Improving Comprehension of Key Details on LR and RC Questions

[sean.reilly]

Hello! I've been reviewing my incorrect questions from practice tests and I've noticed that there is a significant subset of wrong answers from questions where I misunderstood a critical component of either the stimulus or one of the answer choices - often just a single word or phrase - that led me to choose an incorrect answer. I've seen this type of error has popped up in both my LR and RC sections.

On blind review, I am generally able to catch these errors in comprehension while re-reading the stimulus and answer choices and then submit the correct answer choice, but I'd like to work on just improving my comprehension the first time around so I can get these questions correct on the actual practice test. Are there any best practices for how to improve detailed comprehension under the time pressure that comes with a practice test?

Thanks so much!

[Luke Haqq]

Hi Sean!

It's great that you are able to spot and understand these errors when you are reviewing the test. The test makers certainly design many of the answer choices so that there are some incorrect answers that are almost perfect, except for a single word or phrase. PowerScore describes these as "shell games."

To improve on the areas you mention, in large part keep doing what you are doing! If you keep taking and reviewing tests, you will begin to see recurring types of reasoning and fallacies that test makers rely on (e.g., fallacies like ad hominem or circular arguments). Also, when you are taking test and run into more than one answer that seems plausible to you, make sure to mark the answer choices that seem like contenders. Hopefully, seeing contender answers side by side will help you spot that one word or phrase that makes one of them superior and the other problematic.

In addition to taking and reviewing as many practice tests as you can, it's a huge help if you have some of PowerScore's materials so that you can learn tips, strategies, and techniques for tackling questions. For example, Lesson 7 in PowerScore's course materials goes in depth into flaws in reasoning that frequently appear on the test. Familiarizing yourself with that can be a powerful tool that can aid you in spotting recurrent types of fallacies.

Finally, as you take take and review tests, hopefully you should start noticing if there are particular question types (such as weaken questions), types of reasoning (like cause and effect reasoning), or passage types that you get wrong more often than others. You can then use PowerScore's materials to drill yourself on those particular types of problems. This can make your studying more efficient.