LSAT basics - when to skip and when to guess.

sarahprusik

There seems to be mention of skipping questions in some of the tutorials. I know some standardized tests penalize more for a wrong answer than a skipped question. I'm brand new to the LSAT, so if anyone has any clarity on this point I'd appreciate the help!

zoomzoom

I have a unique Skipping and Guessing strategy that works for me, but feel free to test it out and see what works for you.

What I do is when I hit a difficult question, let's use LR as an example, I do my best to figure it out (or understand it at least). But the moment I just can't see anything or it's too difficult to get at the moment, I skip. That's my marker to skip. But I DO NOT BUBBLE ANYTHING.

Why? Because I found that when I guess something in the moment before moving on, when I come back to it, I often find that I am more biased towards the chosen answer ("There must be some reason why I chose this answer right?") rather than being open-minded about whatever answer choices I have left to choose from.

Often times, when I skip and come back to a difficult question, I find myself seeing the question better and can usually find the answer after a 2nd look. This only works because I stayed openminded when I skipped by not committing right in the moment. When I do guess, it's because I am running out of time or I truly don't know the answer.

TLDR - Skip when hard but don't commit just yet. Come back for a 2nd look and then see if you can solve it then. If too hard or running out of time, then guess.

sarahprusik

Thanks a lot for this. So from what I can tell, you should always at least bubble in an answer?

Kaylee H

Yes. You are awarded points based on your number of correct responses. An incorrect guess is not penalized more than a skipped question

carlyvangstadboyd

I second that strategy and yes, to reiterate: there is no penalty for wrong answers so you should neverrrr leave one blank. If time doesn’t allow you to fully work through every problem, you should at least mark an answer for the ones you didn’t get to. And - hopefully this doesn’t happen to anyone - when blindly guessing due to time constraints, assuming you haven’t really read the question enough to have an educated guess, you should always guess the same option every time to maximize probability of a right answer. For instance, your go-to guess option is always C, so if you guess 5 questions with C, the likelihood that one of those is correct increases based on obvious statistics of the limited options and the range of right answer choices test makers utilize.
Also, try to find a cut off rule or threshold for your skip strategy. And the cut off should be in terms of steps taken to solve the question. Say you get to a question that asks you to identify the flaw. Your process may be
1 - identify the conclusion
2 - identify the support
3 - decide what’s wrong in the support used and the conclusion reached, anticipate answer
4 - eliminate wrong answers
5 - confirm right answer
so you read the stimulus and you’re 45 seconds in, and say you get through to step 4 and you are in the answer choices at 1 minute in and you found 2 obvious wrong answers to eliminate, but you cannot eliminate nor confirm any other answer choice, so you naturally read the 3 remaining options again but more carefully, and now you’re 1:30 in and you feel the time so you panic for 10 seconds and then reread the 3 answer choices again but you’re not focused on the right stuff anymore so you may dive on an answer choice in desperation or you keep spinning your wheels and it’s now over 2 minutes on a relatively straight forward question type so you lost time in your bank for the longer questions like match the reasoning and all. Either way, you eventually finish this question but when you get to the next one, you’re not letting go of your answer choice, second guessing it, or feeling less confident and therefore detrimentally affecting the rest of your performance on remaining questions. Buuut if you make it a habit to let go after a certain step, you could say, at step 4, eliminate the 2 obvious wrong answers and you’re only a minute in. So then you confidently skip and crush the rest of the section then come back and with a fresh take, you only have 3 options left, you immediately spot the correct answer and you’re done with a total time on the question of 1:20!
And to piggy back on the previous comment, if you hit a question that is way tough and just not clicking, it’s easy to push yourself to guess right then because you don’t want to give up on a question or leave a blank till the end. But it pays off when you don’t force it, don’t eliminate or guess yet, and definitely don’t spin your wheels. Then when you come back to it, you are fresh and it’s a clean question so there’s no previous guessed answer choice to distract you and nothing to second guess or question your decision so you can actually focus on the question.
Woah sorry that’s a lot, hah but those were two pieces of advice I got early on and it reallyyy saved me so hopefully it all makes sense! Always do what works for you though and good luck!

clear227

You always want to skip and come back. Don't guess unless you are running out of time and need to put something down (you aren't penalized for guessing). I'm getting 0/-1 consistently in LR, and I skip frequently. Skipping doesn't mean giving up, it means you will come back to it later once you have the easy ones out of the way.

Typical scenario:

Stimulus: "the history of dirt is therefore hitherto the most essential component of.... "

Answers:
a) She thinks dirt is better than sand
b) She believes dirt is superior to sand
c) People think she thinks dirt is better than sand
d) Dirt is better than sand
e) Dirt is not better than sand

Wrong approach: "this is a dense passage with convoluted wording, and I am totally stuck between these two answer choices, but I will sit here for the next 5 minutes figuring it out. Oh no! I just wasted 8 minutes on this question. I only have 10 minutes for the next 20 questions... how is that possible?"

Right approach: "history of dirt? I don't feel like it right now, I'm skipping. Oh! This next question is so easy, it's my favorite question type! Oh wow, all these questions I am choosing to do are really easy! Look at that, I did them so fast I have extra time left! The only one I didn't do is the dirt one! Now I have 8 full minutes to sit down and re-read it and think about it, with absolutely no time pressure. Oh my god it's so obvious which answer choice is right, I can't believe I didn't see it. Maybe I misread something? Man, if I had persisted I would have gotten it wrong."