Top Law Schools

.

I've never really found the 20-25 being easier talk to be correct. There is often a time consuming parallel question towards the end, and often times a 2nd fairly tricky question.

I don't think that I ever spend more than about 90 seconds going through answers the first time through. What I usually do is go through relatively quickly, pick what seems like the best answer on each question while starring ones that seem difficult/tricky, then spend about half of my remaining time trying to figure out the (usually 1-4) questions that I originally marked as tricky, and then quickly go back through the other answers looking for mistakes. I have found that answers that I originally marked as difficult often seem to be more clear once I go back through and don't have the whole section stretching menacingly in front of me.

I haven't had much problems timing LR so not sure if this would work for you, but I would recommend at least giving a similar strategy a shot.

.

i got a 170 and i did go through each section twice. But, the first time i went through the LR sections I skipped all parallel reasoning and parallel flaw questions because they took longer. then I would do those on the second go around. Usually got back to second look through with 15 minutes left so as long as you know you can finish the other questions fast enough i find that this worked well. at least for me.

I just go straight through. If I'm having trouble with a Q I just jump to another on the page.

Try to get the first 15 questions done in 15 minutes and then cruise home from there.

.

I only go through once, going back to a couple that I circle. I'll usually have one of these circled ones wrong and then correct it on my second look.

The key to getting through fast is getting through the first 15 in 15 minutes. Then use 15 more minutes for the last 10. The last 5 minutes are to look at those you were questionable on, and after that go through every question again from the beginning.

.

MrBlueSky! wrote:

duallys21 wrote:I don't think that I ever spend more than about 90 seconds going through answers the first time through.

....am i missing something here? Are most 170ers going through an LR section more than once? If that is the key, then i'm not ashamed to hear it.

No, most 170+ scorers do not go through or have the time to go through the section twice. Having a little bit of time at the end to double check a few questions is common, but more extra time than that is very very rare. Don't get the wrong idea about what is typical for 170+ scoring people.

A lot of high scoring people finish the LR sections with little or no extra time to go back and double check questions. Part of the reason for that is different time management strategies. I don't think it's a good idea to rush through a section super fast in order to have lots of time at the end to double check things. Instead I think it's better to just be thorough, work through the section at a healthy pace that allows you to go through all the proper analytical steps for each question the first time through so there is little need to go back except for maybe a few that just didn't click or that you have a lingering doubt about.

Also OP, since you are missing ~7 per LR section, timing is not really your big issue. You have weaknesses with LR fundamentals that are causing you to miss questions and need to figure out which specific aspects of LR tasks/techniques/concepts you are having trouble with that are causing you to select wrong answers. Timing improves naturally with improved skill level/LR question solving skills.

Until you can consistently get -0/-1 on non time pressured LR sections, timing is not your biggest problem that you should to be focusing on.

PS: the questions don't dip back down to the easy level at the end of LR sections. While there is occasionally a semi-easy question in the last five, they are generally mid to higher level difficulty.

MrBlueSky! wrote:

chill wrote: 1) read stimulus and question stem, think of logical answer (while flicking my eyes down to the answer choices).
2) Find the answer I was looking for (or find a better one)
3) if I didn't get it right off the bat, throw a star next to it.

First, thank you much "Chill" for going the intel on your technique. The first few parts seem really straight forward, in that you preface your answer choice. I have that trick in mind, and use it regularly. However, I do not seek that specific answer out first, I go through each answer a-b-c-d-e. ...Is that also an additional "bad practice" of mine?

These old habits:
1. Going straight through 1 --> 26/27
2. Checking each answer A--> E
....really seem to be pointless and time consuming.

It sounds like I've gone about this wrong for the last 1+ year of studying (which I have no shame in admitting)!
It also sounds like I've taken a "nail" approach to this test and LR especially, while everything you all have said really have "hammer" like qualities in that you are all aggressive in your test taking/reading and reasoning.

Thanks Chill, jwg6x6, JWP1022, and jlb251 ...by the way is that a coincidence or a TLS forum name generator?

As I have gathered from all of you
The New Habits of the Winners Circle:
1st Round of Answering (20-25 minutes):
1. 15-in-15
2. 60-90 seconds max per question
....if hard question (longer than 1:30), circle and come back to
....if easy question, answer and move on
2. go into answers looking for logical choice (preface)
...Skim answers until that choice comes up
...pick answer (immediately, with assured confidence) if available
...at least narrow down to 2 choices each time
*deep breath*
2nd Round of Answering (10-15 minutes):
1. Go back through and finish up uncertain answers
...Ideally no more than 7 or 8 choices

Changing your habits to this is not going to improve your accuracy unless you improve your LR analysis and question solving skills.

Remember that these 'winners circle' habits you are focusing on are just timing strategies that work better for people that are ALREADY good at solving LR questions with a high level of accuracy that helped them shave of a few mistakes per section to perfect an already almost perfect performance. These timing habits are not what causes them to have a high level of accuracy when selecting answer choices!

You need to build and be solid with all the fundamental LR skills and techniques and have a high accuracy rate before playing around with different timing strategies can be beneficial. Work on that first, then fine tune your timing in section format.

.

I generally finish my LR sections in 30 minutes and average -0/-1 per LR section at most (with occasionally a very rare -2; but those are often cause of things like misbubbling).

The strategy I've used that in my case has sped up my timing while not losing accuracy has been to:

1) Jump around to accumulate the 'shavings' of time-saved. Do the seemingly easy ones first. My 'completion' question sequence could appear something like: 1, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 20, 21, 15, 16, 25, etc.

2) If a question seems confusing, SKIP IT ASAP. Once you read through the stimulus and question stem, scram and let your subconscious work on it while you work consciously on the other easier questions. I've found that although I would have no clue in the initial run-through of one of these difficult questions, when I went back a second time it just 'clicked'. I attribute this to the sub-conscious work. Never spend a long time on a question in the initial run-through.

That's basically the gist of it. Avoid the time-suckers and try to accumulate time-savings on others. This will result in you in the end having a solid time-bank built up by the end so that, as others have mentioned, you can cruise without much stress or rush through the difficult ones and still have time to spare (I find with this I almost never need to spend above 30 minutes for both completion and the previously mentioned section score results).

A lot of people/classes/instructors talk about "anticipation" on LR. In my experience -- and I am usually -0 to -2 on LR -- anticipation is really only "doable" on the easier to mid-range questions, however it is key that you are able to anticipate on those questions, thereby giving you more time to slog through the harder questions.

For example, I don't think I know of ANYONE who could anticipate the answer to the famous Beethoven Necessary Assumption question while reading the stimulus. But, if you save 30-40 seconds on a question early in a section by having good skills at anticipating answers to easy/medium difficulty question gives you 30-40 seconds to think about the harder ones. It adds up.

The 1:30 rule isn't really a useful guideline because it's an average. In reality, I think most 170+ scorers spend way, way less than 1:30 on the easy questions. So on the harder questions, I'll sometimes put in 2:00 (maybe even more on rare occasions) -- but only because I have a lot of banked time from the easy/medium ones.

JWP1022 wrote:A lot of people/classes/instructors talk about "anticipation" on LR. In my experience -- and I am usually -0 to -2 on LR -- anticipation is really only "doable" on the easier to mid-range questions, however it is key that you are able to anticipate on those questions, thereby giving you more time to slog through the harder questions.

For example, I don't think I know of ANYONE who could anticipate the answer to the famous Beethoven Necessary Assumption question while reading the stimulus. But, if you save 30-40 seconds on a question early in a section by having good skills at anticipating answers to easy/medium difficulty question gives you 30-40 seconds to think about the harder ones. It adds up.

There is truth to your observation. 'Pre-phrasing an answer' as it is usually called (I hate this label since it isn't about predicting the form/phrasing/actual words, it's about anticipating an idea/certain substance/content!) is sometimes helpful but has limited usefulness. It doesn't work on all question types and the ones it does help on are usually easy to medium difficulty level. But since it does dramatically speed up those questions, saving time for harder ones, it is very valuable and should be used for that purpose when appropriate (the easier questions).

This doesn't happen a lot but often enough to take note. Some high level difficulty LR questions are set up in ways to make a certain 'pre-phrase' obvious to decently skilled test takers that is about something different than what the CR is about along with a trap answer that is really attractive to people that came up with obvious pre-phrase but is slightly flawed in some way. I've seen this type of situation most commonly with flawed method of reasoning questions where the argument has multiple flaws, one obvious one and another more subtle/difficult to see flaw with a trap answer that comes really close to describing the obvious flaw but does so in a way that is slightly off, making the answer incorrect.

However you go about things, if you analyze the stimulus properly for whatever question type is asked, you should spot the things about the problem that help you anticipate the correct answer, at least in terms of how it will function/relate to an aspect of the stimulus, such as the main assumption/flaw in the argument. The so called technique is not supposed to be you trying to anticipate/predict an actual sentence or precise thought the answer will say before looking at them beyond just having an idea of what it should be about based on your preliminary analysis. In the cases where you can/do come up with a near perfect pre-phrase that matches the CR, it is usually an easy question almost everyone gets right anyway and that you would have gotten correct anyway without trouble, so expecting that to happen with a lot of LR questions is going to lead to disappointment and frustration.

Many of the highly difficult LR questions have CRs that I wouldn't expect anyone to have been able to anticipate. If you let yourself get stuck or get frustrated when you can't come up with a pre-phrase for questions, it will hurt you. It's nice when it works but don't bank on it for every question or doubt yourself when you come up dry.

If you try to include pre-phrasing in your strategy it is important to understand what it really means in terms of how to do it effectively vs. what not to expect. The most important thing is to understand that it isn't about getting super specific with exactly what you think the correct answer will say, even if a specific inference from say a contrapositive is available, but instead that it is about getting a good idea of the substance the correct answer will likely be about since the same or similar ideas can be expressed in many different ways.

The LSAT writers love to write answer choices that convey a simple idea in a convoluted way that makes the simple meaning less obvious without critical thought about the meaning of the sentence. You all should know what I'm talking about, the answer choices you get mad at because the phrasing is so indirect to say something that could have been expressed in a simple straightforward way. If you are too rigid in wanting to see a particular idea expressed in a particular way you pre-phrased, you risk overlooking the CR because you are only looking for your particular way of saying something similar.


-------------

In my view, pre-phrasing should really just be about doing the proper type of analysis of the stimulus that is appropriate for the Q type before rushing into the answer choices so that you have a good handle on the logical relationships, whatever they are, in the stimulus that are relevant to the Q type in order to have to right info/relationships in mind when you read the answers. This makes you much more likely to recognize the CR by being better prepared to see its relationship to the aspects of the stimulus you already figured out were important to focus on for the Q type.

For argument based questions that involve flaws (str, wkn, flawed method of reasoning, necessary assumption, parallel the flaw), pre-phrasing really means to figure out the main assumption of the argument/the hole/gap/flaw in the reasoning so that your brain is tuned in to recognize an answer choice that deals with the flaw/assumption.

Sufficient assumption questions based on conditional reasoning (and some that are not conditional) are usually susceptible to pre-phrasing once you break down the argument properly, so you should actively do it with this type.

MBT questions with conditional premises can sometimes, but not always be pre-phrased. That depends on how many different valid conclusions the supplied premises generate when put together. If it is just one, such as a question with one conditional and a fact that triggers the contrapositive or one with two premises that give you A --> B --> C, you can usually predict almost exactly what the answer will be, but not with ones with multiple conditionals that create multiple possible conclusions such as complex formal logic ones.

Main point and role in the argument questions are pre-phrased simply by breaking down the argument into its pieces and being clear about which part is conclusion, premise, sub-conclusion, counter premise, etc. before looking at the answers.

Parallel reasoning, flawed or not, is about being clear what the method of reasoning in the stimulus is before diving into the answer choices.

Pre-phrasing paradox/discrepency questions is about making sure you are clear what exactly the discrepency/paradox is that you are trying to resolve/explain, sometimes with easy ones of this type an easy explanation will come to mind, but usually not for higher difficulty rates ones.

etc. for the other Q types with focusing on analyzing the aspects of the stimulus that are relevant for solving the particular Q type before diving into the answer choices.

No, sometimes questions take me as much as 2:30 or longer. But the majority of questions took me less than 1:00. Being able to save seconds on easy questions gave me the time to linger on tougher questions, and to review my work at the end of the second. I normally finished each LR with *at least* five minutes, and usually 7-10. Doing lots and lots of practice questions is great for gaining the simple confidence to know when you can speed through, and when you need to take a moment to work through a particular question.

Timing for me is pretty consistent on LR- my initial run through in about 25 to 26 minutes or so, and then I use the rest of the time to look at tough answers that I was unsure on and make sure I did not misbubble.

For 25 question sections, it follows a pretty set pattern IMO- first 7 questions are really simple, next 7 questions (7-13) are medium to tough, next 6 or 7 (14 to #20 or 21) are absolutely the toughest, #22 and 23 are easier, #24 is tough and time consuming because of parallel flaw, #25 is simple and requires little work. No idea why they do it like this.

Going through, I've started doing something that really minimizes careless errors and increases my accuracy- I circle a word or two in every question stem. "Strengthen" or "weaken" or "most helps to justify" or "disagree" or whatever. I then select my answer, sometimes writing out a quick pre-phrase or circling a word in an attractive incorrect answer that makes it incorrect if needed. Finish with about 10 minutes to spare. Spend 5 minutes going through questions I was unsure of, guessed on, or were just clearly tough. With 5 minutes left, I'll do a quick check to make sure I didn't misbubble (1:30 or so), and with my 3 or 4 minutes left, I'll quickly run through every question, look at my word I circled, make sure my answer reflects that (and I didn't choose a disagree for agree, etc.). I have no set limit of "it's been 1:30, gotta move on!" but if there is a really tough question I might narrow down to 2 choices, pick one, and know I'll be coming back to it. It's become pretty mechanical at this point. I wish I could say the same for my LG or RC.