How are you Studying, Part II

In my last post, I talked a little about the importance of trying new tactics and techniques as you study, not only to break up the monotony, but also to find out whether there's some particular method that makes your test seem easier and more manageable. If you're stuck in a rut with your studies, and don't seem to be able to break out of your current score level, try a few of these to get your mind working and improve your test-management skills. These tips are mainly for takers of the LSAT and SAT, since those tests are on paper and allow students to skip around within the current section, but even GRE and GMAT takers can benefit by prioritizing questions during study, since anything that keeps study (relatively) interesting is good for your disposition.



Work by Question Type.
For most students, I recommend working whatever question type you find easiest first. This gets you warmed up, and allows you to quickly plow through a bunch of problems, so that you can then allocate your remaining time more precicely. For instance, if you're great at Geometry, just look for geometric figures in your test section, and get those questions out of the way. While you're glancing around, you'll also be able to glean which other problems might go quickly for you, and which might require more time. Remember, on the LSAT and SAT, all of the problems are worth the same number of points, so there's no reason to sacrifice two or three easy questions to get one hard one right!



Start with the Medium Questions.
On the SAT's math and writing sections and the LSAT's logical reasoning section, the questions basically go from easiest to most difficult. Remember that most of the questions that you see will be medium difficulty, and that one of the things that makes easy questions easy is that they have fewer trap answer choices. If you start with the medium questions, and then go back to the easier ones, you'll be more apt to allocate your time wisely, rather than wasting time mulling over easy questions. If you're going to run low on time at the end of the section, and have to answer a few questions hastily, you're more likely to be able to tackle an easy question quickly than a hard one.



Time Yourself by the Page, Game, or Passage.
Each test has various types of questions at varying levels of difficulty, so keep yourself to a disciplined schedule that will allow you to spend more time on tougher games or reading passages. On the LSAT, you might break up your game schedule as 2 minutes to look over the games and decide what order to tackle them, 7 minutes for the easiest game, 9 minutes for the two medium games, and then 10 minutes for the hardest game. Also, be discipilined about how much time to spend setting up your game. Remember if you spend 5 or 6 minutes setting up an excellent game sketch, you'll be able to answer the questions very quickly, sometimes in as little as 2 minutes for the whole set. This takes practice and discipline, but it works. You can do the same thing on the LSAT for the Critical Reading section, giving yourself less time on the easy passages and more for the tough ones.



As for the reading sections, SAT test takers might quickly look over the whole section, to determine exactly what the question spread is like. For instance, is there one long passage or two, or a set of paired long passages? How many sentence completion questions are there? Do the long and short passages deal with topics you have some familiarity with, and thus might be able to plow through more easily? Experiment with different orders, sometimes working the sentence completions first, and other times starting with the long passages. Allocate time for each task during practice, and be realistic about how long you need to complete each task. The more structured your timing while you study, the less stressed you'll be about time on test day.



Study Alone, with a Partner, and with a Small Group.
Personally, I've always worked best alone, but during law school I realized that spending about 25% of my study time with a small group or a close friend who was near my skill level really helped me to organize my thoughts and to address questions in ways I hadn't considered. Sometimes, the best way to clarify your thoughts and reinforce a new skill is to explain your methods to someone else. That way, you have to think about and articulate what you're doing, and can call on that method later. Also, a good study partner will give you new insignts and share his or her methods openly, as long as you do the same. Even if you still end up spending most of your time studying alone, you can use and adapt the methods you've learned from your study partners.



Remember that studying shouldn't just be a grind; you should feel like you're accomplishing something, and should enjoy yourself as much as the task at hand allows. Mixing things up will keep it interesting, and will free you up to be creative in your study habits!

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・【How do you Study? Part One】2009.11.11 (Wed)

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