How should I time my practice sets (in the LR section)

Coolmama09

For the practice sets of 5 problems. It says to time ourselves. Should we time ourselves to see how long each question takes us? Or time in a limited time sense. And if so how long should I give myself to do 5 questions. Thanks

Pacifico

If you're in the beginning of your prep, I recommend a stopwatch. Give yourself an unlimited amount of time to finish each problem, but get a feel for the time you're taking and record your time from the stopwatch. Once you progress a bit, then you need to use a timer. I usually go 80 seconds or less, but you could play with that as need be to suit your particular needs. Never prep without timing, whether it's a stopwatch or a timer, you need the metric to understand your progress and develop a sense of time passing without checking it.

Coolmama09

Great advice. Thanks so much. I did the lap time on the iphone and was able to see how long each question took me. Thanks again.

nicole.hopkins

@Coolmama09 said:
I did the lap time on the iphone and was able to see how long each question took me.

There you go! That and the 7sage proctor have been the most useful apps for my entire prep! Consider color coding your times with highlighters so that you can see where you're getting into time sinks and where you're moving quickly. This is encouraging both in the progress you see over time and in training your internal clock so that you don't have to worry so much about timing in the future.

Coolmama09

By color code... You mean (for example), record the longest ones in red, quickest in green etc? Thx in advance

nicole.hopkins

@Coolmama09 said:
record the longest ones in red, quickest in green etc?

Yeah! Like .... anything over 1:20 is pink, 1-1:20 is yellow, <1:00 is green. Or however you want to do it, depending on your goals.

Coolmama09

Cool deal. Thanks!