Advice on test-taking

[ellenb]

Dear Powerscore/Dave,

So, I have been taking practice tests. I do seem to be doing fine on the first 10 questions. However after the 10 questions, I tend to zone out or freak out... loose my focus.... not quite sure what is happening. I do not know whether I panic or what is it. But it takes me about 5-10 minutes to regain my focus and I look at the watch and I am 25 minutes in and have only 10 minutes left .

During this time I feel like I am spinning my wheels by reading the same question over and over again and it does not really help because I feel like I am in a freak-out mode or zone out mode. Am I freaking out because of the time-constraint? Do you think this might be a factor?

I do seem to understand the concepts in lecture and homework it is just I believe i freak out when under time-constraint. So do you have some general strategies on how to regain focus during these type of situations? Or maybe you might have an alternative explanation on what is happening based on your experience and from general knowledge of helping students to improve their scores?

Thanks in advance!!!

Regards,

Ellen

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hey Ellen,

I remember chatting with you during our Monday class about that issue. Dave might have a different take on it, but here's what I think:

1. It's too early to tell if your decrease in accuracy is due to "freaking out", as you say, or whether the questions are simply getting harder. It is entirely possible that it's both, and that the difficulty of the questions exacerbates your sense of panic.

2. To control for at least one of these two factors, I suggest you take an untimed practice test, and compare your accuracy to your timed test. You need a statistically significant sample, which is why you may want to take at least 2 timed and 2 untimed tests to make any reliable prediction as to what is causing the issue.

If your accuracy on untimed tests is indeed much higher, it would be reasonable to conclude that time constraints are causing you to rush, decreasing your accuracy and creating a sense of panic. It's a vicious circle, as the panic (or "freaking out") can further limit your ability to correctly understand the stimulus or question stem. I am quite confident that, over time, you will develop the skills and confidence necessary to avoid feeling this way. Conceptual understanding is important, but so is the ability to apply that understanding repeatedly, to the point where you can predict the nature of the correct answer before you even look at it. People panic because they fear defeat, and the surest way of overcoming this feeling is the realization that you've seen it all and done it all before.

One tip though: if you catch yourself reading the same sentence or argument 3 times and still don't grasp it, it's time to move on and do something else. It's entirely possible that at the end of the section you'll have some extra time to go over the question(s) you skipped. You'd be surprised how many times the same question will make perfect sense on the second try.

See you in class!

[moshei24]

I just want to expound on Nikki's last point:
If you're stuck on a question, it's going to be much harder to focus on it knowing you have many other questions left to answer; however, when you come back to it after finishing the section, the stress subsides and it tends to become a breeze.

[ellenb]

Thanks Nikki and Moshei I hope Dave will be able to answer my question too. I just want to hear different perspectives. Maybe I am not confident about knowing the material and need more practice.

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Ellen,

I think Nikki is on the right track asking you to take a few untimed tests. There's a likely two-fold benefit from that: first we can see how you score without time pressure, and, if you do indeed score much better, it will give you a confidence boost because it proves that you can answer the questions correctly. So, I'd love to see you do that and then see the results.

The other thing I'd like to know is, does this just happen at the start of the test (in section 1 only), or does this happen in each section, or just in specific section types (LR, RC, or LG)?

That said, let me go back to this section of your initial post:

However after the 10 questions, I tend to zone out or freak out... loose my focus.... not quite sure what is happening. I do not know whether I panic or what is it. But it takes me about 5-10 minutes to regain my focus and I look at the watch and I am 25 minutes in and have only 10 minutes left .

During this time I feel like I am spinning my wheels by reading the same question over and over again and it does not really help because I feel like I am in a freak-out mode or zone out mode. Am I freaking out because of the time-constraint? Do you think this might be a factor?

There are several things to think about here. First, the questions do tend to get harder once you move past the first 10 questions (in LR at least), so that could contribute a bit to the spinning of wheels. But, second, what you are describing goes much further than something that would be solely caused by increasing question difficulty. And, the amount of time you are losing is not something that could be blamed solely on zoning out. 5-10 minutes is a pretty long time to lose focus, so that's one thing we need to work on--stopping for just 30 seconds and thinking about something else entirely, and not allowing yourself to read and re-read the same question over and over. That brings me to the final point, which is that this sounds like this is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy in that when you reach these questions, you become worried about freaking out, which then makes you think about it, which then makes it happen. I'd almost suggest that once you finish the first 10, that you jump to question 15 or 20 just to break the cycle of thinking about question 11 as being the start of the problems.

When you get a chance, let me know about my earlier question, and we'll keep working on this with you

Thanks!

[ellenb]

Thanks Dave and your team! For helping us through this LSAT process!! you guys rock!!!


To answer your earlier question. It mainly happens during the Reading Comprehension and Logical Reasoning. Somehow, in Logic Games I totally get into it. Maybe I am more confident with my abilities. Not quite sure. I still finish only about 1 1/2 section of the game, but do not seem to freak out as much since I like the certainty aspect of the games. I know for sure whether I am wrong or right vs. the LG and Reading Comprehension there are a lot of possibilities and I am not quite certain I am picking the right answer.

An alternative cause for the effect that I am experiencing could be attributed to the gaps in my LG reasoning understanding of the question types and not having enough practice/exposure to them.Because of the schedule of my classes(M/W) I got a chance to only finish listening to the recorded lecture and understanding the lecture concepts and not exactly practicing them. So, by the time I finished with understanding the concepts from lecture by listening to the recorded lecture and the lesson recaps, I needed to move to the next scheduled lesson. That's why it kind of all blended. Please let me know what suggestions you have in regards to it.

I am thinking on going back and listening to the LG part of the lectures and making sure I have a good grasp of them as well as finishing the hw for that lesson's logical reasoning part for lessons 1-6. Afterwards, I am thinking of doing a section of LG untimed and not necessarily taking a whole LSAT. I know that we are supposed to be testing ourselves at this point of the course. But I do not feel like I should be testing myself if I do not feel like I have a good understanding of what I should be doing exactly when I am faced with a particular question type.

Thank you, thank you, thank you !!! for your guidance and help it is much appreciated.

The LSAT is 3 weeks a away and honestly I am feeling a little bit "panicki" and I am wondering if I have a realistic shot with it by December. I need to develop a realistic plan of attack and any suggestions you have will be much appreciated.

FYI: I am enrolled in the online class and we just finished lesson 9 and have 3 more lessons to go. But as I mentioned before, I have not kept up with the hw for most of the lessons. I feel like I am being redundant, but I really want to have an effective strategy "plan of attack" from now on. Since, there is not that much time before the test.

Regards,

Ellen

[Dave Killoran]

Thanks Ellen!

Ok, this gives us some more info to work with, so I'll quote parts of your last message and comment on each.

To answer your earlier question. It mainly happens during the Reading Comprehension and Logical Reasoning. Somehow, in Logic Games I totally get into it. Maybe I am more confident with my abilities. Not quite sure.

This strongly suggests that whatever is happening is tied directly to how you feel about the section you are taking. So, it's not a fatigue element or even a general test experience element; you are losing focus when you are dealing with specific section types, and that means this is being generated by your attitude to these sections. It's almost like you are mentally telling yourself you don't want to continue working on these problems

An alternative cause for the effect that I am experiencing could be attributed to the gaps in my LG reasoning understanding of the question types and not having enough practice/exposure to them.Because of the schedule of my classes(M/W) I got a chance to only finish listening to the recorded lecture and understanding the lecture concepts and not exactly practicing them. So, by the time I finished with understanding the concepts from lecture by listening to the recorded lecture and the lesson recaps, I needed to move to the next scheduled lesson. That's why it kind of all blended. Please let me know what suggestions you have in regards to it.

I'd say this is certainly part of why you aren't comfortable with LR and RC. It probably all feels a bit muddy to you, and that uncertainty is throwing you for a loop. Practice is critical to truly being comfortable with the concepts. I like to analogize it to learning to drive: you can sit in driver training classes, but to be a really good driver you have to actually get out there and practice driving

I am thinking on going back and listening to the LG part of the lectures and making sure I have a good grasp of them as well as finishing the hw for that lesson's logical reasoning part for lessons 1-6. Afterwards, I am thinking of doing a section of LG untimed and not necessarily taking a whole LSAT. I know that we are supposed to be testing ourselves at this point of the course. But I do not feel like I should be testing myself if I do not feel like I have a good understanding of what I should be doing exactly when I am faced with a particular question type.

You mean LR sections, right, not Games (LG)? Assuming so, this is a good plan--do as much of this as you can And taking a section and not a full test makes sense to me (and gives you more study time, which is definitely something you need right now).

The LSAT is 3 weeks a away and honestly I am feeling a little bit "panicki" and I am wondering if I have a realistic shot with it by December. I need to develop a realistic plan of attack and any suggestions you have will be much appreciated.

FYI: I am enrolled in the online class and we just finished lesson 9 and have 3 more lessons to go. But as I mentioned before, I have not kept up with the hw for most of the lessons. I feel like I am being redundant, but I really want to have an effective strategy "plan of attack" from now on. Since, there is not that much time before the test.

I understand your concern about this! The most important thing is that we have to eliminate the "zone out" issues that are cropping up in 3 of the 4 scored sections. Since it seems like part of that (maybe all of it) is being caused by a lack of familiarity with the LR/RC ideas, let's attack that part first before making a judgment call on on whether December is realistic. By making some adjustments and putting some time in, you might get a big payback in a very short time (losing 5-10 minutes per section is killing your score, obviously). Let's give that a week of hard work, and then discuss it further and see where we are. How does that sound?

Please let me know. Thanks!

[ellenb]

Thanks Dave!!!!

Awesome! I meant working only on logical reasoning I will work on them and will give an update in a week. I think it has to do with familiarity and practice and totally agree with the "driving " analogy So, I will try to "drive" more this week and will update on my progress. Now, I think of working on logical reasoning for a couple of days and reading comprehension for other days (keeping it separate). I do not want to mix them is that a good idea?

Also with the attitude factor, should I just tell myself "yey logical reasoning and reading comprehension is coming up"'? which sort of makes sense after listening to the online recaps on test psychology.


Another thing. I noticed that I read very fast and after reading one time I need to read a second and third time. I started to read out loud in order to slow myself down. Is this a good idea? What else do you suggest? Since, we cannot read out loud during the test ( i sort of wish we could, certainly helps the auditory learners) (or I could follow the words with the finger like kids in grade school, not sure :)I think when I feel the time pressure that is what is happening, I tend to read very fast.




Thanks a lot! Awesome insights!

Regards,

Ellen

[ellenb]

Also, as far as testing for specific sections should I time some and not time others? What do you recomend?

[Dave Killoran]

Also, as far as testing for specific sections should I time some and not time others? What do you recomend?

In general, I'm a big fan of timing sections when practicing. But, with the recommendation earlier in this thread to not time a few tests/sections, I'm on board with that since the intent is to see how that affects your performance and provide a baseline comparison.

As a side note for others reading this post, one strategy that I often recommend to students just starting out is to divide homework questions into separate sections with different timing goals. for example, you could take the first 10 questions and do them untimed in an effort to establish whether you understand the concepts form the lesson. Then, with the next 10 questions, you can track your timing (but not overly pressurize yourself) in order to see how you work with the ideas while the clock is running. then, with the last 10 questions, you fully time yourself under test-like conditions to see how it goes when you are running full speed. this step-like progressions allows you to ease into both the new ideas and the working with time. just a thought.

Thanks!