How did you improve speed?

lawschoolstuff16

Whenever I take a PT I find that there are about 25 questions (on the entire test total) that I'm unable to get to or finish while timed. My total number of questions wrong is much lower than that, and when I do these questions untimed I have no problem answering them. What are some techniques that some of you used to finish the section within the allotted time without compromising on accuracy?

Cant Get Right

Kind of depends on where you're at in your prep. For your last 5 or so PTs, what is your average timed score and BR score?

rakinalikhan

one time i would give you is after reading the question and stimulus, if you think/see that its going to take some time to figure out, skip the question and move on to the next one. point is you want to answer as many questions you know you can get right, and then worry about the questions that will take longer and/or are more difficult. helped me a lot

danielznelson

To be sure, developing strong and efficient habits for the test are crucial in developing your speed.

But one of the biggest factors to improving your speed is simply understanding the test more, specifically the easier and more standard material. I think its a misnomer that speed should be improved through intentionally trying to be faster (very occasionally a correct strategy) or through magically finding the hardest questions to be very easy.

Honestly, time is best improved upon when you're flying through what you're supposed to fly through, thus giving your more time for what will pretty much regardless be tough material to at least some extent. Again, this comes through an increased understanding of the test, not by forcing yourself to be faster.

lawschoolstuff16

@danielznelson & @"Cant Get Right" -- My average timed score is in the 150s but my blind review score is mid-160s. The only questions I am getting wrong are the level 4 or level 5 ones.

@rakinalikhan -- that's a strategy that I've been trying to use more often, especially towards the last few questions in LR sections or RC sections. But I've only started doing this yesterday, so we'll see how I fare.

MrSamIam

In order:

1) Figure out what's causing you to run out of time. If a particular question type is giving you trouble, drill it. If you're overthinking, work on that. If you're spending too much time upfront on certain questions, start skipping.

2) Exposure. Take more PTs - once you're ready.

Cant Get Right

It sounds like you're in a range where you need to both continue improving fundamentals as well as start developing timing strategies. For the fundamentals, this is just a guess, but make sure you're breaking down difficult stimuli grammatically. Oftentimes, it's the language rather than the logic that makes a question difficult. For section strategies, I think previous comments have been all over it. Don't let yourself get bogged down; skip questions that are taking too long. Also, you do need to fly through the easy questions. That means going into hunt mode when you know what the answer is of question types like SA, and it means not reading remaining answer choices when you find one you have high confidence on. You've got to trust your abilities on these and trade a little certainty for time. Hope this helps!

lawschoolstuff16

@"Cant Get Right" @MrSamIam @rakinalikhan @danielznelson thank you all so much for your feedback and advice. I'm going to work on these suggestions and hopefully see improvement!