Timing Issues

LSAT Student

Hey all -

Just some background info - I started my studying with 7 Sage on May 16th and I plan on writing September 24 meaning I am about halfway through my studying. I scored a diagnostic score of 151 due to an abysmal LG section (-18). I have now completed the curriculum and have taken 7 PT's. My most recent score is a 164 with a BR score of 172. My breakdowns are generally -3 RC, -11 or so in LR and -6 on LG. My main issue as of right now is timing. I find I am a tad slow on every section besides reading. By a tad slow I mean 3-4 minutes. After every test I thoroughly review every question I missed, typing out explanations for every wrong answer etc. Right now I am not skipping questions so I am going to start skipping Parallel reasoning questions and see if that speeds up my timing but besides that do you all have any tips to increase my speed on LR and LG. I think I have potential for a 170+ but this time thing is a little concerning to me. Any tips from you all are much appreciated!

Micaela_OVO

First of all, that RC score is golden, so be happy you don't need much improvement in that section. It takes others much longer to get there (including me >:| ).

For LR, are you using the 7Sage analytics? Which question types give you the most trouble? After figuring this out, don't stop there. Dig deeper. Does conditional reasoning trip you up? Abstract answer choices? For arguments, do you have a strong grasp of the flaw before moving onto the answer choices? Are you attempting to do the first 10 Qs in 10 minutes?

For LG, The Fool Proof Method really is your bff. That strategy works. Here's a twist on that method that many 7Sagers have used to master this section: https://7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/2737

Good luck!!

LSAT Student

@"Micaela_OVO" said:
First of all, that RC score is golden, so be happy you don't need much improvement in that section. It takes others much longer to get there (including me >:| ).

For LR, are you using the 7Sage analytics? Which question types give you the most trouble? After figuring this out, don't stop there. Dig deeper. Does conditional reasoning trip you up? Abstract answer choices? For arguments, do you have a strong grasp of the flaw before moving onto the answer choices? Are you attempting to do the first 10 Qs in 10 minutes?

For LG, The Fool Proof Method really is your bff. That strategy works. Here's a twist on that method that many 7Sagers have used to master this section: https://7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/2737

Good luck!!

Hey Micalea,

Thanks for the response. I am happy with my RC! At least I feel I have a solid grasp on 1/3 of the test. For the LR, yes I am using the analytics - it shows that I am pretty bad at NA and Flaw Method of Reasoning questions. My accuracy on NA is 55% over 33 questions (yikes). As for Flaw Method I am 77% over 56 questions. These are my biggest and top rated circles. I feel like I am second guessing myself a little on LR which in turn costs me time. Like I will go through the answer choices and say I am pretty sure B is correct, well I will circle B then continue to go through all the other choices which wastes my time. Do you have any suggestions for skipping questions?

As for LG - I am definitely going to thoroughly go through all the games I have done thus far in PT 36-43. It is definitely a timing issue because without time constraints I can do the games and miss < 2 per section.

Thanks again!

Cant Get Right

There’s really only one way that I know of to increase speed, and that’s to increase mastery. There are some fine tuning things you can do after that, but until you’ve mastered the underlying concepts, there’s not much else you can do. So obviously NA questions are problematic for you, so definitely study those specifically. Even beyond that though, time issues very often come down to easier questions. There’s probably a lot of questions you get right but aren’t figuring out as fast as you need to that analytics isn’t going to expose. As far as timing is concerned, the most dangerous concept is the one you understand well enough to get right but not well enough to get right quickly. So in addition to the question types ID’d by analytics, try to figure out other areas where you are getting questions right but could still improve your understanding.

@"LSAT Student" said:
After every test I thoroughly review every question I missed, typing out explanations for every wrong answer etc.

So, how are you BRing? It’s great you’re writing out the explanations. Keep doing that! But for your BR, you shouldn’t know which questions you missed yet; so if you’re grading before BR and only going over the ones you missed, this is actually a really bad study strategy.

Let me also be the first of many to suggest that you consider the possibility of withdrawing from September if the time comes and you’re not ready. And you’ve got to be honest with yourself when making this evaluation. That one PT you scored a 170 on isn’t sufficient to mean you’re ready to do it on the real thing. Believe me, I’ve been there! For the vast majority of us, four months is not enough time to maximize our score potential, and wasting a take before you’re ready is a really bad mistake that you don’t want to make. Again, I know. Commit yourself to your score, not your timeline.

LSAT Student

@"Cant Get Right" said:
@"LSAT Student" said:
After every test I thoroughly review every question I missed, typing out explanations for every wrong answer etc.

So, how are you BRing? It’s great you’re writing out the explanations. Keep doing that! But for your BR, you shouldn’t know which questions you missed yet; so if you’re grading before BR and only going over the ones you missed, this is actually a really bad study strategy.

Let me also be the first of many to suggest that you consider the possibility of withdrawing from September if the time comes and you’re not ready. And you’ve got to be honest with yourself when making this evaluation. That one PT you scored a 170 on isn’t sufficient to mean you’re ready to do it on the real thing. Believe me, I’ve been there! For the vast majority of us, four months is not enough time to maximize our score potential, and wasting a take before you’re ready is a really bad mistake that you don’t want to make. Again, I know. Commit yourself to your score, not your timeline.


I should have been much more clear. I BR all questions before I look at the answers but after I see the questions that I still got wrong after BR I delve deeper into the right and wrong answer choices. I guess me being adamant about taking the September test is due to the fact that I would not be able to ED with the December test and I know there is controversy over whether it is too late in the cycle etc... That being the case I might have to take a year off from school and either find a job with my Finance degree that I will have acquired or work something else out. I haven't really thought about this situation to extensively. I will be applying with a 4.0 LSAC GPA so I just want to make sure I am doing all that I can to maximize my potential score on the test. From everything I've read each point can be thousands of dollars in scholarships. At this point I am doing what I consider to be efficient studying 6 hours a day. I have seen good score increases and if BR is any indicator as to where I can score I think that I have learned a lot going through the curriculum as well as the limited number of PT's I have completed.

As for your suggestion to try to identify problems I am not completing quick enough I definitely think that is an issue with me. I am getting the problem correct but I need to quit second guessing my answers and overthinking things.

Thanks for your response here as well as in other posts. Your insight has been very helpful to me.

Crystall

I'm also taking the test in September! Personally I've found that I generally need to finish the first 15 questions in 15 minutes on the LR section. Then, I do my best to finish the remaining questions before hitting the 30 minute mark. Only after 30 minutes is announced do I bubble in my answers, leaving me several minutes to go over questions that I was unsure of. One thing I've noticed for myself in the LR sections is that it's much better for me to only send a little bit of extra time on questions that I'm unsure of, and then go back to them at the end of the section after bubbling. This way, I can do the problem with fresh eyes, and usually I'll catch something that I missed the first time around. I also don't risk completely running out of time for the section using this method since I only come back to them at the end. I usually get -0 to -2 on my LR sections.

Of course this works best if you only tend to have a few questions you're unsure of each section; if you have more than a few then it's best to review the lessons and maybe do some drills!

Cant Get Right

Ok cool, I'd kind of wondered if maybe that's what you meant about the BR thing. Glad that's the case!

It's great you have a 4.0. The sky is the limit on how competitive you're able to make yourself with your LSAT score. So, it's my understanding that even a single extra point on your LSAT outweighs all the advantages of applying early. And not sure ED will be much of an advantage if you score into the 170's. Harvard maybe. There's a lot of other folks who know way more than me on admissions, so hopefully some of them will chime in.

Reaching a 164 after only a couple months is seriously impressive. Based on that and your GPA, I have no doubt that you could reach the mid, even high,170's given the time to do it. So if you do end up deciding to push your app to next year (or if you're like me and a poor LSAT score forces you to), look at it as an opportunity. I mean, if you could up your LSAT to a 175 you'd be a really strong contender at Yale, pretty much a sure thing at Harvard, and strong contender for a Hamilton at Columbia. So it kinda sucks thinking about delaying for a year (I've been there/done that), but just think about what a mid 170's range score would mean for you compared to a high 160's -170.

So if you don't make it to September, don't even worry about it. You can always take a shot at it in December. Then, if you don't quite get there, you've got two takes left and plenty of time. I mean, I don't know your situation or whatever, but the difference a 175 compared to a 168 makes to your future would, for me anyway, definitely be worth delaying a year.