How do I increased my speed?

LSAT Determined

I know speed comes with accuracy, but I am having trouble over 15 questions per LR section. I usually run out of time between 13-15 questions. I know I can't answer every single question, but I at least would like to have time to answer 20 per LR and I'll take random guesses with the remaining ones

GSU Hopeful

I think it really comes down to fundamentals. The stronger your fundamentals are, the more aggressively you can attack the questions and apply the correct strategy to each of them. By running out of time between 13-15 questions, you're spending about 2:20-2:30 per question. By spending this much time on these first questions, you're not even allowing yourself to get to the easier questions that could be scattered about on the back end. What are you having trouble with on these questions? Are you properly and quickly identifying the argument parts and understanding the stem?

Another factor of course would be timing strategies. If a question if above your head and you just can't grasp the argument, you have to skip and come back to it if there's time. You should have the goal of laying your eyes on every question in the section. Get to all of them. There will be some gimmes scattered out in the section. But, if you don't get to all of them, you're not taking advantage of those "gimmes". As your fundamentals develop, your idea of a "gimme" will change and you will eventually get to more and more. Best of luck to you.

nye8870

@"GSU Hopeful" said:
As your fundamentals develop, your idea of a "gimme" will change and you will eventually get to more and more.

This actually happens. So I think it is crucially important, once you realize you got a correct answer very (almost too) quickly, to double back in blind review and remind yourself (and help others if possible) why/how you did it.

twssmith

I saved this post - http://7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/comment/29555
She provides a strategy but also notes that increased experience and understanding of the fundamentals will increase your speed. Hope it helps:)

@cjones76 said:
I had a similar problem. This is what I did to get myself to answer more questions.

I set small incremental goals each test. So next test try to reach 18/19. Once you reach that try to reach 20/21.

I calculated how much time that allowed me per question and knew that if I was going over I needed to move on. So, for 18 questions it'd be about 1 min 55 seconds. Then I used a loop timer to plug in that amount of time and periodically look up at my computer to see what loop I should be on and how that measured up to what question number I was at. Therefore, I knew I was spending too much time or if my speed was improving. Allowing myself to visually see where I should be really helped develop a sense of timing. Because prior I was allowing myself spend way to long on easier questions, but wouldn't realize it. This forced me to focus on increasing my speed.

Obviously, you won't have that benefit during the real test, so once you get to where you want to be or close to it I would stop using the loop timer.

And to echo what everyone else said, you need to learn how to devote less time easy question and to not spin your wheels on hard questions. When a question is easy don't question it and second guess yourself (real thought process: "that was way too easy, I need to redo that to confirm thats right"). Instead take it and run- move on to the next question. When you can't figure out what a stimulus is telling or can't figure out the answer circle it answer move on. Don't sit there and compare answer choices to each other.

Increasing speed is also about hounding in fundamentals, so they come more as second nature.

http://www.online-stopwatch.com/loop-countdown/ <--- loop timer

In a recent webinar, @"Quick Silver" and @"Nicole.Hopkins" talked about possibly providing a "skipping" strategy webinar. Hopefully it will happen to help us all!

nye8870

I have this play when I take over two min.

twssmith

@nye8870 Priceless:)

cjones76

@nye8870 hahaha. I am forever going to think of this now when I take too long on a question

as5324therapy

@nye8870 LMFAO!!

LsatChic

Thats way to funny, Im so using that

MrSamIam

I see it as a 2 stage process:

Stage 1) Learn the fundamentals. Time spent trying to figure out what a question is asking is time ill spent. Time spent second guessing yourself because you "aren't sure" is valuable time that you will not get back. Spend time justifying answers during practice, so that the justifications come naturally during the exam - don't actively try to justify your answer on a PT unless it's going to help you and you can do so quickly...the LSAC isn't going to knock on your door one day and say "Hey! How did you get C for this question?!"

Stage 2) Learn to skip. Swallow your pride, tell your ego to hit the road, and skip if the question is too tough. Note that being able to skip is contingent on your understanding of the fundamentals. If you have never seen an LSAT question before, you'll likely want to skip 2/3 of the questions. However, if you've done hundreds and know exactly how to approach the different question types, you may end up skipping 1-3 questions per section.