notes for myself to improve my study habits

• practice test twice a week for stamina and review. if you have extra time and are overwhelmed, take a ~45 second break to just relax before checking your answers.
  • fear burnout and think of questions as a resource that can be used up, because they can be, especially for very specific / rare question types. so use them carefully and to their full potential as you drill / practice.
• review analytics, see which types of questions you get wrong the most and why. watch lectures and drill these questions, scaling in difficulty.
  • for rc, mine are non-author opinion and author opinion (roughly tied), followed by inference.
  • for lr, mine are paradox and weaken.
    • this test is not for an ego trip, it's to improve, so take the time to focus on where you have potential rather than blowing through question types you know well.
• my lr is near perfect but my rc is sitting around 90% accuracy, so to improve from low 170s to mid to high 170s, rc should be my main focus. rc is also the hardest to get better at, so expect slow improvement.
• diagram only in rare cases, parallel argument is a common question type where it's useful. major mistake to over-diagram lr and waste time while also potentially confusing yourself for no reason.
• love tentative wording (at least some, not always, at times, not necessarily) and dislike extremely strong wording (every, all, never, no, only if). occasionally the most extreme options are correct, but they're usually too strong.
• the test makers know that people have a few popular lr flaws they hear about all the time (e.g. correlation ≠ causation) and they like to throw those in there because they're tempting. so be suspicious of anything that seems friendly because it's familiar.
• lectures that have questions from the attendees make me more confused on things that are obvious to me (respectfully) so i quit doing that and only listen to lectures where it's just the tutors talking. i also quit doing blind review because it doesn't seem to help me much, but i started a wrong answer journal which does seem to help a lot.
• for hard rc passages, summarize to yourself mentally in simpler words. replace confusing technical terms with easier ones, e.g. it's not necessary to remember the species name, just that it's a fish.
• highlighting liberally works well for me but it works even better when i highlight key points, then return to highlight things that stand out based on the answer options.
• don't overthink the easy questions, save time for the harder ones. aim to finish the first 10 in 10.
• for lr, evaluate the author's argument, for rc, smile and nod boys. it's a waste of mental bandwidth to crit the author when you're trying to understand their perspective
• rc = look for pivot words, the author's voice, practice dynamic pacing. understand the purpose of each paragraph. main point answers should be true and accurate in scope (not overemphasizing one section).
• read the stimulus and answers extremely carefully. one word can reverse the meaning.
• research your qualms! if an answer seems wrong at first but you're not sure if they mentioned it, double-check the passage for details.
• when reviewing mistakes, make sure you understand why the right answer is correct and why the others are wrong. consider using the rubber duck method of explaining like a tutor why you got it wrong, so you're forced to understand before moving on.
• consider choosing easier rc passages first to warm up before doing the most difficult ones.
• arguments by analogy = to strengthen, how do we make this a more fair comparison? to weaken, what is a potential meaningful difference?*
  • *this also applies to resolving paradox questions
• consider starting to read extremely dense / difficult material to improve rc. e.g. the economist
• don't be overly caffeinated when taking pts OR the real test, the stress can make you jittery and make it harder to focus
• anticipate anticipate anticipate, when reading rc, guess what framework the author is using. when answering lr, imagine some possible answers before you check the options