Does poor timing improves? Forum

[dsosah]

Hi there, so I started studying for the LSAT about a month ago, I'm taking it slowly since I've got plenty of time to take the test. Right now I'm going through the advance Linear games, and I'm just starting with the logical reasoning section. However I've noticed I'm super slow in both sections.
For the LR, I always finish with 2, 3 questions left, and for the LG linear advanced games, it takes me like 12min to do some of them. With the basic linear ones, once I repeat them for the second or third time, my timing goes down to like 7min per question, but this is after repeating them.
I guess my question is, for those of you who are already towards the end of your studying or that took the test already, is it normal to start that slow, does this improves? I would think it does, I'm trying to keep myself positive, but I'm getting kind of nervous that I might just be slow at this. I understand pretty much everything I've studied so far, but is just the timing that kills me.
Please if anybody can tell me their experiences on how did they started (on timing) with the test, and how did they improved after studying it would be great.
thanks

[PDaddy]

Yes, "poor timing does 'improves' [sic]". Good for you! Keep practicing, and keep up the repetition.

[bp shinners]

Timing's the last thing that you should work on. Focus, for now, on making sure that your accuracy is where you want it to be. When you're consistently hitting your target, then start to time yourself and really work on strategies to make yourself faster. However, if you start that process before you really understand the material, you're going to end up sacrificing the accuracy for speed.

You've got plenty of time - focus on getting the questions right, then move on to speed as we move through September.

[senorhosh]

I was pretty discouraged too.

I was in the almost exact same situation as you. After a month, LG took 10-12 minutes, and I couldn't finish 2-4 questions on LR.
Just keep doing PT's and set a bench mark.
A good benchmark for LR is 15 q in 20 min, and 15 min for the last 10-11 questions. After you do that, try working your way to 15 q in 15 min and 15 min for last 10-11 so you have 5 minutes to check.
For LG, try to get 6 min on the easier games so you have more time on the harder ones. Don't worry if you can't now. It'll come sooner or later.

After about another month I improved A LOT.
I can finish LG in ~25 minutes and LR in ~30 now.

Don't be discouraged just keep practicing. Also, I do agree it's better to focus on ACCURACY than time on your PT for now.

[dsosah]

thanks a lot everybody, it helps to know there are other people who started like me and got better at it. My accuracy is decent in LG, usually I get them all or miss 1-3 (although I haven't got to the hardest ones yet, just the advanced linear), in LR however I'm pretty bad right now (missing anywhere from 6-11 questions) but I haven't gone through the LR bible yet, I hope I can improve as I go.
So I do think is better to concentrate in accuracy right now, I was practicing both timing and accuracy, but it is a little overwhelming to do the timing when I'm still not familiar with the question types. I'm just so anxious to improve , I guess I have to take it easy. My goal is 173+, but I'm light years from that right now, I have plenty of time though, so I can only hope. I see that a lot of the ppl who got higher than 170 scored really good on their diagnosis test, and that's not my case (159 timed LG, rest untimed) which makes me really nervous, but well, I can only keep practicing and see.
Thanks again for your posts, I will definitely follow your advice.