Re-reading is killing me. Forum

[unitball]

Today I went through a couple LR sections and timed myself individually on each question. If I burned lots of time on a question, I wrote down why. I figured out the majority of my LSAT timing issues in logical reasoning are because of re-reading. It could be the stimulus, question stem, or answer choices; most of the time it's a combination of them. It seems I reread the stimulus on 50%+ of the questions; it sucks. Re-reading is eating up my time and it's super-frustrating because I don't know what to do in order to understand and completely grasp what I'm reading the first time I read it.

I'm looking for any kind of tip that can help me with this. Thanks in advance.

[RCinDNA]

Today I went through a couple LR sections and timed myself individually on each question. If I burned lots of time on a question, I wrote down why. I figured out the majority of my LSAT timing issues in logical reasoning are because of re-reading. It could be the stimulus, question stem, or answer choices; most of the time it's a combination of all of them. It looks like I reread the stimulus on 50%+ of the questions; it sucks. Re-reading is eating up my time and it's super-frustrating because I don't know what to do in order to understand and completely grasp what I'm reading the first time I read it.

I'm looking for any kind of tip that can help me with this. Thanks in advance.

Reading the question stem first helps me focus. Knowing up front that a question is asking me about a role in the argument or identifying the main conclusion helps me be more attentive to what I'm trying to do. Also, I'm a little more accepting of skipping a question that makes me go "???" and trying to knock out the simpler questions first now.

[unitball]

^ Thanks for the tip. I currently always read the question stem first and sometimes consider skipping if the stim is too complicated.

I'm wondering if there's any kind of training or practice I can do so that I can fully grasp and understand everything the first time I read it.

[Cobretti]

Today I went through a couple LR sections and timed myself individually on each question. If I burned lots of time on a question, I wrote down why. I figured out the majority of my LSAT timing issues in logical reasoning are because of re-reading. It could be the stimulus, question stem, or answer choices; most of the time it's a combination of them. It seems I reread the stimulus on 50%+ of the questions; it sucks. Re-reading is eating up my time and it's super-frustrating because I don't know what to do in order to understand and completely grasp what I'm reading the first time I read it.

I'm looking for any kind of tip that can help me with this. Thanks in advance.

It may seem counter intuitive... but slow down, a lot.

Keep taking practices and slow down to the point where there is absolutely no way you will have to reread anything, and see how your timing goes. Personally I read everything extremely slow and deliberately, and out of 25 questions I probably only re-read about 5. You've already pointed how how you lose more time in re-reading, so try just slowing down your pace on your initial read through and you may find it increases your time significantly (as well as your accuracy).

[ws81086n]

Today I went through a couple LR sections and timed myself individually on each question. If I burned lots of time on a question, I wrote down why. I figured out the majority of my LSAT timing issues in logical reasoning are because of re-reading. It could be the stimulus, question stem, or answer choices; most of the time it's a combination of them. It seems I reread the stimulus on 50%+ of the questions; it sucks. Re-reading is eating up my time and it's super-frustrating because I don't know what to do in order to understand and completely grasp what I'm reading the first time I read it.

I'm looking for any kind of tip that can help me with this. Thanks in advance.

It may seem counter intuitive... but slow down, a lot.

Keep taking practices and slow down to the point where there is absolutely no way you will have to reread anything, and see how your timing goes. Personally I read everything extremely slow and deliberately, and out of 25 questions I probably only re-read about 5. You've already pointed how how you lose more time in re-reading, so try just slowing down your pace on your initial read through and you may find it increases your time significantly (as well as your accuracy).

I would recommend this as well. The first LR I took, I went four minutes over, and so I started going for speed. Ended up making me have to re-read and re-think way more than I wanted to. Then I decided I would be very, very deliberate in reading the stimulus (stem first) and answer choices, pausing at key points in the stimulus to digest what had been said and what its implications were, given the stem. Now, I'm consistently finishing in 33-35 minutes with significantly better accuracy/less variance.

[unitball]

all right. I'll try slowing down a lot. my subconscious is going to hate this when I first try it >_<

[RCinDNA]

all right. I'll try slowing down a lot. my subconscious is going to hate this when I first try it >_<

It's partially a mental game. 35 minutes is more than enough time to deal with 23-25 questions if you clearly understand that stimulus and question stem in your first reading, if you approach it with discipline and critical thinking. Rushing through a sentence, missing qualifiers or not knowing what the question requires you to do wastes time.

Sometimes, I mentally pinch myself for a reminder to always be thinking critically to keep my brain wired in the right way.

[dingbat]

Re-reading is eating up my time and it's super-frustrating because I don't know what to do in order to understand and completely grasp what I'm reading the first time I read it.

It may seem counter intuitive... but slow down, a lot.

This is also very good advise for when you face the same problem in law school