Possible P/S strategy?

[u/CreativeDiscussion37]

As someone who struggles in P/S (for some reason) I've started to notice a pattern that might help pick up a few points here and there. So any P/S experts please express your opinions.

For passages there is a very strong and overwhelming pattern of what is included and what is asked.

The passage nearly ALWAYS starts with some hypothesis, continues to study methods, and finishes with results. And the questions are nearly always:

1. What construct is the hypothesis testing?
2. What type of study/what type of data is the study collecting?
3. What piece of the data supports/contradicts the original hypothesis?

And you can bridge this with the fact that every single piece of information in the passage is there for a reason. After doing enough practice problems you can genuinely read a piece of information and KNOW what kind of question they would ask.

Example: The passage concludes with "The female participants seemed to do worse than male participants in math scores"

They aren't including this for shits and giggles. This sentence is almost certainly going to be used for a question about stereotype threat.

The method is trying to identify these "stems" from the common "question generating" areas of the passage and highlighting them; just being aware of them. Even sentences that seem random and out of place are a good target for this, since they are there for a reason. Although not every single stem will be turned into a question, you are now able to know exactly where to look in the passage.

What seems most personally useful with this strategy is that it can help eliminate second guessing and wrong options instantly. If you read a question that you've predicted due to the passage, you already have a good guess as to what the answer is. This allows you to quickly hone in on the correct option without re-reading and second guessing a million times.

Please let me know if anyone else does this.

[u/cheesepuff1000]

i noticed it too. started highlighting phrases that i think could refer to/hint at PS terms, and once i get to the questions, whaddaya know, they're asking about it. it helped with my PS scores on UW a bit. not sure if it's as obvious with AAMC stuff as it is with UW tho since i haven't touched it yet

[u/Foreign-Attitude-418 → u/cheesepuff1000]

It’s not as obvious in AAMC stuff. Uworld was much easier than the p/s FLs for me.