how do you drill? Forum

[npt2901]

When drilling LR questions, is it bad to review one question immediately after doing it? do you do a set of questions, then review? if you do a set, how many do you do? For RC and LG- do you do one passage/ one game then review immediately after?

Can someone give me insight on their method of drilling? thanks!

[WaltGrace83]

IF you know what you scored THEN you must have reviewed. There is no excuse for seeing how many you got wrong without review. This is what we are trying to say. If you don't have enough time to review in total then review as much as you can. It sometimes takes me two days to review a set of 25 questions. Why should one do this? Here's why:

If you do the questions and then you check the answers and then you review, you are just finding ways to convince yourself that the right answers are right and the wrong answers are wrong without developing a true understanding of why this is so or finding flaws in your "logic" . If you do the questions then review then check the answers you are figuring out the flaws in your understanding! This is the main purpose of drilling! You really cannot improve without figuring out what you are doing wrong. It is great to make mistakes when you are doing questions un-timed, convincing yourself that answer choices are right and wrong for specific reasons, then finding that you were wrong because this (and only this) will explicitly tell you what you are just not understanding.

Don't get me wrong. It is great to practice regardless of anything. But practice is not nearly as good as the method outlined above. Practice is for PTs. Practice is not for drilling. Otherwise you are just burning through material.

Understand every word. Then revisit the questions. Then come back to them later. Then do it all over again.

Here is my process so I can give you a little more insight:
-Do a timed set of questions (either 12/13 or 25)
-Blind review (this could take hours...and hours..........and hours) each individual question
***Also, by "blind review" I don't just mean the questions you think you got wrong/unsure about. I mean EVERY question.
-After every question go onto Manhattan forum
---Check to see if I got right, Do a write-up on it, etc. etc.etc.

INTERNALIZE THE QUESTIONS. Just scoring them does little.

EDIT: and I personally don't believe in doing drills un-timed first for the very reason you mentioned. However, some people (most people) swear by the method of un-timed drilling. The way that I see it, there is no harm in doing the question timed then un-timed so to speak during the review process. It is like you are getting the best of both worlds! You get to (1) see how you respond in test-like situations and (2) see how good or bad your logic is during review. It's a win-win!

If it is a question type I know I am going to really suck at (strengthen ) then I do it after every question and just put 1:20 on the clock.

[thevuch]

ALL DAY ERRDAY

[sunsheyen]

So how/what do you review? I know blind review involves going over those you are unsure about...but what does this mean? Are you just supposed to rework them? Maybe I'm ditzy, but i just dont understand. If you work them twice and both responses are the same, how are you learning? Please, someone explain this to me!

[Lightworks]

Depends on the question type. If there are a bazillion Q's to drill (conditional reasoning, weaken, assumption, etc.) then I'll do them in groups of 10-20. If it's a less common type, or one that I am stuggling with, I'll drop it down to ~5 and take extra time with each Q.

[mornincounselor]

Post removed.

[sunsheyen]

thank you so much for the detailed explanation!