Self-study
Hey everyone, I’m getting pretty frustrated with LR and wanted to see if anyone else has dealt with this.
I just did a section where I scored -12 timed (14/26), but my blind review was -6 (20/26). So clearly I somewhat understand the questions when I’m not under time pressure, but something is going wrong during the actual section.
What I’ve noticed:
I’m getting easier questions wrong (especially early/mid section)
I spend way too long on questions that shouldn’t take that long
I end up only attempting ~20 questions because of time
Then in blind review, I go back and get a lot of those same questions right pretty quickly
It feels like during timed sections I start second-guessing everything and rereading too much, especially on questions I actually do understand.
Has anyone dealt with this kind of big BR vs timed gap?What helped you speed up and trust your answers more during the section?
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10 comments
I made this embedded video for a different discussion post, but it applies here too.
I'd recommend the "forced timing" drills I discuss in that video with a particular emphasis on trying out dramatically fast constraints on questions 1-10. For example, find out how low you can set the timer while still getting 7 of the first 10 questions right. I imagine you can get 7/10 easy in half an hour. How about 10 minutes? How about 7? How about 3?
Often this exercise builds confidence trusting your intuitions and firing from the hip, which seems like one of the areas you're hoping to refine.
@MichaelWright Thanks Michael! This is great advice and I will definitely try this :)
I would recommend picking one thing right now -- speed or accuracy. Its kind of like running... you can train for distance or speed but not both at the same time in the beginning.
And it seems like accuracy may be a better place for you to focus rather than speed (speed will come once accuracy improves). When I was seeing a big gap between BR and timed... I just stopped timing myself and slowed tf down to actually grasp the concepts and learn my blind spots (now I catch myself overthinking and snap out of it). I just had to meet my mind where it was at... instead of forcing it.
Ive gone from 146 on diagnostic to 161 in about 7 weeks. My goal score is 170+ so I have some ways to go but this is what has helped me so far. Good luck and be easy on yourself!
@DamiOye that’s impressive!! I think what you said about accuracy over speed makes a lot of sense because I’m noticing the same thing… big gap between my timed and BR.
Right now I’m scoring around 145–149 timed, but when I review I can get a lot more right, so I feel like it’s more a thinking/process issue than content.
When you focused on accuracy, what did that actually look like day to day? Like were you drilling untimed, reviewing more deeply, or doing full sections untimed? And how did you know when to start reintroducing timing?
Why thank you!!!! I found that the analytics section was super helpful. So for me conditional reasoning was (and still is 😭) my highest priority so I re-did the core curriculum there and slowed down to digest and really take my time on the skill builders (I was breezing through it before, truthfully).
Then I did 5-8 drill sessions on just conditionals (show the answer right after, not at the end) and would actually watch the explanation videos (both if theres one from Kevin & JY), read the discussion for those questions too. Basically, I treated a wrong answer like something to understand versus just getting frustrated. I find talking to chatgpt about how I felt during the question and my approach/reasoning helped me diagnose issues and close the gap. I repeated that process for all the "highest" priorities... one week for conditionals, another for MBT, etc. And Im not afraid to spin the block and revisit the core curriculum for a 5th time. Get what you pay for!!!!
Speed will never improve accuracy but accuracy will improve speed. That mantra helps me slow down when I just want to rush and get over it.
TLDR; I got over myself and realized that I actually don't know the material as well as I think I do if under pressure Im getting them wrong. So I started treating myself like someone who didn't know the material and that has really helped me.
@DamiOye that’s really helpful thank you!!! Wishing you all the best in getting a score of 170+
@jaffri thank you!!!! Im testing tomorrow but aiming for my goal score for June. Good luck to you too!
@DamiOye thank you!!! need that 160+ in the june test
Well, my overthinking has never helped me. I haven’t started working on speed yet because I’m still in the understanding phase of things…
But once I did this drill untimed, broke down why A is right, why I eliminated all the rest-whop whop, I failed all of them.
Just for gags, I did a similar drill… no thinking/analysing/debating the ghost in my room…. just pick and go lol… the opposite result happened.
Like most great LSAT flaw reasoning questions, I’ve concluded overthinking doesn’t help me; it just gives me more time to make the wrong answer look attractive.
What do you think the flaw in my reasoning is ?
Generalization based on small sample size ? Assuming no other factor could have caused the variance in results? Hmm
lol
Hi! I am on the same boat as you are!
For the time section, I get between -9 to -6 but during the BR, I get -3.
Something that I am trying is flagging questions that I could not understand on the first read and come back to it later. This has actually helped me save much more time. Also, when I see conditionals and I know that I have to diagram, I tend to flag them and come back to it later.
With second-guessing, I am an overthinker and I have been struggling with this for a few months. These days, I stopped trying to understand the wrong answers. When I have a prediction in my mind, I tend to just go with it and never think about that question.
I hope this helps! All the best with your LSAT journey!