Zhang

Chapter Seven

Maneuver

In the real test day, all the strategy is developed based upon the numerous times of practice of the released tests. The good test takers need to adjust to the best situation during the test day. Doing the test in the real situation is totally different than the practice one in terms of the settings, the pressure, or the timing. The physical and mental situations vary between the real test and the practice one. In order to get better result, you need to change the unchangeable and take advantage the disadvantage. You thus need to maneuver the test to favor you regardless.

There are several ways to doing it, such as breaking the numerical order of the questions. Then you tackle the easiest one correctly and then go back to examine the hard ones. That is called the strategic skipping. By doing so, you might be able to turn the difficulty level that is against you to favor you.

The questions given by the LSAC are easy to the good test takers and bad for the bad test takers. It is just like two sides of the coin. Someone might think it is hard while other think differently. Therefore, maneuver is important to do the LSAT during the test day. If you want to weigh all the questions indifferently, the result is you won’t only get enough time, but you will lose free gift – getting easy questions wrong. However, if you think you will answer the hard questions first so that you left the easy questions to the end so that you do not have to think too hard on them when you are tired, then you are perhaps wrong. In this way, you will lose more scores due to the fact that you won’t be able to get to them. Even if you allocate time evenly, you will not give enough time for the hard ones while you miss too much valuable, but limited, time to answer easy ones. You will be puzzling about what you have missed even though you manage to finish all the questions at the end. If you answer the hard questions first, that is even worse, you will not only spent too much time on one questions, and left most unanswered, and you score will drop. It is you who is taking the test, but rather the test to you. It speeds up the fatigue process of the body and makes you more exhausted and overwhelmed even in the middle of the test. Therefore, balancing the time based on what says here. The time cannot be allocated too much for each question more than needed, but it cannot be allocated less time to questions that you do not have the time to think of it in a strategic way. So the time is the most important issue here.

So if you do not know the different questions types, you cannot succeed in the test; if you do not know which one at which you are most good answering, you cannot take it; if you do not know how long you can keep up with the consuming tests, you cannot get the highest score out of the test.

In addition, the good test takers are good at knowing themselves. They will use the limited energy to get the maximum results, they will balance the time to skip around to achieve the highest score, and they will answer the easy questions fast and correctly. All these are depending on your skills trained to spot the right answer creatively. Therefore, if you do take the test in the real test day, you will get the right answer out of the easiest questions, skip the hard questions to the end, eliminate the wrong answers that are either irrelevant or reverse, and select the right ones without a hitch. Doing the test in a way that get the more right answers than other test takers while finishing the test in a manner that is most in favor of you, you will get higher score than others.

If there are different types of questions in one page, just answer them all if they are all in you favor. Turn over your page if you do not even know what they are talking about, even though you are good at this questions type.

Therefore, the one who knows and reads this will get the higher score thereafter since it tells the secret of the LSAT. In the real test is like fight a war, you have to make a strategic planning and prepare yourself. Failing in a test is no difference than losing a war. So you have to have the consistent marks for your exam. You need to mark something that does only mean something to you. As long as you see the marks, you will react instantly where should you go and whether you will move on with this questions or not.(in the analytic questions, you need to know whether you will know the answer or in the reading you will see the clue or road map.) In this way, you do not have to worry about how long or how weird the passages are. You know where to move on and where to skip, where to find the answer and where to make an educated guess, and where the right answer lies and where the wrong answer hinds.

In addition, the energy you have keeps you from tiredness, and the strategy out of practice clears your mind to think fast. You are usually energetic at the beginning of each section, but less at the end thereof. So good test takers are left the hardest to the very end and answer the easiest earlier. So you need to do the easy question fast, assuring to answer those correctly with zero error. Also you need to leave the hardest to the end and answer it by elimination and guessing intelligently. In this way, you will turn over the force of the LSAC to confuse you, weaken its energy to exhaust you, and maneuver it in your favor. It is called to change the unchanged and beat the unbeatable. In this way, you drive the course of the test and determine the result, rather than you are anxious of waiting for the result without knowing how well you had done. It is another secret of the LSAT; in a word, maneuver.

In the next few chapters, you will know there are total several types of questions in the three kinds of passages. You can never mistake them, but you can easily to mess them up. You use different setting of strategy to ace different types of passages. Make sure you know the difficulty level in each kind of passages. That is important as others.

To be continued….

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DISCLAIMER: THE FOLLOWING TRANSLATION IS FROM THE OPEN DOMAIN AND MAY CONTAIN SIGNIFICANT ERRORS. THE EDITING IS IN PROCESS AND PLEASE USE IT WITH CAUTION.MANEUVERING

1. Sun Tzu said: In war, the general receives his
commands from the sovereign.

2. Having collected an army and concentrated his forces,
he must blend and harmonize the different elements thereof
before pitching his camp.

3. After that, comes tactical maneuvering,
than which there is nothing more difficult.
The difficulty of tactical maneuvering consists
in turning the devious into the direct, and misfortune into gain.

4. Thus, to take a long and circuitous route,
after enticing the enemy out of the way, and though starting
after him, to contrive to reach the goal before him,
shows knowledge of the artifice of DEVIATION.

5. Maneuvering with an army is advantageous;
with an undisciplined multitude, most dangerous.

6. If you set a fully equipped army in march in order
to snatch an advantage, the chances are that you will be
too late. On the other hand, to detach a flying column
for the purpose involves the sacrifice of its baggage
and stores.

7. Thus, if you order your men to roll up their
buff-coats, and make forced marches without halting day
or night, covering double the usual distance at a stretch,
doing a hundred LI in order to wrest an advantage,
the leaders of all your three divisions will fall into
the hands of the enemy.

8. The stronger men will be in front, the jaded
ones will fall behind, and on this plan only one-tenth
of your army will reach its destination.

9. If you march fifty LI in order to outmaneuver
the enemy, you will lose the leader of your first division,
and only half your force will reach the goal.

10. If you march thirty LI with the same object,
two-thirds of your army will arrive.

11. We may take it then that an army without its
baggage-train is lost; without provisions it is lost;
without bases of supply it is lost.

12. We cannot enter into alliances until we are
acquainted with the designs of our neighbors.

13. We are not fit to lead an army on the march
unless we are familiar with the face of the country–its
mountains and forests, its pitfalls and precipices,
its marshes and swamps.

14. We shall be unable to turn natural advantage
to account unless we make use of local guides.

15. In war, practice dissimulation, and you will succeed.

16. Whether to concentrate or to divide your troops,
must be decided by circumstances.

17. Let your rapidity be that of the wind,
your compactness that of the forest.

18. In raiding and plundering be like fire,
is immovability like a mountain.

19. Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night,
and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.

20. When you plunder a countryside, let the spoil be
divided amongst your men; when you capture new territory,
cut it up into allotments for the benefit of the soldiery.

21. Ponder and deliberate before you make a move.

22. He will conquer who has learnt the artifice
of deviation. Such is the art of maneuvering.

23. The Book of Army Management says: On the field
of battle, the spoken word does not carry far enough:
hence the institution of gongs and drums. Nor can ordinary
objects be seen clearly enough: hence the institution
of banners and flags.

24. Gongs and drums, banners and flags, are means
whereby the ears and eyes of the host may be focused
on one particular point.

25. The host thus forming a single united body,
is it impossible either for the brave to advance alone,
or for the cowardly to retreat alone. This is the art
of handling large masses of men.

26. In night-fighting, then, make much use of signal-fires
and drums, and in fighting by day, of flags and banners,
as a means of influencing the ears and eyes of your army.

27. A whole army may be robbed of its spirit;
a commander-in-chief may be robbed of his presence of mind.

28. Now a soldier’s spirit is keenest in the morning;
by noonday it has begun to flag; and in the evening,
his mind is bent only on returning to camp.

29. A clever general, therefore, avoids an army when
its spirit is keen, but attacks it when it is sluggish
and inclined to return. This is the art of studying moods.

30. Disciplined and calm, to await the appearance
of disorder and hubbub amongst the enemy:–this is the art
of retaining self-possession.

31. To be near the goal while the enemy is still
far from it, to wait at ease while the enemy is
toiling and struggling, to be well-fed while the enemy
is famished:–this is the art of husbanding one’s strength.

32. To refrain from intercepting an enemy whose
banners are in perfect order, to refrain from attacking
an army drawn up in calm and confident array:–this
is the art of studying circumstances.

33. It is a military axiom not to advance uphill
against the enemy, nor to oppose him when he comes downhill.

34. Do not pursue an enemy who simulates flight;
do not attack soldiers whose temper is keen.

35. Do not swallow bait offered by the enemy.
Do not interfere with an army that is returning home.

36. When you surround an army, leave an outlet free.
Do not press a desperate foe too hard.

37. Such is the art of warfare.