Is this a good LR strategy? Forum

[Sh@keNb@ke]

Started my Testmasters course about 6 weeks ago and we're coming to the point in our course where we're suppose to focus on practice, practice, practice. Under the time constraints I'll get to about 16 or 17 problems missing around 5 of those problems. The time is my biggest opponent at this point. Do you guys think it would be best to start off taking the section with 45 minutes instead of 35 and then slowly moving my time down? Such as starting at 45 then each consecutive prep test knocking the time down by a minute or two? Has anyone had success with this strategy?

Also, I'm not planning to take the LSAT until February so at this point in the game should I be going straight to the timed practice tests or use the strategy I mentioned above?

Thanks in advance for the input!

[cmaas]

Practice for accuracy first.

[St.Remy]

Started my Testmasters course about 6 weeks ago and we're coming to the point in our course where we're suppose to focus on practice, practice, practice. Under the time constraints I'll get to about 16 or 17 problems missing around 5 of those problems. The time is my biggest opponent at this point. Do you guys think it would be best to start off taking the section with 45 minutes instead of 35 and then slowly moving my time down? Such as starting at 45 then each consecutive prep test knocking the time down by a minute or two? Has anyone had success with this strategy?

Also, I'm not planning to take the LSAT until February so at this point in the game should I be going straight to the timed practice tests or use the strategy I mentioned above?

Thanks in advance for the input!

I'm not familiar with the testmasters course but I assume that you've already gone over all the question types? If you're not yet comfortable with each question type then that is what you should focus on dealing with first. Work on timing after that.

As for your working down from 45 to 35 minutes I don't really think that would be a good idea- without using the actual time you won't know where you stand. Using the actual time intervals you can compare each practice test to the next, measuring how much you've improved over the course of time. Using different times for each test makes them essentially incomparable. Plus you would be doing the same basic thing in both situations: continually shortening the time it takes you to do each question.

Even with a goal of the February test it's never too early to start doing timed prep.

[whymeohgodno]

Accuracy first for LG. Always.

[Sh@keNb@ke]

Any other suggestions?

[am060459]

how is your accuracy? it really depends on that.

if your accuracy is high, timing shouldnt be an issue.

[Sh@keNb@ke]

how is your accuracy? it really depends on that.

if your accuracy is high, timing shouldnt be an issue.

Untimed my accuracy is great. It's when the time constraint is implemented that my accuracy falls a bit.

[KevinP]

Personally, I did my tests untimed until I scored practically perfects. I then counted how long it took me to do an untimed test. My goal would then be to have every subsequent test have a better time by at least a minute from the previous one Don't know if this makes any difference, I found that I was more time pressed on older LR sections (pre-40s or so) but never had any time issues with newer ones albeit the newer ones did have trickier answer choices. Also, some people find reading the question stem before the stimuli helps but do whatever works best for you.

[fosterp]

I am wondering, at what point do you guys consider accuracy good enough to put more pressure on timing? I am usually between -2 to -6. Should I slow down with practice sections and work on really getting answers right? I'd say a good portion of the questions I am not sure of my answer but I am picking what I think is the best because I can't spend too much time on one Q, and more often than not my instinct is right.

[Sh@keNb@ke]

Personally, I did my tests untimed until I scored practically perfects. I then counted how long it took me to do an untimed test. My goal would then be to have every subsequent test have a better time by at least a minute from the previous one Don't know if this makes any difference, I found that I was more time pressed on older LR sections (pre-40s or so) but never had any time issues with newer ones albeit the newer ones did have trickier answer choices. Also, some people find reading the question stem before the stimuli helps but do whatever works best for you.

When you were bumping your time down by a minute on each consecutive test, what were you originally starting at? And I'm a huge fan of stem first. It really helps me paraphrase the answer better.

[KevinP]

Personally, I did my tests untimed until I scored practically perfects. I then counted how long it took me to do an untimed test. My goal would then be to have every subsequent test have a better time by at least a minute from the previous one Don't know if this makes any difference, I found that I was more time pressed on older LR sections (pre-40s or so) but never had any time issues with newer ones albeit the newer ones did have trickier answer choices. Also, some people find reading the question stem before the stimuli helps but do whatever works best for you.

When you were bumping your time down by a minute on each consecutive test, what were you originally starting at? And I'm a huge fan of stem first. It really helps me paraphrase the answer better.

I started at 42 or 43 mins for LR, I can't remember which. My threshold would be missing 2 or less before decrementing the time by a minute but I never ran into problems with missing more than 2.