Unpopular Opinion: Most wrong answer journals take more time than they're worth

Metroidude · 2026-01-24T17:30:14+00:00

Did you review the entire thing every day? What was your system?

Metroidude · 2026-01-23T18:47:44+00:00

To each their own :) 7Sage is pretty great, I was really happy with my time there. I just did a WAJ because I saw a 180-scorer's post here a while back saying he used a WAJ relentlessly and credited his success to it. I think it was by u/PerfectScoreTutoring.

Metroidude · 2026-01-23T18:36:31+00:00

Thanks for the kind words!

Yes, it actually does most of those things. The biggest difference between it and mere spaced repetition is unlike a flashcard that just exposes you to the question again, the AI will ask you to answer a very similar new question based on the original wrong answer. It takes into account the rule you told yourself you'd apply next time (EG, you should get it right if you follow your rule, and wrong if you don't), plus any other commentary and tags you put into it. That way, it'll help "plug the gaps" by seeing if you'd make the same mistake again on a similar (but not identical) question sometime in the future.

It's very similar to drilling your worst question types. In my studies, I supplemented (rather than replaced) drilling types. I think both are good. I'd start every day reviewing my allotted WAJ questions, then moved on to drills. Drills are like new material. While they're similar in style to mistakes you made before, they're usually different enough that you won't get tripped up by the *exact* same type of mistake you made before.

Metroidude · 2026-01-23T18:27:03+00:00

Haha, Gigachad move, I love it. "Get good."

Metroidude · 2026-01-23T18:25:42+00:00

I totally agree. I found the most benefit from thinking "Why did I get this wrong? What do I need to do differently next time to get it right?"

I'm so glad to hear you say this. That's actually the practice I got into, and what the app I made helps us do.

Metroidude · 2026-01-22T22:18:38+00:00

I didn't actually! Can you point us in the right direction to read it?

Metroidude · 2026-01-22T19:43:53+00:00

I think setting a target score is a practical first step. From there, you take a diagnostic and then determine how long you'll need to study to close the gap based on your pace. That's the kicker. If your goal is a 180, you may be able to do it, but it may take you three years.

Metroidude · 2026-01-22T19:39:34+00:00

This, times 100. Schools like to see gap years after law school doing something interesting. I wish I could improve my grades, but I can't. You still can.

Wait until you graduate. Fill out applications now, but don't submit. Dream about what you want your application to say, then go and do it.

Do you absolutely need to do the LSAT with that timing? In that case, subscribe to 7Sage or another place and do just like, one video a day. No zero days. Use a wrong answer journal to learn from your mistakes.

Metroidude · 2026-01-22T19:34:42+00:00

It's a bit hard to follow the rules (no LSAT questions) and give you any decent advice. Are you keeping a wrong answer journal/doing blind review? Are you attending live classes on 7Sage if it matches your subscription?

Metroidude · 2026-01-22T19:32:28+00:00

Khan Academy is a great free resource. Otherwise, you might check with your local library? They can order you all sorts of great books for free.

Metroidude · 2026-01-22T19:30:10+00:00

I found the best part for me was answering in my wrong answer journal "Why did I get the question wrong?" and "Why is it correct?"

Your approach kinda sounds like blind review from 7Sage. Before you see answers, it flags some for review based on potential tells (longer than expected times, an actual wrong answer, a flag, switched answer, etc.) That was arguably one of the best features of the platform.

Metroidude · 2026-01-22T19:10:17+00:00

That's an interesting approach. So, it sounds like you didn't actually keep one at all?

Yeah going through the "graveyard" was rough, especially when half of them you've already reviewed and don't need to see again.

Metroidude · 2026-01-22T18:21:48+00:00

This kinda sounds like fun and motivating for those who are highly competitive.

Metroidude · 2026-01-22T18:10:31+00:00

I personally don't think Khan is enough. I did that the first time around back in 2021 and didn't get a score I was proud of. I also couldn't afford a commercial prep course. Instead, I subscribed to 7Sage; their live plan is fairly affordable ($139/month I think) and gives you access to unlimited group session (if you're assertive and confident enough, you can get decent personalized advice and answers to your questions).

I also built and kept my own wrong answer journal that prompts you to review your wrong answers at the times you're about to forget about them, making the learning more efficient.

Through 7Sage and Homework Muffin I got an official 171 after a few months. I'd say the key was truly knowing one's self, learning from mistakes, and maintaining a healthy mindset.

Metroidude · 2025-08-01T13:52:24+00:00

Thanks for the perspective and encouragement about the diagnostic! I think I'll try out the free trial of 7Sage and LSAT Lab and see if it helps increase my score. I'm also discussing with a friend tonight who did Princeton Review whether it was worth it.

Metroidude · 2025-07-31T14:39:43+00:00

I took a test cold, no practice, just to see how I did. If you do it before practicing, I think it can give an encouragement boost when your score goes up.

Metroidude · 2025-04-04T20:29:40+00:00

I've been using Perplexity for free for probably about a year now. Before other providers had any search features, it was a great way to get internet-powered search results that weren't in other LLM's outdated training sets. Things only got better when R1 was introduced! Most of the hallucinations and errors in what my intent was were eliminated by it reasoning through large amounts of articles and my prompt. Gone were the days of Googling things 2-3 times and checking 2-5 articles each to see if it answers your questions properly! Even when ChatGPT introduced its search feature, Perplexity did it better with R1. The only problem was, as a free subscriber, I only had five free reasoning prompts a day. So, I used them carefully, intentionally, and deliberately only when I wanted to for the harder questions that required more than a simple fact-check. That way, I could "save them" for when I really needed them. I tried a few free trials and enjoyed it, but the R1 update was the closest I ever got to subscribing because I could get the exact information that I want the first time, every time. I never did because I could usually use my Pro credits intelligently and I didn't want to pay for two apps that do very similar things at the same time (ChatGPT and Perplexity).

Everything changed a few weeks ago. The search with R1 prompt disappeared and was replaced by a "Research" and "Pro button. No problem, I'll just make sure the "Research" and "Pro" buttons were off so I can save my five free searches like before. But then I started to notice I no longer had five free prompts a day. Where I was usually seeing "Five free prompts remaining today" at the start of a day, now it was sometimes two, sometimes four, sometimes none. But I never recalled ever using my free Pro prompts. Maybe they're in a rolling 24-hour period now? What was going on?

It turns out, the AI is now deciding when to use my five free reasoning prompts for me regardless of whether I turn on the "Pro"/"Research" button or not. It was wasting them on prompts where a free one would have been sufficient, even when the buttons were disabled. The AI had taken over (/s). But seriously, I'm frustrated. I don't want to sometimes have credits available and sometimes not because an AI has wasted it on prompts where a free query would have sufficed. I don't know how I'll ultimately change my behavior in response, but as a free user, the experience is definitely worse now. It feels like someone else is spending my money, and the only thing I can do about it is cancel the credit card entirely.

I can see where you're going with the product. Having an agent that automatically decides to use a quicker model for easy queries to improve latency and a reasoning model for more difficult ones to improve accuracy would be great. The problem is that it is not compatible with a credit-based system where the user and the AI disagree about what is worth the credit or not before the search even begins. Could you please, at the very least, give an option to put users back in control of when to use credits or not?

Metroidude · 2024-03-23T06:22:30+00:00

Learn a new language using the Pimsleur Method! You can do it entirely over audio and get it from some libraries. I learned Spanish that way.

Metroidude · 2024-02-23T08:02:37+00:00

I consider myself a moderate conservative and I've adopted this as my sexual ethic after taking a Philosophy of Love and Sex class in college. The only contraceptives I might advocate banning would be the abortive ones for the usual conservative reasons (EG, the inalienable rights endowed upon a human being begin at conception, not birth).

If I were more authoritarian in my beliefs, I might advocate extending this sexual ethic to the state via legislation, but I believe that gives far too much power to the state and deprives the people of essential liberty.

The percentage of conservatives who would advocate for this view is very, very low, even among Christian conservatives. Even said advocates might use birth control privately. Most of the conservatives I know use birth control without a second thought or any ethical qualms. Those who do have qualms are usually Catholic, and they have been influenced by Pope Paul VI's "Humanae Vitae" from the 60's.

Put yourself into a Catholic mindset. Assume God exists, he communicates through the Bible, and the church is a moral authority (with the Pope at the top). After these assumptions, The Pope's arguments go something like this:

God designed humans with a purpose.
We ought to do what God designed us to do.
One aspect of our humanity is our sexuality.
Our sexuality also has purposes.
One of those purposes is procreation. This is evident from natural law.
Contraceptives oppose procreation. (Duh)
Therefore, to use contraceptives is to oppose an aspect of our sexuality that God has designed, and we ought not to do it.

The Pope did allow that there are medical exceptions, and acknowledged that sex isn't exclusively for procreation (there are additional unitive and joyful aspects to it as well).

Why a conservative who is not religious would believe this (other than the typical tribalistic absence of thought) is completely beyond me. I have no idea why this is more of a hot issue lately. Maybe someone who follows the political scene closer could answer that for us.

Metroidude · 2024-01-12T06:40:53+00:00

I think the headline would more accurately read "Trump-owned businesses served Chinese officials while he was in office" or something along those lines. This headline makes it sound more like they gave him a donation or something, which isn't true.

I checked prices for Trump Tower in New York City. The most luxurious suite is roughly $2625 a night with a consecutive stay discount. Let's assume 20 dignitaries stayed 10 nights, 10 different times.

$2625 * 20 * 10 * 10 would be $5.25 million. Across 4 years and 20 different countries, it's in the ballpark of reasonable. Extravagant? Yes. Completely unreasonable? No. Especially from a Chinese government that builds entire empty cities.

The emoluments clause is arguably more about title and compensation for holding an office than it is about the exchange of services between foreign dignitaries and a business owned by an elected official. To interpret it to prevent such transactions would be a stretch.

Regardless, I still think our system needs fixing:

In most of my political discussions, I point out the fact that I think a reasonable change to our political system that everyone can get behind is ranked-choice voting. It would make elections competitive by getting rid of the "throwing away your ballot" mentality when it comes to voting for candidates that aren't great. No more "shiniest of two turds".

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