High Scorers: How much time do you spend reviewing? Forum

[Cheyenne]

Looking for people who score in the 170s. How long do you all spend reviewing your PTs? I currently spend about 4hrs going over each of my LR sections (8hrs total). This includes me doing a blind review of the answers I got wrong, wasn't completely sure about, skipped, or took a long time to solve. I then write out why each answer choice is wrong. For answers I still get wrong after blind reviewing, I seek out explanations online if I don't understand why and then write my own version of an explanation as if I was going to teach that problem to someone. Wondering if the number of hours I spend reviewing is too much time or really abnormal?

[Anon-e-miss]

I spend one or two hours reviewing my PTs. I don't do traditional BR. I only review the questions that I circled as being unsure of or questions that I didn't circle but answered incorrectly. Usually this takes 60-90 minutes. I'm sure that most people spend more time reviewing than I do, but I think it comes down to finding a system that works for you. If your system of intense reviewing is yielding promising results, than you should keep it. If not, you can surely change things up because I think that spending that time on PT review would actually dull my brain to the questions since it sounds extremely rote.

[Platopus]

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[crumb cake]

Your approach sounds good. I also would retake sections or bundles of questions (or whole tests) a few weeks later to walk through the steps required to get the right answer.

[conker]

Looking for people who score in the 170s. How long do you all spend reviewing your PTs? I currently spend about 4hrs going over each of my LR sections (8hrs total). This includes me doing a blind review of the answers I got wrong, wasn't completely sure about, skipped, or took a long time to solve. I then write out why each answer choice is wrong. For answers I still get wrong after blind reviewing, I seek out explanations online if I don't understand why and then write my own version of an explanation as if I was going to teach that problem to someone. Wondering if the number of hours I spend reviewing is too much time or really abnormal?

I have a more thorough method and it takes less time. A timed 4-section test takes me 2.5 hours. I immediately print off a new copy of the same test and put the timed one away to start working on a non-timed version, which takes forever (about 4.5 hours). Then I grade both tests and compare answers, thoroughly analyze anything I missed on the untimed version, and organize everything so I can come back to it regularly. This takes another hour. So I'm looking at 5.5 hours of review.

I don't think the time you take for review is as important as feeling confident your method of review is as good as you can possibly make it. Some people even mention recording yourself taking the timed test so you can watch it and review how much time you spent on each answer and analyze that data. I have yet to do that.

[MercW07]

Looking for people who score in the 170s. How long do you all spend reviewing your PTs? I currently spend about 4hrs going over each of my LR sections (8hrs total). This includes me doing a blind review of the answers I got wrong, wasn't completely sure about, skipped, or took a long time to solve. I then write out why each answer choice is wrong. For answers I still get wrong after blind reviewing, I seek out explanations online if I don't understand why and then write my own version of an explanation as if I was going to teach that problem to someone. Wondering if the number of hours I spend reviewing is too much time or really abnormal?

I have a more thorough method and it takes less time. A timed 4-section test takes me 2.5 hours. I immediately print off a new copy of the same test and put the timed one away to start working on a non-timed version, which takes forever (about 4.5 hours). Then I grade both tests and compare answers, thoroughly analyze anything I missed on the untimed version, and organize everything so I can come back to it regularly. This takes another hour. So I'm looking at 5.5 hours of review.

I don't think the time you take for review is as important as feeling confident your method of review is as good as you can possibly make it. Some people even mention recording yourself taking the timed test so you can watch it and review how much time you spent on each answer and analyze that data. I have yet to do that.

Ive never heard of anyone doing this, but I really like the idea of it. What have been the results?

[MrAdultman]

Apparently I'm the anomaly here - I spent very little time reviewing my tests. After taking a PT and scoring it, I'd spend 10 minutes looking at what I got wrong and why, and then move on. Maybe I'm alone in this, but I was (almost) never confused about why I missed a question. After 80 timed LR questions, it wasn't shocking that I rushed one or two or made a stupid inference mistake. Once you're consistently scoring in the 170's, you know how to answer all the questions. Maybe reviewing will help you to diagnose what tricked you or caused your lapse in judgment, but I didn't find it helpful. Rather, I would just continue grinding away at practice (Cambridge LG/LR practice books) to habituate getting the questions right under testing conditions (i.e. timed), which was successful for me.

[conker]

Looking for people who score in the 170s. How long do you all spend reviewing your PTs? I currently spend about 4hrs going over each of my LR sections (8hrs total). This includes me doing a blind review of the answers I got wrong, wasn't completely sure about, skipped, or took a long time to solve. I then write out why each answer choice is wrong. For answers I still get wrong after blind reviewing, I seek out explanations online if I don't understand why and then write my own version of an explanation as if I was going to teach that problem to someone. Wondering if the number of hours I spend reviewing is too much time or really abnormal?

I have a more thorough method and it takes less time. A timed 4-section test takes me 2.5 hours. I immediately print off a new copy of the same test and put the timed one away to start working on a non-timed version, which takes forever (about 4.5 hours). Then I grade both tests and compare answers, thoroughly analyze anything I missed on the untimed version, and organize everything so I can come back to it regularly. This takes another hour. So I'm looking at 5.5 hours of review.

I don't think the time you take for review is as important as feeling confident your method of review is as good as you can possibly make it. Some people even mention recording yourself taking the timed test so you can watch it and review how much time you spent on each answer and analyze that data. I have yet to do that.

Ive never heard of anyone doing this, but I really like the idea of it. What have been the results?

It's hard to say what causes what, but there has been a correlation of higher scores. I also cannot think of a better theoretical way to learn.

[AJordan]

Removed