PT 54. Original administration date: June 2008. My date: August 14, 2013.
Raw score 97/101
Scaled score: 179
Notes
Despite my disappointment at having not gotten a 180, this was the best PT I’ve taken so far.
Got 8ish hours of sleep, Fitbit says 7:59 sleep, 8:28 in bed, which is about the minimum I want from myself. But I knew I needed to start by 9 so I got up before 8.
I did a warmup game (-0) and some questions, didn’t do any RC warmup, which I will do next time. I was disappointed and am a little scared about my timing in RC.
What went well:
The fact that I didn’t mark a single LR question as difficult and didn’t get any wrong is really great. It makes me feel like I’m getting in contest shape. Finally actually getting this stuff. More or less.
What I need to work on:
I made a stupid mistake on LG, which will kill me on the real thing. That is NOT the way to lose a point. (I don’t know that there are any good ways to lose a point, but this is particularly avoidable).
I also need to work on my pacing in RC. I want 5 extra minutes. I’m gonna re-read Voyager’s tips, and write up the 2 questions I missed. I’m also going to do experimental RC instead of LG on my test this saturday.
I. Experimental LG. [from PT 11]
Hard section. Last game was a pattern, the likes of which I hadn’t practiced at all, but I was able to get through it alright. -0. Proud of self, actually.
II. Section 1 - Reading Comprehension
Circled as Hard: 13
Missed: 26, 27
I ran out of time, which scares me. That said, this still points to my weakness in RC overall.
III. Section 2 - Logical Reasoning
Circled as Hard: none
Missed: none
IV. Section 3 - Logic Games
Circled as Hard: none.
Missed: 15
I made a stupid mistake. This one is HUGE, because it happens regularly in practice. I missed the “If” in the beginning of a question. BAH!!!!
V. Section 4 - Logical Reasoning
Circled as Hard: none
Missed: none
Individual Questions:
Circled as hard:
Reading Comprehension
S1Q13: Main Point
Here good technique saved me from a 178. I initially picked answer choice D, which barely says more than the passage. I didn’t hurry to eliminate C, which saved me. NEVER HURRY TO ELIMINATE AN ANSWER CHOICE!
Eventually, after spending something like 3 minutes on the question (which was part of why I missed later ones) I caught that D says that Walker combined cultural preservation, which isn’t strictly stated in the passage. I was still only 75% sure it was right, but I chose C, and got the question right. Phew! Once again, never hurry to eliminate an answer choice!
Missed:
Reading Comprehension-
S2Q26: “The author Xs in order to __” TCR:A, my final choice: E.
from Manhattan
“One thing that makes RC questions such as this easier for me is that there's a very typical pattern when the question stem uses the wording
"in order to"
"serves to"
"primarily to"
This type of question normally asks about an example the author brought up in order to illustrate/make a broader point.
The correct answer is almost always a paraphrase of the sentence that comes BEFORE the example (~80% of the time) or AFTER the example (~20% of the time).
Don't get tunnel vision and only read about the specific example/mention the question stem is referring to.
When you see that wording, they're asking WHY did the author say something? The answer is not within the example/mention, but rather it's one of the bookend ideas that either sets up why the author is mentioning something or gives you the author's takeaway idea after he's mentioned something.
You can also expect that the correct answer will normally reinforce the main point of that paragraph, but will not go beyond it.
So when I see them ask, "why did the author bring up X in line 5", I initially read the sentence before line 5 to see if it feels like a setup.
In this case it does. The author makes a broad claim that group cohesion is generally a good thing, and then supports it with line 5.
That's why I would like and pick (A). It sounds like a paraphrase of the previous sentence, and it reinforces what we're talking about in the first paragraph.
However, (E) is a very tempting answer here. It does sound a lot like the ideas that follow line 5. We might question whether the ideas that follow are really a recipe for how to OVERCOME the effects of low cohesion or are really suggesting that we AVOID low cohesion altogether.
But we could also consider the big picture to eliminate this answer.
The passage as a whole is about the debilitating effects of high group cohesion. In that context, the first paragraph is just laying the groundwork for the subsequent discussion of how high group cohesion might be just as problematic as low group cohesion. “
S2Q27: “Author would agree with”, TCR: B, my response: E.
“In the first paragraph we learn that "when cohesiveness is low or lacking entirely, compliance out of fear of recrimination is likely to be strongest." Based on that, we can infer that you need to have cohesiveness if you hope to avoid a strong likelihood of suffering from this problem. (B) notes that.
(A) is out of scope - we don't learn about how groups deal with adversaries.
(C) is tempting, however we don't know what sort of decisions groups with varied opinions generally arrive at - we particularly don't know if they're sound! A group with varied opinions can still be cohesive. Don't be fooled by the first sentence of the passage, which is spelling out what should be true ("in principle...").
(D) has an issue with degree - the key factors? Plus, we never learn about how stress and high expectations impact group dynamics.
(E) is unsupported - we only know from the first paragraph that in low cohesive groups compliance out of fear of recrimination is likely to be strongest.”
S3Q15
I missed the conditional in a particular question. This can’t happen again.