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Interested to hear everyone's opinion. I personally do not use a watch since LSAC added new restrictions. Reconsidering that decision.

yes, I use a normal watch and just set it to 12 for every section

griffinz wrote:Interested to hear everyone's opinion. I personally do not use a watch since LSAC added new restrictions. Reconsidering that decision.

Odds are they won't even be checking for this rule change, they've been only looking for digital watches for years, I think most test centers will be extremely lax on this. I've stopped using my chronograph and have been setting my watch to :25 at the start of each section. I prefer to see time count down than count up.

griffinz wrote:Interested to hear everyone's opinion. I personally do not use a watch since LSAC added new restrictions. Reconsidering that decision.

what's the new restriction? i used a regular watch as did most people for the Sept test.

You can't use any sort of stopwatch function. They were still fine with an analog watch with a bevel.

As for the OP's question, I used the watch for timing. That let me know how much time I lost on the rainforest passage, which convinced me to go into high gear. That decision got me through judges quickly enough that I had time for review. No watch, and I probably leave unanswered questions on Marx/Freud.

i used a watch because I had benchmarks of where I should be at a certain time for each section. It can be easy for me to get slowed down without realizing it, so I check the time at certain points to see if I need to hurry up. Usually it's every game/passage for LG and RC, and for LR I check after 4 pages, and then after 6 pages. My personal goal is always to get the first 4 pages of LR done in 15 minutes. If I'm running more than that, I know I need to pick up the pace.

I use a watch mostly for LR and RC.

My goal for LR is to be on question #15 by 15 minutes in, and question #20 by 25 minutes in.
For RC, my goal is to be on the third passage at 17 minutes (roughly half way) and the fourth passage at 25 minutes.
For LG, I aim for 7 minutes on the first game, done with the second game at 15 minutes, and 10+ minutes for the harder of the last two games.

I don't. My philosophy has been that looking at a watch is itself a waste of time, and if I'm adequately prepared I shouldn't have any issues finishing the sections with time to spare.

It worked fine for me in September. I finished the first 4 sections with roughly 5min to spare each time and finished section 5 (rc) with about 1-2 min left.

To be fair, this was my fourth take and I did have timing issues during my second and third take. I timed myself during my prep for this time with pretty aggressive goals and taught myself to finish most sections early

I don't look at a watch. Only section I really ever struggle with time on is LG, and looking at the watch there is a waste of time in my opinion. I've learned to naturally tell if I'm taking too long and to just move on. Worked out well enough for me on the September test, I finished every section, usually with 1-3 minutes to spare (though with much less time to spare on LR then in my practices; nerves really got to me there)

april_ludgate wrote:I don't look at a watch. Only section I really ever struggle with time on is LG, and looking at the watch there is a waste of time in my opinion. I've learned to naturally tell if I'm taking too long and to just move on. Worked out well enough for me on the September test, I finished every section, usually with 1-3 minutes to spare (though with much less time to spare on LR then in my practices; nerves really got to me there)

LR took me more time than usual as well. On my recent PTs I was finishing on time, with the ability to check over answers for maybe a minute or two. On the sept test I wasn't able to finish either section without making a guess or two. Still trying to figure out if LR was harder than normal or if it was just nerves.

GnarMarBinx wrote:

april_ludgate wrote:I don't look at a watch. Only section I really ever struggle with time on is LG, and looking at the watch there is a waste of time in my opinion. I've learned to naturally tell if I'm taking too long and to just move on. Worked out well enough for me on the September test, I finished every section, usually with 1-3 minutes to spare (though with much less time to spare on LR then in my practices; nerves really got to me there)

LR took me more time than usual as well. On my recent PTs I was finishing on time, with the ability to check over answers for maybe a minute or two. On the sept test I wasn't able to finish either section without making a guess or two. Still trying to figure out if LR was harder than normal or if it was just nerves.

I'm thinking maybe it isn't so much harder (though I think it was a bit harder than average) as just more time consuming, with a higher percentage of longer stimuli/answer choices. Because it didn't feel as difficult as a lot of the PT LR sections that I had less time at the end on, but it did feel like it just took longer. But then again, nerves may definitely have played a part