Practice Test, Logical Reasoning Debrief

[FrannieVargas]

I took my first practice test on Monday and was happy to see that my score was 8 points higher than my October 2011 LSAT. When I was taking the practice test I noticed 2 debilitating habits I was building in the LOGICAL REASON SECTIONS:

1. I WANTED TO READ THE QUESTION FIRST- I found myself wanting to read the question stem before reading the stimulus. I think this is because of the way the homework is structured: we usually read 40 or so stimuli knowing what the questions are going to ask us before we start reading the stimuli. During the practice test I found myself reading a stimulus and mentally trying to figure out what the question was going to ask me, losing focus and having to start reading again from the beginning. In other instances, I found myself reading the stimulus, reading the question and reading the stimulus again trying to see what they are asking me. I know that PowerScore highly encourages us to read the stimuli before the questions stems, and (I’m guessing) ideally just once. Can you offer any advice on how to break this habit? What should I be mentally telling myself while I’m reading the stimulus? How can I work on staying focused on the stimuli information and not thinking about the question? How can I develop the habit of only reading the stimuli once?

2. I COULD NOT FOCUS ON THE STIMULI INFORMATION- I found myself finishing one question and moving to the next stimulus only to find my brain having a hard time grasping the information on this next stimulus. Many times I had to read a stimulus 2 or even 3 times before it made sense. I found myself mindlessly reading or thinking about what the question may ask me and thus losing focus on what I was actually reading. Do you have any advice?

Loyally,
Frannie

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Frannie!

Ok, you raise some interesting points. Let's talk about both of them.

1. While I am a big fan of reading the stimulus first as that allows you to get the "cleanest" read on the information, I'm also a realist, and I know that human nature sometimes interferes. If you are consistently finding yourself distracted by not reading the question stem first, then you need to go ahead and just read that stem first

I say this because it seems to me that not reading the stem first is distracting you significantly enough to be a serious detriment to your performance. When that happens, I say just make the decision to go with what your mind wants to do. So, give that a shot and see if that doesn't help you focus, and then consequently, help you to not read the stimulus multiple times.

2. I think I may have answered this one with the comments above! Keep in mind that returning to the stimulus to check details is ok (I do it all the time). But, if you are regularly reading it in full 2-3 times, that becomes an issue. So let's try the switch above, and see if that doesn't remove a source of distraction for you.

Please let me know if this works. Thanks!