I’m retaking the LSAT in January and I’ve been feeling pretty confident about reaching my target score. That said, I’m starting to question whether my current timing strategy, especially for is optimal (especially for RC).

I usually make sure I leave enough total time to complete all four RC passages and their questions, but when I look more closely at my timing breakdown, I notice that I read passages quite quickly and then spend more time than expected on the questions themselves.

I’m trying to develop a more intentional timing plan that accounts for passage difficulty and question count. My usual approach is to move through the first passage fairly quickly (without sacrificing accuracy), take a bit more time on the second without letting it drag, and then spend more than half of my remaining time on the final two passages.

Recently, I tried something different: I completed an RC section while being very deliberate about timing—tracking how long I spent on each paragraph, how long I spent reading each passage, and how much time I spent answering the questions for each passage. I ended up with a –13, which is the worst I’ve scored this month. For context, over the past month my RC scores have ranged from –5 to –13, with an average around –10. I’m not sure whether being this granular with timing is helping or hurting.

I’m also wondering if my timing for Logical Reasoning is alright. I have double-time accommodations, and while that gives me flexibility, I’m not always sure how much of that extra time I should be allocating to going back and double-checking flagged questions at the end. I usually try and leave around 5 minutes at the end to go back. Why I took the actual LSAT for the first time I didn't have anytime to go back to review any flagged questions and did pretty bad, so I'm trying to be more mindful with how I allocate my time.

I’d really appreciate any insight into how others structure their RC and LR timing, and how you balance passage reading vs. question time.