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BR is a great way to improve, especially in LR. As to how much improvement and in how long you can see it depends on you, and where you stand right now with LR. Do incorporate it into your studying though, it's very helpful, especially for the harder questions. BR when you drill as well, not just with PT.

Just a side note: Because of BR, I can confidently do a timed LR section knowing that I will at most go -3 or -4. Usually MBT or MBF questions I get wrong but that's my own personal weakness. It takes time to see the way the test makes the wrong answers look very attractive, but with BR, you get to really dig into questions and pick them apart.

I think BR is a great way to master LR. I wasn't seeing much improvement until I started to BR my LR. How much can you expect it to help? I'd say quite a bit if you haven't tried it already. It really allows you time to break down the arguments and answer choices, and analyze why the right ones are right, and the wrong ones are wrong. You also begin to see patterns easier, and that will be the key to really doing well on LR.

For a lot of people, BR is where they make the most improvement. Everything said above is 100% TCR, especially about BRing everything you drill along with PTs

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HaveMercy wrote:

Barack O'Drama wrote:

maybeman wrote:

TheMikey wrote:

Do y'all BR every question or just the ones you circled? It seems extremely time consuming, yet worth it.

Every question. If I circled it, I tend to spend more time and try to remedy whatever mindset caused me to be confused.

Yes, it is extremely time consuming. But the better you get, the less time it will take. Expect to spend 2-3 hours to BR a full PT in the beginning. That is about what it takes me to do a proper job. I also write out why TCR is right and the other 4 are wrong.

HaveMercy wrote:

Barack O'Drama wrote:

maybeman wrote:

TheMikey wrote:

Do y'all BR every question or just the ones you circled? It seems extremely time consuming, yet worth it.

I used to BR every questions when I first start doing it, but now I do the ones I was iffy on. Sometimes I will go through questions on a PT section that I knew 100% I got right, but I want to go deeper into those specific questions to see why I thought one of the answers was attractive at first but wrong, etc. When first starting to BR, I would recommend BRing all questions, and as you start getting better with LR, you can cut it down if there are questions that you're 100% willing to bet your life (exaggeration lmao) that they're correct.

HaveMercy wrote:

Barack O'Drama wrote:

maybeman wrote:

TheMikey wrote:

Do y'all BR every question or just the ones you circled? It seems extremely time consuming, yet worth it.

Personally, I don't BR what I haven't circled, but if you're not totally honest about what you do//don't circle, then BR all of it. Of the questions I circle, a large majority turn out right. But if I can't fully resolve a debate between two ACs or am really lost I'll 100% circle & BR

HaveMercy wrote:As a retaker who got 75% of all his wrong answers solely due to LR, how much can I expect to improve if I intensely BR?

Honestly if LR is killing you like that then BR isn't your answer yet. It seems like you still need to pad your fundamental approaches to these types of questions first before you begin checking your accuracy, blindly.

The logic behind my statement is this: If you don't have solid fundamentals for doing these problems, then your blind review will merely yield the same mistakes you were making previously. Blind review is meant for you to prematurely rectify mistakes before having an actual answer key present. That process is useless if you don't have the fundamentals yet to solve the problem to begin with.

Not trying to be rude or harsh, just giving you an honest answer that will genuinely help you instead of padding egos.

MyNameIsntJames wrote:

HaveMercy wrote:As a retaker who got 75% of all his wrong answers solely due to LR, how much can I expect to improve if I intensely BR?

Honestly if LR is killing you like that then BR isn't your answer yet. It seems like you still need to pad your fundamental approaches to these types of questions first before you begin checking your accuracy, blindly.

The logic behind my statement is this: If you don't have solid fundamentals for doing these problems, then your blind review will merely yield the same mistakes you were making previously. Blind review is meant for you to prematurely rectify mistakes before having an actual answer key present. That process is useless if you don't have the fundamentals yet to solve the problem to begin with.

Not trying to be rude or harsh, just giving you an honest answer that will genuinely help you instead of padding egos.

Just replying to say this response is hilariously ironic-- gives LR advise that is "justified" through a classic LR fallacy. Just because 75% of his/her points were missed in LR has no bearing no how many points were missed (& thus if learning solid fundamentals is a better solution than BR). He/She could have missed 4 points altogether, 3 of which in LR.

In all fairness, posting on this board seeking this kind of advise makes it unlikely this is the case. But until you know anything about their raw score, your advise isn't great. BR is a critical part of learning "fundamentals" because it teaches you to personalize what's an effective strategy, and
learning fundamentals" and BRing should be mutually inclusive, not exclusive.

maybeman wrote:

MyNameIsntJames wrote:

HaveMercy wrote:As a retaker who got 75% of all his wrong answers solely due to LR, how much can I expect to improve if I intensely BR?

Honestly if LR is killing you like that then BR isn't your answer yet. It seems like you still need to pad your fundamental approaches to these types of questions first before you begin checking your accuracy, blindly.

The logic behind my statement is this: If you don't have solid fundamentals for doing these problems, then your blind review will merely yield the same mistakes you were making previously. Blind review is meant for you to prematurely rectify mistakes before having an actual answer key present. That process is useless if you don't have the fundamentals yet to solve the problem to begin with.

Not trying to be rude or harsh, just giving you an honest answer that will genuinely help you instead of padding egos.

Just replying to say this response is hilariously ironic-- gives LR advise that is "justified" through a classic LR fallacy. Just because 75% of his/her points were missed in LR has no bearing no how many points were missed (& thus if learning solid fundamentals is a better solution than BR). He/She could have missed 4 points altogether, 3 of which in LR.

In all fairness, posting on this board seeking this kind of advise makes it unlikely this is the case. But until you know anything about their raw score, your advise isn't great. BR is a critical part of learning "fundamentals" because it teaches you to personalize what's an effective strategy, and
learning fundamentals" and BRing should be mutually inclusive, not exclusive.

I'm completely aware that percentages don't calculate to numbers, but simple deductive reasoning can lead us to conclude that this poster probably isn't asking for help off of getting 3/4 questions on LR wrong if 75% of his wrong questions come from LR. That would mean he's only missing 1-2 questions the rest of the exam and he's floating in the 175-180 range. Does that appear to be someone who needs to go on TLS & ask if BR is a good choice? You probably would have a damn good philosophy for this exam by that point.


Now more to the point: BR isn't going to work if you don't actually know how to solve the problem in the first place. How can you spot your error in a problem that you don't know how to fundamentally solve in the first place? That's like giving a high schooler a differential equations exams and asking them to "blind review" their answers when they finish. They don't know how to do diff eq to begin with, so their BR won't yield anything useful.


I didn't say NEVER do BR, I said he should master the principles and fundamentals FIRST before doing so because that's when BR will reap its greatest reward.

Appears you're disagreeing with me for the sake of argument.

MyNameIsntJames wrote:

maybeman wrote:

MyNameIsntJames wrote:

HaveMercy wrote:As a retaker who got 75% of all his wrong answers solely due to LR, how much can I expect to improve if I intensely BR?

Honestly if LR is killing you like that then BR isn't your answer yet. It seems like you still need to pad your fundamental approaches to these types of questions first before you begin checking your accuracy, blindly.

The logic behind my statement is this: If you don't have solid fundamentals for doing these problems, then your blind review will merely yield the same mistakes you were making previously. Blind review is meant for you to prematurely rectify mistakes before having an actual answer key present. That process is useless if you don't have the fundamentals yet to solve the problem to begin with.

Not trying to be rude or harsh, just giving you an honest answer that will genuinely help you instead of padding egos.

Just replying to say this response is hilariously ironic-- gives LR advise that is "justified" through a classic LR fallacy. Just because 75% of his/her points were missed in LR has no bearing no how many points were missed (& thus if learning solid fundamentals is a better solution than BR). He/She could have missed 4 points altogether, 3 of which in LR.

In all fairness, posting on this board seeking this kind of advise makes it unlikely this is the case. But until you know anything about their raw score, your advise isn't great. BR is a critical part of learning "fundamentals" because it teaches you to personalize what's an effective strategy, and
learning fundamentals" and BRing should be mutually inclusive, not exclusive.

I'm completely aware that percentages don't calculate to numbers, but simple deductive reasoning can lead us to conclude that this poster probably isn't asking for help off of getting 3/4 questions on LR wrong if 75% of his wrong questions come from LR. That would mean he's only missing 1-2 questions the rest of the exam and he's floating in the 175-180 range. Does that appear to be someone who needs to go on TLS & ask if BR is a good choice? You probably would have a damn good philosophy for this exam by that point.


Now more to the point: BR isn't going to work if you don't actually know how to solve the problem in the first place. How can you spot your error in a problem that you don't know how to fundamentally solve in the first place? That's like giving a high schooler a differential equations exams and asking them to "blind review" their answers when they finish. They don't know how to do diff eq to begin with, so their BR won't yield anything useful.


I didn't say NEVER do BR, I said he should master the principles and fundamentals FIRST before doing so because that's when BR will reap its greatest reward.

Appears you're disagreeing with me for the sake of argument.

No, not for the sake of argument. The LSAT is not a dif eq exam, & I used a 176 as an extreme example. It's easily possible he scored in the 160s. Basic fundamentals, while important to learn, must go hand in hand with BR and are probably less important than BR at that stage. In the 160s, most people can score in the high 170s given enough time. That's why BR is so critical -- picking apart why an AC is correct or incorrect is the best way to improve on the LSAT. All I'm saying is you don't know where OP is scoring, so your advice is limited

maybeman wrote:

MyNameIsntJames wrote:

maybeman wrote:

MyNameIsntJames wrote:

HaveMercy wrote:As a retaker who got 75% of all his wrong answers solely due to LR, how much can I expect to improve if I intensely BR?

Honestly if LR is killing you like that then BR isn't your answer yet. It seems like you still need to pad your fundamental approaches to these types of questions first before you begin checking your accuracy, blindly.

The logic behind my statement is this: If you don't have solid fundamentals for doing these problems, then your blind review will merely yield the same mistakes you were making previously. Blind review is meant for you to prematurely rectify mistakes before having an actual answer key present. That process is useless if you don't have the fundamentals yet to solve the problem to begin with.

Not trying to be rude or harsh, just giving you an honest answer that will genuinely help you instead of padding egos.

Just replying to say this response is hilariously ironic-- gives LR advise that is "justified" through a classic LR fallacy. Just because 75% of his/her points were missed in LR has no bearing no how many points were missed (& thus if learning solid fundamentals is a better solution than BR). He/She could have missed 4 points altogether, 3 of which in LR.

In all fairness, posting on this board seeking this kind of advise makes it unlikely this is the case. But until you know anything about their raw score, your advise isn't great. BR is a critical part of learning "fundamentals" because it teaches you to personalize what's an effective strategy, and
learning fundamentals" and BRing should be mutually inclusive, not exclusive.

I'm completely aware that percentages don't calculate to numbers, but simple deductive reasoning can lead us to conclude that this poster probably isn't asking for help off of getting 3/4 questions on LR wrong if 75% of his wrong questions come from LR. That would mean he's only missing 1-2 questions the rest of the exam and he's floating in the 175-180 range. Does that appear to be someone who needs to go on TLS & ask if BR is a good choice? You probably would have a damn good philosophy for this exam by that point.


Now more to the point: BR isn't going to work if you don't actually know how to solve the problem in the first place. How can you spot your error in a problem that you don't know how to fundamentally solve in the first place? That's like giving a high schooler a differential equations exams and asking them to "blind review" their answers when they finish. They don't know how to do diff eq to begin with, so their BR won't yield anything useful.


I didn't say NEVER do BR, I said he should master the principles and fundamentals FIRST before doing so because that's when BR will reap its greatest reward.

Appears you're disagreeing with me for the sake of argument.

No, not for the sake of argument. The LSAT is not a dif eq exam, & I used a 176 as an extreme example. It's easily possible he scored in the 160s. Basic fundamentals, while important to learn, must go hand in hand with BR and are probably less important than BR at that stage. In the 160s, most people can score in the high 170s given enough time. That's why BR is so critical -- picking apart why an AC is correct or incorrect is the best way to improve on the LSAT. All I'm saying is you don't know where OP is scoring, so your advice is limited

Meh. We're both shooting in the dark here but I agree

HaveMercy wrote:

Barack O'Drama wrote:

maybeman wrote:

TheMikey wrote:

Do y'all BR every question or just the ones you circled? It seems extremely time consuming, yet worth it.

Personally I only BR circled questions. Honestly when I'm taking the test I do a quick BR in my head anyway, meaning even if I'm 100% positive about an answer choice I give the other four a quick look and eliminate them or change my answer anyway.

I'm pretty honest with my circling though, even if I'm 99.99999% positive that I'm right on an answer I'll circle it anyway and then the BR for that question goes pretty quickly.

What is a blind review?

.

FayRays wrote:What is a blind review?

taking extra time after finishing a timed practice test but before you look at the answer key and spending an unlimited amount of time working on those questions which you "circled" during the test - i.e. the ones you are <100% sure you got right

7sage has a really good explanation of BR and how to go about it for anyone curious about the process.

https://7sage.com/the-blind-review-how- ... at-part-7/

*sorry, my bookmark starts at part 7 but you should go to the beginning*

HaveMercy wrote:

maybeman wrote:

MyNameIsntJames wrote:

maybeman wrote:

MyNameIsntJames wrote:

HaveMercy wrote:As a retaker who got 75% of all his wrong answers solely due to LR, how much can I expect to improve if I intensely BR?

Honestly if LR is killing you like that then BR isn't your answer yet. It seems like you still need to pad your fundamental approaches to these types of questions first before you begin checking your accuracy, blindly.

The logic behind my statement is this: If you don't have solid fundamentals for doing these problems, then your blind review will merely yield the same mistakes you were making previously. Blind review is meant for you to prematurely rectify mistakes before having an actual answer key present. That process is useless if you don't have the fundamentals yet to solve the problem to begin with.

Not trying to be rude or harsh, just giving you an honest answer that will genuinely help you instead of padding egos.

Just replying to say this response is hilariously ironic-- gives LR advise that is "justified" through a classic LR fallacy. Just because 75% of his/her points were missed in LR has no bearing no how many points were missed (& thus if learning solid fundamentals is a better solution than BR). He/She could have missed 4 points altogether, 3 of which in LR.

In all fairness, posting on this board seeking this kind of advise makes it unlikely this is the case. But until you know anything about their raw score, your advise isn't great. BR is a critical part of learning "fundamentals" because it teaches you to personalize what's an effective strategy, and
learning fundamentals" and BRing should be mutually inclusive, not exclusive.

I'm completely aware that percentages don't calculate to numbers, but simple deductive reasoning can lead us to conclude that this poster probably isn't asking for help off of getting 3/4 questions on LR wrong if 75% of his wrong questions come from LR. That would mean he's only missing 1-2 questions the rest of the exam and he's floating in the 175-180 range. Does that appear to be someone who needs to go on TLS & ask if BR is a good choice? You probably would have a damn good philosophy for this exam by that point.


Now more to the point: BR isn't going to work if you don't actually know how to solve the problem in the first place. How can you spot your error in a problem that you don't know how to fundamentally solve in the first place? That's like giving a high schooler a differential equations exams and asking them to "blind review" their answers when they finish. They don't know how to do diff eq to begin with, so their BR won't yield anything useful.


I didn't say NEVER do BR, I said he should master the principles and fundamentals FIRST before doing so because that's when BR will reap its greatest reward.

Appears you're disagreeing with me for the sake of argument.

No, not for the sake of argument. The LSAT is not a dif eq exam, & I used a 176 as an extreme example. It's easily possible he scored in the 160s. Basic fundamentals, while important to learn, must go hand in hand with BR and are probably less important than BR at that stage. In the 160s, most people can score in the high 170s given enough time. That's why BR is so critical -- picking apart why an AC is correct or incorrect is the best way to improve on the LSAT. All I'm saying is you don't know where OP is scoring, so your advice is limited

Lol. I love TLS for this^ argument alone. Out of 17 questions wrong, I got 13 LR wrong (166). So Not James, what would you recommend for me to solidify my principles or improve in anyway? I always thought BR was THE way to fundamentally solve LR.

If you missed 13 LR, I'd recommend reviewing LR fundamentals briefly (especially focusing on any key issues you may be seeing --- are you having difficulties finding flaws, are you having difficulty with a certain question type, etc). If you feel confident in your general understanding of LR fundamentals, delve into BR and pay special attn. to questions that you get wrong. Not wrong before BR, but questions you got right then changed to a wrong answer (if you're like me and let your slight doubt cloud your judgment, this happens occasionally) or questions you got wrong, knew you got wrong upon BR, but STILL got wrong after choosing a second answer. Those are questions that you clearly don't understand and really need to pick apart. I agree with what both people have said in this "argument." BR probably won't help if you're having major issues with fundamentals. If you're doing BR and looking at question after question after question you've gotten wrong and aren't able to distinguish why the right AC is right and the wrong ACs are wrong, then I'd say it'd be time to go back to fundamentals, but if, upon BR, you're able to figure out why the right AC is right and the wrong ACs are wrong, then I'd say you're in a good place to continue BR. *Of course that doesn't mean that for EVERY question you're able to figure it out, but generally speaking*

HaveMercy wrote:

maybeman wrote:

MyNameIsntJames wrote:

maybeman wrote:

MyNameIsntJames wrote:

HaveMercy wrote:As a retaker who got 75% of all his wrong answers solely due to LR, how much can I expect to improve if I intensely BR?

Honestly if LR is killing you like that then BR isn't your answer yet. It seems like you still need to pad your fundamental approaches to these types of questions first before you begin checking your accuracy, blindly.

The logic behind my statement is this: If you don't have solid fundamentals for doing these problems, then your blind review will merely yield the same mistakes you were making previously. Blind review is meant for you to prematurely rectify mistakes before having an actual answer key present. That process is useless if you don't have the fundamentals yet to solve the problem to begin with.

Not trying to be rude or harsh, just giving you an honest answer that will genuinely help you instead of padding egos.

Just replying to say this response is hilariously ironic-- gives LR advise that is "justified" through a classic LR fallacy. Just because 75% of his/her points were missed in LR has no bearing no how many points were missed (& thus if learning solid fundamentals is a better solution than BR). He/She could have missed 4 points altogether, 3 of which in LR.

In all fairness, posting on this board seeking this kind of advise makes it unlikely this is the case. But until you know anything about their raw score, your advise isn't great. BR is a critical part of learning "fundamentals" because it teaches you to personalize what's an effective strategy, and
learning fundamentals" and BRing should be mutually inclusive, not exclusive.

I'm completely aware that percentages don't calculate to numbers, but simple deductive reasoning can lead us to conclude that this poster probably isn't asking for help off of getting 3/4 questions on LR wrong if 75% of his wrong questions come from LR. That would mean he's only missing 1-2 questions the rest of the exam and he's floating in the 175-180 range. Does that appear to be someone who needs to go on TLS & ask if BR is a good choice? You probably would have a damn good philosophy for this exam by that point.


Now more to the point: BR isn't going to work if you don't actually know how to solve the problem in the first place. How can you spot your error in a problem that you don't know how to fundamentally solve in the first place? That's like giving a high schooler a differential equations exams and asking them to "blind review" their answers when they finish. They don't know how to do diff eq to begin with, so their BR won't yield anything useful.


I didn't say NEVER do BR, I said he should master the principles and fundamentals FIRST before doing so because that's when BR will reap its greatest reward.

Appears you're disagreeing with me for the sake of argument.

No, not for the sake of argument. The LSAT is not a dif eq exam, & I used a 176 as an extreme example. It's easily possible he scored in the 160s. Basic fundamentals, while important to learn, must go hand in hand with BR and are probably less important than BR at that stage. In the 160s, most people can score in the high 170s given enough time. That's why BR is so critical -- picking apart why an AC is correct or incorrect is the best way to improve on the LSAT. All I'm saying is you don't know where OP is scoring, so your advice is limited

Lol. I love TLS for this^ argument alone. Out of 17 questions wrong, I got 13 LR wrong (166). So Not James, what would you recommend for me to solidify my principles or improve in anyway? I always thought BR was THE way to fundamentally solve LR.

Brinicole's response hit the nail on the head.

BR has made a world of difference for me. I wish I had gone to 7sage when I took the exam before...here i am retaking.. bah.

theconsigliere wrote:

FayRays wrote:What is a blind review?

taking extra time after finishing a timed practice test but before you look at the answer key and spending an unlimited amount of time working on those questions which you "circled" during the test - i.e. the ones you are <100% sure you got right

Ok, go it. Thanx