Timing - Unable to finish all LR Q's- Suggestions ? Forum

[Philipsssssss]

Although I have a problem in RC as well (-9,-10 which killlllls my score!!!), it is not as easy to give suggestions to… however; my main focus is the LR section.

When I am doing the test untimed, I usually get -3 -2 in the LR sections.

However, it seems that (under timed conditions) my time runs out around Q # 21 or so, out of 25 total Q’s.
Usually I hear and perfectly understand the fact that the first 10 Q’s should be done in approx 10-12 min to leave plenty of time for the rest.

Any advices on how to manage the time better in the LR section?
Skipping lengthy question…skipping the vaguest stimuli’s….

I have until June 7th to improve my timing, I devote approx 3 hours a day to studying, been on and off for the past year. From May 10 through June 1 I plan to devote 5 hours a day to study.

Suggestions will be much appreciated!!!

[micbain]

In the same boat as you. Hit about 21 or 22 and poof, time has run out. I'd be interested in what others have done as well to combat this.

The only things I've been trying:

1. Breeze through 10 questions or so
2. Skip questions which have lengthy narrative or answer choices
3. Make time for the last 3 questions or so (usually easier, or at least I find them to be).

You are averaging 1.6 minutes per question, or about 16 seconds too many (doesn't sound like a lot!) which is killing you (and me). The only other suggestion I have is to keep doing timed and push yourself down to 1.3-1.4 minutes per question which will come from quicker reading comp and break down of narrative. Either that or you're going to have to have to hit 100% accuracy on the 21 or 22 questions you do actually get done.

[yeff]

I achieve the greatest time reduction in the parallel reasoning questions.

These generally have the most words and when I first started studying they took fooorrrreeevvvveerrr and I still missed them more than other question types.

Can't remember whether I got this technique from the LR Bible or Kaplan's Advanced book, but my tip is to learn how to do these by matching the logical structure of the premise and conclusion from the question stem and the answers.

After learning to identify the direction and scope of the conclusion in the stem, I was able to do these questions in less time than many other question types, because you can skim over all those massive sentences. This technique gave a large return on investment because it turned questions that had been very time-consuming AND likely to be missed into very quick questions that I was perfect on.

Also, as you predicted, if you see a question that flummoxes you, skip it and guess, or skip it and return to answer or guess. Are you doing that already?

[redsox]

Do you waste time reading all the answers when you know A or B is correct?

[MrSoOoFLy]

First 10... then work backwards

[Philipsssssss]

Do you waste time reading all the answers when you know A or B is correct?

1) I got to a point where I do feel comfortable eliminating incorrect choices mostly, but sometimes maybe due to fatigue my mind looks at 2 remaining answers and they are so similar, even when looking at the 'extreme' or out of place verb...eh. Usually its super vague passages that are a b#$ch.

2) For the most part, parallel reasoning (for the most part) are easy, some can be challenging.

I noticed that when I start a timed test, my mind goes blank hah, maybe its pressure. I got this under wraps lately, but I really need to focus better.

Maybe I should trust my instinct more and not stare at 2 choices for 2 minutes. Time flies by quick sometimes where you don’t even notice, and then 'wake up call'.

I would sum my prob's as follows:

a) Most super vague stimuli is a killer, sometimes they confuse my mind too much, although I learned to focus on critical parts, sometimes it seems that each LSAT nevertheless brings some new twist.

b) Sometimes I am loosing focus; I don’t know why, my mind just blanks out a little.

[yeff]

not stare at 2 choices for 2 minutes

Uh, yeah. Don't.

Sounds like you are losing focus - maybe take a break for a few days. Can't burn out now.