the process that is super important is figuring out the mistakes in your approach and step by step thought processes that you go through from start to finish to land on an answer choice selection and then working hard to create better habits and routines based on the logic of the test rather than partly on superficial prep tricks/guidelines/rules of thumb/gut instincts/etc.
Trying to do 125/150 questions per day leaves pretty much no deep review and learning from your mistakes and from the questions themselves time and instead would end up being a lot like just doing fairly brisk timed practice just with a bunch of the same type instead of section format. You don't really learn much doing that except frustration and how to try to guess better when down to two contenders you can't logically distinguish.
Anyway, that's my .02 for the moment. Quality drilling over quantity of questions used. You can have a super productive session where you learn a ton and improve your skills just from 10-15 LR questions for several hours very easily. You need to use them correctly instead of just seeing if you can quickly pin the tail on the donkey correctly first try over and over with a bunch of questions in a row and calling that drilling.
Also, getting questions correct does not mean that you did for the right reasons from actually understanding and seeing the logic properly. You must review and understand all questions to make sure you are using valid logic and valid reasons to select answers, not just POE based reasons with brute force by picking answer choices apart superficially as your main tactic to arrive at final selection. That does work fairly well for a lot of questions to get you into the 160s range but breaks down on higher difficulty level questions you must get correct to rise into the mid 160s and above consistently that will carry over to test day.
A lot of people prep their way to low/mid 160s scores and even high 160s/low 170s on PTs using almost purely brute force tactics to solve most questions by POE and never develop the skills to be able to spot, recognize, and understand the CR for the right reasons under test conditions as the basis for selecting it with the high difficulty level questions. Instead, mainly brute force people get to CR almost entirely from POE on hard questions from not seeing anything in its phrasing to nitpick at for exclusion and deciding it sounds good enough in light of having figured out reasons to cross out the others, NOT usually from thinking "Oh yeah, it's right cuz xyz logicz". That approach on test day pretty much guarantees a sub 170s range score, probably 165 at best leaning towards 162/3. People that get really high PT scores from getting good at POE method for the hard questions rather than knowing why right answers for them are right at the time picking an answer typically score much lower than high PTs on test day because test day pressure and nervousness throws off confidence in POE skills/reasons and interpretations of the text when the tactic is most likely to fail anyway, on the top end difficulty questions you need correct to break 170 with CRs intentionally written in ways to make you want to eliminate them for some superficial reason if you don't see the deep logic of why its correct when you read it.
It's imperative to develop the skills to be able to recognize and understand the CR as being correct for the right reasons on top end difficulty questions without arriving at selecting it mainly by POE in a way where POE is only a confirmation tool along with your understanding from analysis that a particular answer is the correct one to verify that you didn't make any mistakes from either point of view. That combination of skills to be able to validate your choices both through POE and by seeing/understanding why the CR is logically correct at the time you make your selections is necessary to break 170 and why the mainly brute force strategy maxes scores out around mid/high 160s and acts as a barrier to 170 range.
The test writers intentionally include a good amount of questions per test with CRs written in ways to elude selection by brute forcers that don't 'see' the deeper logic involved in the question that is being tested in order to effectively create enough misses to prevent 170+ with the strategy. In essence, the test writers intentionally write many CRs in ways to stealth them from brute force test takers that didn't analyze the stimulus deeply below the surface to determine assumptions/underlying implications created by the relationships between the explicit pieces before diving into the answers. One tactic is by writing it with distant or otherwise difficult phrasing so the clear overall meaning and substance of the sentence isn't at all apparent/obvious just from a surface level read. Another is to put something in the phrasing to make it sound off in a superficial way that seems similar to why many other wrong answers have been wrong but that doesn't make it flawed in the context of that specific question. People that rely heavily on POE tools based on superficial characteristics of the phrasings of answer choices rather than on why the idea expressed is logically wrong get suckered by the intentional design of many level 4 questions since they're designed to make sure people that don't process answers on a deeper level don't land on the correct one.
Also, your review strategy of jumping right back in for a second try to find the CR obliterates one of the most important steps of review that is the best source of figuring out key problems with your reasoning processes. Figuring out all the reasons along the way up to selecting a wrong answer that you thought and used to NOT choose the correct answer on first attempt is the main and most important starting point for figuring out the core flaws/weaknesses in your skill set and approach. Your review processes should all be guided towards developing better abilities to spot and recognize the CR logically when you read and analyze it the first time so that you actually understand and logically KNOW its correct right when you analyze it and won't be susceptible to even being tempted by trap answers and have to second guess yourself. Achieving a 170+ test day score requires having that level of understanding and confidence in your answers for almost every question per test with less than around 5-10 total per PT where you were even a little shaky in the certainty of your choices when you made them. Under test day conditions those iffy questions decisions don't tend to break in your favor as much as they do on timed PTs and if high PT scores have been built on a lot of lucky breaks from close judgment calls on hard questions per test, those weaknesses will be exploited severely on test day for a significant point drop just from the stress and pressure along with extra anxiety and second guessing due to shaky confidence concerning 'correctness' when in a bind.
You need to read or re-read some of the various study guides linked in the sticky thread and/or any of the many other threads where deep drilling and review is described in detail with the dos and don'ts. It's all about trying to get better at applying the proper analytical approaches/strategies to questions over and over to make sure you are thinking everything through properly and making answer choice decisions based on the right reasons to increase your accuracy. You must make sure you completely understand the logic of each question, including logically why each wrong answer is logically incorrect as well as why the CR is logically correct, why the attractive trap answer(s) are attractive but yet wrong, what the flaws/assumptions of the argument are, etc.
Properly drilling with proper review is a very deep involved process that involves way more than just trying to pump through 150 questions in a day, checking the answer key, just making sure you understand in hindsight why the CR is right and what you picked is wrong on some superficial level and then just continuing to blaze along hoping to get more correct as you go and 'try harder' to not screw like on a few before where you think your mistake was mainly just getting careless.
A huge part of the process that is super important is figuring out the mistakes in your approach and step by step thought processes that you go through from start to finish to land on an answer choice selection and then working hard to create better habits and routines based on the logic of the test rather than partly on superficial prep tricks/guidelines/rules of thumb/gut instincts/etc.
Trying to do 125/150 questions per day leaves pretty much no deep review and learning from your mistakes and from the questions themselves time and instead would end up being a lot like just doing fairly brisk timed practice just with a bunch of the same type instead of section format. You don't really learn much doing that except frustration and how to try to guess better when down to two contenders you can't logically distinguish.
Anyway, that's my .02 for the moment. Quality drilling over quantity of questions used. You can have a super productive session where you learn a ton and improve your skills just from 10-15 LR questions for several hours very easily. You need to use them correctly instead of just seeing if you can quickly pin the tail on the donkey correctly first try over and over with a bunch of questions in a row and calling that drilling.
Also, getting questions correct does not mean that you did for the right reasons from actually understanding and seeing the logic properly. You must review and understand all questions to make sure you are using valid logic and valid reasons to select answers, not just POE based reasons with brute force by picking answer choices apart superficially as your main tactic to arrive at final selection. That does work fairly well for a lot of questions to get you into the 160s range but breaks down on higher difficulty level questions you must get correct to rise into the mid 160s and above consistently that will carry over to test day.
A lot of people prep their way to low/mid 160s scores and even high 160s/low 170s on PTs using almost purely brute force tactics to solve most questions by POE and never develop the skills to be able to spot, recognize, and understand the CR for the right reasons under test conditions as the basis for selecting it with the high difficulty level questions. Instead, mainly brute force people get to CR almost entirely from POE on hard questions from not seeing anything in its phrasing to nitpick at for exclusion and deciding it sounds good enough in light of having figured out reasons to cross out the others, NOT usually from thinking "Oh yeah, it's right cuz xyz logicz". That approach on test day pretty much guarantees a sub 170s range score, probably 165 at best leaning towards 162/3. People that get really high PT scores from getting good at POE method for the hard questions rather than knowing why right answers for them are right at the time picking an answer typically score much lower than high PTs on test day because test day pressure and nervousness throws off confidence in POE skills/reasons and interpretations of the text when the tactic is most likely to fail anyway, on the top end difficulty questions you need correct to break 170 with CRs intentionally written in ways to make you want to eliminate them for some superficial reason if you don't see the deep logic of why its correct when you read it.
It's imperative to develop the skills to be able to recognize and understand the CR as being correct for the right reasons on top end difficulty questions without arriving at selecting it mainly by POE in a way where POE is only a confirmation tool along with your understanding from analysis that a particular answer is the correct one to verify that you didn't make any mistakes from either point of view. That combination of skills to be able to validate your choices both through POE and by seeing/understanding why the CR is logically correct at the time you make your selections is necessary to break 170 and why the mainly brute force strategy maxes scores out around mid/high 160s and acts as a barrier to 170 range.
The test writers intentionally include a good amount of questions per test with CRs written in ways to elude selection by brute forcers that don't 'see' the deeper logic involved in the question that is being tested in order to effectively create enough misses to prevent 170+ with the strategy. In essence, the test writers intentionally write many CRs in ways to stealth them from brute force test takers that didn't analyze the stimulus deeply below the surface to determine assumptions/underlying implications created by the relationships between the explicit pieces before diving into the answers. One tactic is by writing it with distant or otherwise difficult phrasing so the clear overall meaning and substance of the sentence isn't at all apparent/obvious just from a surface level read. Another is to put something in the phrasing to make it sound off in a superficial way that seems similar to why many other wrong answers have been wrong but that doesn't make it flawed in the context of that specific question. People that rely heavily on POE tools based on superficial characteristics of the phrasings of answer choices rather than on why the idea expressed is logically wrong get suckered by the intentional design of many level 4 questions since they're designed to make sure people that don't process answers on a deeper level don't land on the correct one.
Also, your review strategy of jumping right back in for a second try to find the CR obliterates one of the most important steps of review that is the best source of figuring out key problems with your reasoning processes. Figuring out all the reasons along the way up to selecting a wrong answer that you thought and used to NOT choose the correct answer on first attempt is the main and most important starting point for figuring out the core flaws/weaknesses in your skill set and approach. Your review processes should all be guided towards developing better abilities to spot and recognize the CR logically when you read and analyze it the first time so that you actually understand and logically KNOW its correct right when you analyze it and won't be susceptible to even being tempted by trap answers and have to second guess yourself. Achieving a 170+ test day score requires having that level of understanding and confidence in your answers for almost every question per test with less than around 5-10 total per PT where you were even a little shaky in the certainty of your choices when you made them. Under test day conditions those iffy questions decisions don't tend to break in your favor as much as they do on timed PTs and if high PT scores have been built on a lot of lucky breaks from close judgment calls on hard questions per test, those weaknesses will be exploited severely on test day for a significant point drop just from the stress and pressure along with extra anxiety and second guessing due to shaky confidence concerning 'correctness' when in a bind.
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Mr.Esquire
- Posts: 66
- Joined: Sun Sep 22, 2013 8:01 pm
Re: Moving from 1 164 Avg to 170 Avg.
Thats for taking some time and giving me some great suggestions. They made perfect sense, and I will implement them immediately.
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Jeffort
- Posts: 1888
- Joined: Wed Jun 18, 2008 4:43 pm
Re: Moving from 1 164 Avg to 170 Avg.
Cool, glad I could help.
Simply put, the goal of quality review is two fold: to make sure you completely understand why the CR is logically correct AND to figure out why your analysis process/approach didn't result in you figuring out and realizing those valid logical reasons at the time you attempted the question and read and analyzed the CR but instead lead you to believing it was incorrect and another wrong answer was correct. You must carefully examine your thought processes that lead to you having inaccurate beliefs about the correctness and reasoning behind the answer choices.
Simply put, the goal of quality review is two fold: to make sure you completely understand why the CR is logically correct AND to figure out why your analysis process/approach didn't result in you figuring out and realizing those valid logical reasons at the time you attempted the question and read and analyzed the CR but instead lead you to believing it was incorrect and another wrong answer was correct. You must carefully examine your thought processes that lead to you having inaccurate beliefs about the correctness and reasoning behind the answer choices.
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Mr.Esquire
- Posts: 66
- Joined: Sun Sep 22, 2013 8:01 pm
Re: Moving from 1 164 Avg to 170 Avg.
Bumping this. I would like to hear from anyone who scored a 170+ and on their transition from being in the mid 160's to over 170...
How did you do it?
What realization did you have?
Biggest improvement?
Gradual?
Really any comments or suggestions.
How did you do it?
What realization did you have?
Biggest improvement?
Gradual?
Really any comments or suggestions.
