Avoiding silly mistakes

[eschung91@gmail.com]

Hello.
Despite knowing how to correctly solve the LG sections, I often have problems making stupid mistakes, which end up ruining my entire game.
(e.g. For rules, instead of A>B, I would write B>A. Or sometimes, I would get the 1st Q of a game about choosing one possibility by crossing out rules wrong because I read one answer choice wrong and accidentally crossed the correct answer out).
I would be working on a game only to realize half way through the questions that I had written a rule down wrong, or had skipped a rule.
Since this isn't a LG technique, how would you recommend fixing this? The "Be more careful!" mentality I've tried to implement, isn't working too well. Thank you!

[David Boyle]

Hello.
Despite knowing how to correctly solve the LG sections, I often have problems making stupid mistakes, which end up ruining my entire game.
(e.g. For rules, instead of A>B, I would write B>A. Or sometimes, I would get the 1st Q of a game about choosing one possibility by crossing out rules wrong because I read one answer choice wrong and accidentally crossed the correct answer out).
I would be working on a game only to realize half way through the questions that I had written a rule down wrong, or had skipped a rule.
Since this isn't a LG technique, how would you recommend fixing this? The "Be more careful!" mentality I've tried to implement, isn't working too well. Thank you!

Hello eschung,

That is a big question. All of us make silly mistakes all the time (at least, I do), so, the question is almost more about "human imperfection" than about the LSAT.

"Be more careful" is good advice, but if you don't want to hear it again, I shan't repeat it. I would say that practice is good, though. The more games you do, the easier they should become, which should help reduce your stress level, which may make it more likely that you get the rules right.

Also, make sure that other "stressors" in your life are minimized, e.g., if your dog chews up your slippers and newspaper every morning, then maybe the dog could use some gentle retraining.

Last but not least: try slowing down! Better to do well on 3 games than to do badly on 4. Rushing things is a "great" way to get everything wrong.

There is no way on earth to eliminate ALL possibility of silly mistakes, but some of the things I mentioned could be useful.

Hope this helps,
David

[Dave Killoran]

Hi eschung,

Let me add one thought to David's fine advice. Everyone does indeed make these kinds of mistakes from time to time, but since you know you are prone to these errors, you need to implement a double-check system to help avoid at least some of them.

Because making errors with rules is so damaging, what I'd recommend for you is that once you have diagrammed all the rules, then you should go back through each rule, double-check it against what you wrote, and then physically "check it off" by making a check mark next to the rule. This makes sure that you diagrammed each correctly, and helps assure that you didn't miss any rules. I've had students use this technique before, and while it costs a small amount of time, it provides both confidence that you have diagrammed each rule correctly as well as helps mentally set each rule in place.

With mistakes in the questions, this is more difficult. If it's an error involving the stem, you can use the same technique as above. If it's an error with crossing certain answers out, the fix isn't so easy, and boils down to double-checking the answers if this happens a lot. That's not incredibly efficient, so it depends on how often this particular error plagues you.

Please let me know if that helps. Thanks!