Extremely wordy science stimuli

[fmihalic1477]

Hello all,

I seem to have some trouble with extremely wordy science stimuli in particular. An example would be the number 7 example of chapter 3 in the LR Bible.

However, I have noticed that with a very wordy stimulus like that, often times it is just a fact set, and the question will be a must be true at which point the correct answer is typically just a paraphrase of something that was said in the stimulus.

How accurate is this and is this a decent approach for must be true questions (looking for a paraphrase)?

Up until now, frankly, the super wordy stimuli have intimidated me and they have overwhelmed me, but I believe I'm starting to kind "crack a code" here, if you will.

Am I on the right track?

[Adam Tyson]

Looks like you are on the right path, fmihalic1477! Often those wordy science stimuli are there just to drag you down and turn you around. When you come across some obvious conditional reasoning or a causal claim, for example, you can often just focus on that and the rest of the stimulus is not all that relevant. You still need to look at logical relationships, and might be asked a question about the science that relies on your having understood the logic, but it's not about understanding the science itself.

I do tend to paraphrase the stimulus when I find myself getting lost in the language. Try not to oversimplify and generalize, because you want to get what the author was really saying and not just what he was "kind of" saying, but still, a good paraphrase that makes it easier to get a handle on it can be a huge help.

Keep on working to crack that code! Persistence will pay off, as you are already discovering.

[fmihalic1477]

Thanks Adam.

I had another question, that kid of goes against one of the basic principles of the bible, but I wanted to run it by you and see what your thoughts were.

I read all five answer choice, ALWAYS. But, a lot of times I will find on a must be true or most strongly support/ inference question,or even a Point of Argument/Agreement question I will select answer choice A or B, both of which, upon reading, I am 99% sure are the answer. I read all 5 choices and typically complete the question in une 1 minute and 25 seconds.

However, is there ever a point in time where you recommend not reading all 5 answer choices?

[Dave Killoran]

Thanks Adam.

I had another question, that kid of goes against one of the basic principles of the bible, but I wanted to run it by you and see what your thoughts were.

I read all five answer choice, ALWAYS. But, a lot of times I will find on a must be true or most strongly support/ inference question,or even a Point of Argument/Agreement question I will select answer choice A or B, both of which, upon reading, I am 99% sure are the answer. I read all 5 choices and typically complete the question in une 1 minute and 25 seconds.

However, is there ever a point in time where you recommend not reading all 5 answer choices?

Hey F,

You ask a good question! One of the longstanding pieces of advice I give students is that you have to go with what works best for you. I strongly believe that the advice in the Bibles works best for the majority of the students, but on occasion it's better for some students to perhaps make some adjustments to that approach. With reading all five answer choice, for most everyone it's the best strategy and it produces the highest overall scores (mainly because LSAC is so good at making attractive wrong answers). There are, however, two situations I can immediately think of where I might recommend not reading all five choices:

• 1. If you are at the end of the section and are rushing to complete as many questions as possible.
  
  I actually talk about this in the LRB, but for example if you are on question #23 and only have 2 minutes left and answer choice (B) looks good, then pick it and skip on to question #24. It's a time optimization strategy, and something I would recommend for most people.
  
  2. If you are really struggling with completing more than 10 LR questions or are stuck in the 130 or lower range.
  
  For students having extreme problems with LR, then it can sometimes be a better overall strategy to simply take the first attractive answer choice and move on. Obviously, this applies to a small segment of students, and I'd have to see some good evidence that this was best before I'd recommend it. But, it's a tweak to the normal strategy, and if someone is struggling, that's when you start looking at alternatives.

That's two scenarios I can think of off the top of my head, but it does show that there are situations where the usual approach can be adjusted. The key is to self-analyze and if you are having some sort of a problem, then consider alternatives and test them if you can. In some cases, they may not exist (example: everyone is going to diagram a Basic Linear game with slots that line up in some way; you can't really change that ). What I always say is learn the right methods first and master them, then change them only if you have a special situation come up like those above.

Please let me know if that helps. Thanks!

[fmihalic1477]

That does help a lot, thank you!

I've already employed tip #1 because it seemed like a natural thing to do. The techniques have helped tremendously. At the end of the Must be true/ most strongly supported chapter, I think I got 4 of the 8 practice questions wrong. However, now, I've taken a few days done almost every single question of that type in older LSAT's, about 120 in total and am currently currently answering about 8-9/10 correctly. For me, the most important step is step 4, "know exactly what the author says". When I know exactly what was said and all of the implications that come along with it, 7-8/10 questions are lay ups. That said, keeping that intensity for 25 questions in a row without a break is an extraordinary feat. The majority of the questions that I do get wrong I can look back and find the exact word that I missed, or didn't fully grasp the implications of that words and it leads to a missed question.

That will go away with time and as my stamina continues to improve.

[Dave Killoran]

That does help a lot, thank you!

Awesome, glad that was useful!

That said, keeping that intensity for 25 questions in a row without a break is an extraordinary feat.

Yes, this is one of the central challenges of the LSAT. You have to maintain this steady focus for so long, and that is quite difficult. Multiply that over five sections, and you can see why people leave the test center feeling utterly drained. Keeping practicing at that. To me it's like a marathon—if you've never run one, then your first time is going to be challenging and a bit traumatic. But after you've run a bunch, you know what to expect and it gets easier and more comfortable

Good luck and keep working hard!