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With the clock ticking and me knowing the clock ticking, more importantly, I am less thoughtful and diligent and more prone to rushing through things. When the clocks running and I tell myself it doesn't matter if I go over or under, I usually make it anyway and feel relaxed. This is a great hindrandce. And I think it will be for June

christianj889 wrote:With the clock ticking and me knowing the clock ticking, more importantly, I am less thoughtful and diligent and more prone to rushing through things. When the clocks running and I tell myself it doesn't matter if I go over or under, I usually make it anyway and feel relaxed. This is a great hindrandce. And I think it will be for June

take timed practice tests. only allow yourself 30 minutes instead of 35. this will allow you to practice under a more stressful situation. you also might want to try some meditation techniques to calm your mind before the test and after the third section.

Too busy mind= decrease in confidence, which in turn may hinder your ability to do as best as possible on LSAT day

Edit: nvm this looks like it was for the LSAT and I gave law school exam advice.

I would second using less time on the practices. Once you take a very large number of practices it starts to get a little more routine which could help you too.

Mnav20 wrote:Two things.

1) Outline an essay answer before diving into typing. I have found that knowing exactly which points I am going to write about calms me down instead of trying to type and think about what I should be writing next or re-evaluating the fact pattern for issues I missed. I think it is easiest to go slow at the beginning and try to catch everything while its fresh, then to turn into a rote typing machine for the rest of the exam period.

2) Make sure to save yourself two minutes at the end to use the exam software's spell-check. From your posts' anecdotal evidence I would guess that sloppiness could be subjectively holding you back in your professor's mind.

These are great ideas, but given the fact that this is the LSAT Prep and Discussion thread, and that there is a test in June, I don't they they apply to OP ( not yet, that is) as OP hasn't quite made it to law school yet. .

northwood wrote:

Mnav20 wrote:Two things.

1) Outline an essay answer before diving into typing. I have found that knowing exactly which points I am going to write about calms me down instead of trying to type and think about what I should be writing next or re-evaluating the fact pattern for issues I missed. I think it is easiest to go slow at the beginning and try to catch everything while its fresh, then to turn into a rote typing machine for the rest of the exam period.

2) Make sure to save yourself two minutes at the end to use the exam software's spell-check. From your posts' anecdotal evidence I would guess that sloppiness could be subjectively holding you back in your professor's mind.

These are great ideas, but given the fact that this is the LSAT Prep and Discussion thread, and that there is a test in June, I don't they they apply to OP ( not yet, that is) as OP hasn't quite made it to law school yet. .

Sorry about that. I realized it pretty much as soon as I posted it.

I check my wrist watch about 3 to 4 times during a section.

For example take LR:

I know I have to be around 11 minutes after the first 10 questions. So I check my time after 10 questions. I'm almost always around 11 minutes, so it helps to ease my anxiety.

Then I check it again with about 5 questions to go. Ideally, I want to have 10 minutes for the last 5 questions. It could be less if the parallel questions already came.

Then I'll check my watch when I finish the section to see how much time I have to go back and look over the questions I wasn't sure about.

Basically, I trust that I'll have enough time, and I mostly check the time to prove to myself that I'm on track.

papercut wrote:I check my wrist watch about 3 to 4 times during a section.

For example take LR:

I know I have to be around 11 minutes after the first 10 questions. So I check my time after 10 questions. I'm almost always around 11 minutes, so it helps to ease my anxiety.

Then I check it again with about 5 questions to go. Ideally, I want to have 10 minutes for the last 5 questions. It could be less if the parallel questions already came.

Then I'll check my watch when I finish the section to see how much time I have to go back and look over the questions I wasn't sure about.

Basically, I trust that I'll have enough time, and I mostly check the time to prove to myself that I'm on track.

Hey! thanks for this, I will try to follow this too, do you also have a breakdown like this for logic games, and reading comp? thanks!

Harness in the good energy, block out the bad. Harness. Energy. Block. Bad. It's like a carousel. You put the quarter in, you get on the horse, it goes up and down, and around. Circular, circle. Feel it. Go with the flow.

For logic games, you need to figure out how difficult the game is from reading the intro and representing the rules, and then decide how much time it should take.

If I see that it's an easy game, I want to finish it in 5 minutes. There's almost always an easy game, and it's almost always the first or second game. Once I get this game done, I feel comfortable for the rest of the section.

I assume that there will be two medium difficulty games, which I'll do in about 7.5 minutes each.

My goal is to save time for a horrendously difficult game/I totally missed the key deduction game. I want 15 minutes for such a game. Usually, it's the last game so it feels very comforting going in knowing you'll have more time than you really need to have.

On the other hand, if it comes third, I just want to have about 7.5 minutes left for the last game.

I don't ever really think I'm going to run out of time, but it's nice to confirm that by looking at your watch. It helps me calm down a bit.

RC is different. You have the length of the passage, the difficulty, and the number of questions. These can all line up in different ways, so I don't think it's productive to try guessing a unique amount of time you'll need per passage. I just try to have 8 minutes for each passage. I get pleasantly surprised by doing one or two faster than that and then I can maybe have a bit more time for the 3rd or 4th passage.

While I do sometimes finish LR and LG quite early, this never happens with RC for me. RC is my best section. I read very slowly and I feel like I use all my time, with none left to go back and check stuff. I actually think this is better, because when you go back you have to re-read stuff. Re-reading is a massive waste of time. It's better to get it right on the first pass.

papercut wrote:For logic games, you need to figure out how difficult the game is from reading the intro and representing the rules, and then decide how much time it should take.

If I see that it's an easy game, I want to finish it in 5 minutes. There's almost always an easy game, and it's almost always the first or second game. Once I get this game done, I feel comfortable for the rest of the section.

I assume that there will be two medium difficulty games, which I'll do in about 7.5 minutes each.

My goal is to save time for a horrendously difficult game/I totally missed the key deduction game. I want 15 minutes for such a game. Usually, it's the last game so it feels very comforting going in knowing you'll have more time than you really need to have.

On the other hand, if it comes third, I just want to have about 7.5 minutes left for the last game.

I don't ever really think I'm going to run out of time, but it's nice to confirm that by looking at your watch. It helps me calm down a bit.

RC is different. You have the length of the passage, the difficulty, and the number of questions. These can all line up in different ways, so I don't think it's productive to try guessing a unique amount of time you'll need per passage. I just try to have 8 minutes for each passage. I get pleasantly surprised by doing one or two faster than that and then I can maybe have a bit more time for the 3rd or 4th passage.

While I do sometimes finish LR and LG quite early, this never happens with RC for me. RC is my best section. I read very slowly and I feel like I use all my time, with none left to go back and check stuff. I actually think this is better, because when you go back you have to re-read stuff. Re-reading is a massive waste of time. It's better to get it right on the first pass.

Hey thank you so much!, and your advice on logic games is really good, I will follow that, and for reading comp, I take about 9-10 mins for a passage right now, I understand that it is a bit too much, and tried to analyse what was wrong, I realised that I read the passage, make good notations, underlining the important part- the main point, the authors opinion/view, in about 3-3:30 mins, which Im told is pretty good. So, my problem for taking 10 mins to finish a passage is that I tend to spend too much time in the answer choices, I read the question, then prehase the answer the choice, and then look the choices, eliminate two or three choices,a nd then between the two left, I choose the best. I feel like like I am falling into the classic LSAC trap of being sucked into the attratcive answer choices, and that forces me to spend a little more time than I would like. Any tips to get faster at that?

deebanger wrote:

papercut wrote:For logic games, you need to figure out how difficult the game is from reading the intro and representing the rules, and then decide how much time it should take.

If I see that it's an easy game, I want to finish it in 5 minutes. There's almost always an easy game, and it's almost always the first or second game. Once I get this game done, I feel comfortable for the rest of the section.

I assume that there will be two medium difficulty games, which I'll do in about 7.5 minutes each.

My goal is to save time for a horrendously difficult game/I totally missed the key deduction game. I want 15 minutes for such a game. Usually, it's the last game so it feels very comforting going in knowing you'll have more time than you really need to have.

On the other hand, if it comes third, I just want to have about 7.5 minutes left for the last game.

I don't ever really think I'm going to run out of time, but it's nice to confirm that by looking at your watch. It helps me calm down a bit.

RC is different. You have the length of the passage, the difficulty, and the number of questions. These can all line up in different ways, so I don't think it's productive to try guessing a unique amount of time you'll need per passage. I just try to have 8 minutes for each passage. I get pleasantly surprised by doing one or two faster than that and then I can maybe have a bit more time for the 3rd or 4th passage.

While I do sometimes finish LR and LG quite early, this never happens with RC for me. RC is my best section. I read very slowly and I feel like I use all my time, with none left to go back and check stuff. I actually think this is better, because when you go back you have to re-read stuff. Re-reading is a massive waste of time. It's better to get it right on the first pass.

Hey thank you so much!, and your advice on logic games is really good, I will follow that, and for reading comp, I take about 9-10 mins for a passage right now, I understand that it is a bit too much, and tried to analyse what was wrong, I realised that I read the passage, make good notations, underlining the important part- the main point, the authors opinion/view, in about 3-3:30 mins, which Im told is pretty good. So, my problem for taking 10 mins to finish a passage is that I tend to spend too much time in the answer choices, I read the question, then prehase the answer the choice, and then look the choices, eliminate two or three choices,a nd then between the two left, I choose the best. I feel like like I am falling into the classic LSAC trap of being sucked into the attratcive answer choices, and that forces me to spend a little more time than I would like. Any tips to get faster at that?

Yeah you need to get better at understanding why the wrong answers are wrong. This builds up over time, but it's based on having a real good understanding of the fallacies tested on the LSAT. You think "Which flaw would someone commit by liking this wrong answer choice?" The more you get used to doing this, the easier it is to spot the wrong answer choices. The wrong answer choice are almost never pure nonsense, they could work IF you allowed some assumption -- i.e. if you fix some flaw. So you should understand what this flaw is.

Also, I take about 4-5 minutes on reading the passage and making my annotations, mostly just reading. It's not right for everyone, but it works well for me. After I'm done reading slowly through the passage I can answer most of the questions without looking back at the text again. And if I have to look back at the text, my eyes almost always go straight to the relevant parts of the passage, so there's very little wasted time.

I think a lot of people think the major battle goes down when you get to the answer choices. I think it happens anywhere but there. Pre-phrasing the correct answer is really important, and to get there you need to be really familiar with the passage. At least, that's why I think taking so much time reading the passage works for me. If you have a really good pre-phrasing then you'll be much less likely to get stuck on a tempting wrong answer, because it won't look like you pre-phrase.

papercut wrote:

deebanger wrote:

papercut wrote:For logic games, you need to figure out how difficult the game is from reading the intro and representing the rules, and then decide how much time it should take.

If I see that it's an easy game, I want to finish it in 5 minutes. There's almost always an easy game, and it's almost always the first or second game. Once I get this game done, I feel comfortable for the rest of the section.

I assume that there will be two medium difficulty games, which I'll do in about 7.5 minutes each.

My goal is to save time for a horrendously difficult game/I totally missed the key deduction game. I want 15 minutes for such a game. Usually, it's the last game so it feels very comforting going in knowing you'll have more time than you really need to have.

On the other hand, if it comes third, I just want to have about 7.5 minutes left for the last game.

I don't ever really think I'm going to run out of time, but it's nice to confirm that by looking at your watch. It helps me calm down a bit.

RC is different. You have the length of the passage, the difficulty, and the number of questions. These can all line up in different ways, so I don't think it's productive to try guessing a unique amount of time you'll need per passage. I just try to have 8 minutes for each passage. I get pleasantly surprised by doing one or two faster than that and then I can maybe have a bit more time for the 3rd or 4th passage.

While I do sometimes finish LR and LG quite early, this never happens with RC for me. RC is my best section. I read very slowly and I feel like I use all my time, with none left to go back and check stuff. I actually think this is better, because when you go back you have to re-read stuff. Re-reading is a massive waste of time. It's better to get it right on the first pass.

Hey thank you so much!, and your advice on logic games is really good, I will follow that, and for reading comp, I take about 9-10 mins for a passage right now, I understand that it is a bit too much, and tried to analyse what was wrong, I realised that I read the passage, make good notations, underlining the important part- the main point, the authors opinion/view, in about 3-3:30 mins, which Im told is pretty good. So, my problem for taking 10 mins to finish a passage is that I tend to spend too much time in the answer choices, I read the question, then prehase the answer the choice, and then look the choices, eliminate two or three choices,a nd then between the two left, I choose the best. I feel like like I am falling into the classic LSAC trap of being sucked into the attratcive answer choices, and that forces me to spend a little more time than I would like. Any tips to get faster at that?

Yeah you need to get better at understanding why the wrong answers are wrong. This builds up over time, but it's based on having a real good understanding of the fallacies tested on the LSAT. You think "Which flaw would someone commit by liking this wrong answer choice?" The more you get used to doing this, the easier it is to spot the wrong answer choices. The wrong answer choice are almost never pure nonsense, they could work IF you allowed some assumption -- i.e. if you fix some flaw. So you should understand what this flaw is.

Also, I take about 4-5 minutes on reading the passage and making my annotations, mostly just reading. It's not right for everyone, but it works well for me. After I'm done reading slowly through the passage I can answer most of the questions without looking back at the text again. And if I have to look back at the text, my eyes almost always go straight to the relevant parts of the passage, so there's very little wasted time.

I think a lot of people think the major battle goes down when you get to the answer choices. I think it happens anywhere but there. Pre-phrasing the correct answer is really important, and to get there you need to be really familiar with the passage. At least, that's why I think taking so much time reading the passage works for me. If you have a really good pre-phrasing then you'll be much less likely to get stuck on a tempting wrong answer, because it won't look like you pre-phrase.

This view needs more emphasis on TLS regarding focusing on really understanding each RC passage very well before racing into the questions rather than trying to figure out ways to read it really fast. Most of the common types of trap answers on RC questions are specifically designed to sucker people that only superficially read the passage without much active analysis beyond just trying to remember what is explicitly said. When you really understand all the main ideas discussed and understand how the details were used to support/enlarge the main ideas and which details are associated with which ideas and in what ways, answering the questions goes pretty fast and trap answers aren't even tempting.

It's just like with LG's, a bit more time invested up front analyzing and understanding what the questions are about, the easier it is to answer the questions with less time and extra effort. Having to dig back into the passage a lot for many questions indicates crappy focus/level of analysis/processing of the content when you read it the first time. 3-4 minutes spent properly on the passage is about right to be able to answer the questions quickly and accurately. A big part of getting good at RC is training yourself to focus on figuring out and retaining the important stuff from the passage the questions will focus on. LSAT RC is not meant to test how well people can memorize everything that was said, making trying to memorize lots of stuff very counterproductive. Only a few questions per RC section simply ask you to find the answer that restates something explicitly said in the passage and they are considered to be the easiest of all RC question types. Mainly focusing on figuring out the main ideas and how they relate in the big picture to get the big ideas in your head is the goal, not trying to remember all the details the ideas were built up with. Just focusing on trying to remember the main ideas takes a lot less brain power and brain space than trying to remember everything that was explicitly said, but it takes a good deep reading with solid active analysis while you read to synthesize those main ideas from the text. The stuff in CRs is never things that were explicitly said except with those easy regurgitate a detail questions that are only a very small proportion of RC questions per section. Lots of people waste time focusing on trying to remember the wrong types of things.

For detailed descriptions of the types of thinking and reading skills RC questions are designed to test, here is an awesome article from LSAC. It's a long read but well worth it for people that want to better understand what specific types of things and thinking and reading skills the test writers are looking for.

Even though it's a long academic article about fairly advanced concepts and not a 'how to get better at RC' prep guide, it's very useful for gaining a clear understanding of exactly what types of reading skills LSAT RC is specifically focused on measuring. That knowledge is super valuable to figure out how best to use RC prep time effectively to specifically focus on developing the important reading skills, focus and priorities when reading passages the question types are designed to test instead of mainly trying so somehow use timing strategies/speed reading to increase comprehension level/RC skill level/score range.

http://www.testpublishers.org/assets/do ... l%2013.pdf

Another great source of key LSAT RC guidance that clearly defines the important things and skills to focus on for answering questions accurately is written by the test writers themselves and published in the LSAC LSAT SuperPrep book. The 'Guide to RC' at the beginning of that book is IMO GOLD RC advice direct from the test writers with them clearly describing exactly what types of things are important to pay attention to in passages to be prepared for the questions. That same guide is also available from LSAC if you signup for the Itemwise $18 service to get online access to the Feb 97 LSAT with explanations for the questions written by the test writers along with the guides. I think it's also in The Official LSAT Handbook LSAC sells. However you get your hands on it, I think it's worth a read since it's the test writers directly telling you what they are looking for/expecting from high score range test takers.

It drives me crazy when people think/recommend that spending two minutes or less time maximum reading RC passages to comprehend the substance will somehow help them answer questions faster and more accurately.