Q9

[Gerald]

9. C
Question Type: Identification (27 - 29)

Identification questions test whether we can use our fingers to point to answers in the passage. Here, we’re asked to find the answer to questions posed by the answer choices. (C) asks, "When were optical storage disks a state-of-the-art storage medium?" Lines 27-29 provide the answer: in the 1980s optical computer disks were on "the cutting edge of technology."

(A) The third paragraph mentions these works, but it never discusses whether they were printed on parchment.

(B) Paragraph 1 tells us acid paper is unstable, but not why. Moreover, Paragraph 2 does not discuss why storage tape lasts only ten years.

(D) Paragraph 1 says clay tablets are in museums around the world, but it does not mention how many of them survive

(E) Paragraph 3 discusses found works of Plato, but it does not mention how they were originally written.

[JorieB701]

I'm just curious, with questions like these, once you find an answer choice that you feel like is answered in the passage should you still read the rest of the choices?
I recognize that I should probably try it out and see how it goes but "READ EVERY ANSWER CHOICE" is so engrained in me from LR that I'm not sure I'd ever try it without express permission from someone with some authority on the subject. lol.

[ohthatpatrick]

I definitely do not play by the rules of
ALWAYS read every answer
or
ALWAYS work wrong to right.

I think LSAT calls for a lot of dynamic gears. My rule of thumb is this,
"The better my prephrase, the more specific I can be with exactly what I know the answer NEEDS to say, the more aggressive I will be about scanning for the correct answer choice and bailing from any answer choice I start reading that doesn't seem like what I was looking for."

The advantage of following this advice is that if you can trust your gut, you can save some time on questions that allow for strong, specific prephrases by not wasting energy/time/brainpower by considering all the garbage answers.

The risk is that we might make a careless mistake somewhere that could have been prevented by reading another contender answer choice.

So it's really a function of two things:
1. How much can you trust your prephrases? Are you good enough at this test that when you have a strong idea of what you want you end up being right?

2. How strapped for time are you? Are you currently finishing sections with a cushion of a couple minutes, or are you looking for ways to free up more time to better tackle all the questions in a section?

You definitely still have time to experiment, so try a couple timed sections where you make a point of confirming answers (on LR and RC) if they reach that threshold of "Yeah, that's gotta be it". Make sure you invent some way of marking that you didn't read all the answer choices on that problem so that you can evaluate your accuracy and either build/undermine your confidence when it comes to trusting the first answer you really like.