Hi all! I'm currently working on reviewing my timed practice sections and am noticing that I am really bad at getting sucked into time sink questions.
I am working on a list of 'queues' for myself to identify when to skip without even thinking about it, as I often find myself questioning 'should I skip now?' during a section; I want to work on building the reflex so I instinctively know to skip & don't have to think about it.
Personally for me - I've noticed that the moment I'm not engaging/clicking with a stimulus is a great moment to skip (though I still seem to have trouble doing it lol). I have also noticed that I absolutely despise anything LR question with abstract concepts about 'morality, or truth' that require some serious thought to actually understand.
Other than that, I'm finding it a bit hard to pinpoint 'signs' that will tell me if it's a 4/5 star LR question to know when to skip.
I would love to hear about everyone else's skipping strategies as well as things you look out for that give you a queue to move on and come back!
Hopefully this could help others as well.
2 comments
Personally for me - I've noticed that the moment I'm not engaging/clicking with a stimulus is a great moment to skip (though I still seem to have trouble doing it lol). I have also noticed that I absolutely despise anything LR question with abstract concepts about 'morality, or truth' that require some serious thought to actually understand.
This is one of my 'queues' as well. I ask myself, do I understand the argument enough to anticipate an answer choice? If I cannot, then I flag it and move on.
Another 'queue', when I am down to two answer choices. If I eliminate 3 and are left with 2, I read the two answer choices carefully. If nothing jumps out at me, then I skip. On my 2nd pass, I have the luxury to come back to this question, ruminate on the answer choices, and find the one that is NOT logically flawed.
One more thing about the skipping strategy--one of the best advice that I got was to forget about trying to skip only the 4/5 star questions. Sometimes, I get stuck on 1 star questions. It just happens. I shouldn't waste my time trying to force an answer choice, even if it's question 1 on the section. Instead, I have calibrated my skipping strategy to feel for the difficulty of the problem. Do I have trouble with this problem? If so, then I need to swallow my ego and skip.
As this was something that I struggled with in the past, the change in mindset really aided in LR performance. What used to be my worst section is now my best section!
Every question has 2/3 obvious wrong answers which I can quickly eliminate, if I find that I take more than a minute deciding on the remaining two I just guess and move on. There's' no use sucking up the minutes on questions that are time suckers if you're uncertain of the answer anyway, as a rule , I alternate between choosing answers A and E and keep it moving.