You're Doing Too Many Questions | Demon Daily, Ep. 1516

Main Ideas / Lessons Conveyed

• Practice test mindset is often the problem

  • When students start practice tests, they shift mental focus to time/score, which can cause them to:
    • hurry,
    • stop working when stuck,
    • become frustrated,
    • move on instead of fully solving.
  • Advice: Treat practice tests like drilling—the goal is correct problem-solving, not maximizing the score.

• 80–90% accuracy in timed sections is still not good enough

  • At 80% accuracy, a student is missing ~20% of questions, meaning they’re likely:
    • getting some answers right without fully understanding why,
    • only understanding a subset (roughly implied “~60%”) of what they’re doing.
  • The speakers emphasize they want 95–100% accuracy before expecting strong practice test performance.

• “You’re doing too many questions” (frequency/volume is harming learning)

  • The core claim is that students are likely doing too many questions, moving past ones they could/should master.
  • Missing questions repeatedly teaches bad patterns, making the test feel arbitrary and hard.
  • Instead, students should slow down and fully solve each question.

• Fix the problem at the drilling level (not just practice tests)

  • If early/easy questions are wrong, that indicates the test isn’t being taken seriously enough.
  • The speakers argue students are commonly:
    • missing easy questions in the first ~10 of each section,
    • and that’s what needs correction via drilling accuracy.

• A concrete accuracy check: “10 in a row”

  • Students should track how many times they can complete 10 consecutive questions without missing one.
  • If they can’t do it reliably (e.g., they succeed once and later can’t repeat it), that signals a serious accuracy issue.

• Accuracy first; speed should “come from” accuracy

  • Focus only on:
    • solving and getting it correct.
  • Thinking about speed is portrayed as harmful:
    • whenever you think about speed, it hurts performance.
    • paradoxically, focusing on accuracy can make you faster indirectly.

• Target performance guidance toward 160+

  • Rough benchmarks are given (not generic advice):
    • 160+: at least a “credible” bare minimum; more like 165+ for a serious applicant.
    • To reach 160:
      • LR: roughly correct answers from 1 through 15 (possibly 1–17, depending on discussion).
      • RC: roughly “perfect passages”:
        • about 2 perfect passages for 160,
        • 2.5 to 3 perfect passages for solid progress into the 160s.
    • Summary: fewer, better practice—master early questions and passages.

---

Methodology / Instructions (Detailed)

A) Practice Test Behavior (Mindset + Mechanics)

• Hide the timer while answering.
• Do not move on until you fully solve the current question.
• Before clicking next, ask yourself:
  • “Did I fully solve this?”
  • “Is it done?”
  • “Am I ready to move on?”
• Never treat the end-of-test score as the goal
  • The speakers suggest students should effectively not send/share practice test scores, because the point is diagnosing question-by-question performance.
• Practice tests should mirror drilling discipline:
  • If a question is difficult, spend the time on it rather than rushing or skipping.

B) Accuracy Requirements / Drilling Targets

• Stop celebrating 80–90% timed accuracy as “good enough.”
• Aim for 95–100% accuracy, implying you must learn to avoid misses.
• Use a drilling test of consistency:
  • Build a simple scoreboard on paper.
  • Track: How many times can you do 10 questions in a row without missing one?
• In particular, focus on the first 10 questions of each section:
  • the claim is students often miss easy early questions, which signals an improper approach.

C) Volume Reduction Rule (“Do Fewer Questions”)

• Reduce the number of questions you do.
• Use the time you saved to:
  • correct mistakes,
  • understand why answers are correct/incorrect,
  • ensure each question is truly mastered before moving on.

D) Speed Rule

• Do not think about speed during practice.
• Only think about:
  • solving correctly,
  • accuracy.
• Speed should improve incidentally once accuracy is consistently high.

E) Passage/Question Correctness Benchmarks (Toward Score Goals)

• For LR to reach the 160-range:
  • getting roughly 1–15 correct (possibly up to 1–17 or 1–18) is cited as a key threshold.
• For RC to reach the 160s:
  • aim for about 2 perfect passages (or 2.5–3 perfect passages).
• Combined implication:
  • do fewer passages/questions, but make them “perfect” through mastery.

---

Speakers / Sources Featured (Identified)

• Josh Mansfield — teacher/host (“the teacher with the demon”)
• Nathan Fox — co-founder of elsademon.com; host/producer connected with “Podcast thinking Elsat”
• Emma — the student/email writer asking for help (speaker only as a quoted email/testimony)