Timing Issue

laurossman

I would first like to hear from anyone who has already taken the LSAT about strategy/time management. Was there a certain way that you practiced, or did you have a certain strategy going into the test, but then sat down to take it, and something went wrong? I guess I'm wondering if there are certain management strategies that one should have really nailed down to avoid any crisis situations. For example, I practiced with an analogue watch for the first time the other day, and I didn't even get to the last 5 logical reasoning questions, which has never happened before. Glad that didn't happen on test day.

Next - on my first diagnostic test I scored a 150. From there I went to a 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, then 163 (I'm not kidding, it really happened that way). Ideally I want a 167, but it seems like during my study sessions I'm stuck at around 162/163. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to improve upon time management in the final month of studying? I'm wondering if I should go back to what I did in the beginning, and have a few study sessions where I do everything untimed. But maybe this is a waste of precious final-month study time. Please let me know any ideas?

Lastly - on my first diagnostic I got 11/23 on the logic games.. So I tackled logic games first in my study plan. After a month of studying just logic games, I was getting 18, 19, or 20s out of 23. Once I got 23/23. But now, it seems like I'll either get a 21/23 or I will completely bomb the section and get 15 or 16. Has this happened to anyone else? These test makers drive me crazy. I decided I couldn't risk getting a 15 on test day, so I've embraced the strategy of focusing most of the time on just 3 games. This way I pretty much guarantee about an 18, and then I'll spend a few minutes on the last game and pray I get a couple of them right, putting me at 20. With only a month left to go, this strategy seems like a rational way to go, but it still kind of bums me out that I'm not going for a perfect LG score. I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on this.

joegotbored-1

Your LG strategy is EXACTLY what I did in December after a crummy LG section in September. I went -3 in December which is precisely what I was averaging in my PTs while practicing between September and December.

I made dead certain that I was perfect on the first 3 games and then used what I had left time wise for the 4th game. Another strategy I employed was to look for the easiest questions on the last game. This means I wrote out the rules into JY's Lawgic, then did the "acceptable list" question which is usually first, and then looked for must be true questions. MBT questions in LG tend to be less time consuming because you can easily eliminate wrong answers based on the answer to your first "acceptable list" question and, if you have time to create them, a few hypothetical boards that fit the rules.

Once you've done the easy questions, you may have inadvertently stumbled onto the answer for another question, so scan quickly, if not, find a question where the position of at least one piece is defined for you (e.g., If W is in 2, then....) and try to solve as quickly as you can. When you hit 30 seconds left on your watch, fill in the remaining blanks with the same letter answer choice for each one (statistically this isn't supportable, but anecdotally, I always get at least one guess right when I do this).

Obviously, the best way to do games is to just be better at them than I am. I struggled big time in games, so I was pleased to finally get to where I was only -2 or -3 consistently, even if part of my success was due to blind luck.

Allison M

Have you been foolproofing games? Repeating games really helped me. I would also encourage you to try your hand at the early games (PTs 1-35) if you haven't already. They're generally tougher than the games we see today, so if you can foolproof those, you'll be more than ready for the February exam.