Help/Advice for Huge Gap between Timed and BR Score

Comments

• pnwrunner Alum Member

  December 2022 100 karma

  When you BR, are you reviewing every question or only the questions that you've flagged during the timed attempt?

  If you're reviewing every question, you may be losing valuable data about the degree of confidence (over or under) per a specific question type. Try only reviewing the questions that you've marker during the timed attempt.

  What do the analytics say about the most frequently missed question type? Prioritizing your studies to reflect weaknesses in a hierarchy of most to least can help you with speeding up your approach, understanding, and answer choice selection.

  Lastly, are the specific question types that you're sinking too much time into that are disabling your ability to get other questions correct? Example, if you're spending three minutes on all flaw questions and there are on average 7 flaw questions per LR section, that's 21 minutes out of the allotted 35 minutes. If you skip all 7 flaw questions initially, you'll likely gain quite a bit of time to answer other question types that you're more proficient.
• 1 Like

  Mike_Ross Alum Member Sage ⭐

  December 2022 3106 karma

  Hi there, a lot of students going through LSAT prep encounter this at some point, myself included!

  Forgive me if you've already seen some of my comments on other posts (only b/c it's so common so take heart!) but the way to address this comes down to (1) Having question-specific strategies you execute EVERY SINGLE TIME; and (2) once you've confidently got that process down, then implementing an effective skipping strategy.

  More on this:

  If find yourself misreading, feeling anxious about what to do next after reading a stimulus, not understanding what your task is for each question type, not know what type of AC you're supposed to look for, whether on a timed or untimed run–––the issue here is not having a standardized approach.

  What do I mean?

  Check it out: Do you know what the group 1-4 logical indicators are? If you've done the CC, yes you do! But do you remember the time BEFORE you discovered these were a thing? If you're like me, you didn't even know how you were even supposed to diagram sufficient assumption or must be true/false questions! But once you learned about these logical indicators, it became like clockwork. You automatically see "When" and go "ok that's a group 1 logical indicator so this is the sufficient condition". In other words, it's just like breathing. You don't even question it and just EXECUTE.

  Imagine now if you have steps for each question type. What this does under timed pressure is that you know at every single point "this is what I'm supposed to do" which also means if you find yourself stuck, you'll just go through these steps again or skip and come back to the question, trusting that you can always take a 2nd shot rather than aimlessly speedread hoping the AC will just jump out at you (a very low return strategy if you don't understand the stimulus and argument).

  Where do you go from here?

  If you're BRing close to your goal score, it's time to close the gap between timed and untimed performance. Further, if as you said, you just seem to know the right answer in BR, then I would advise you to think about how you can standardize and replicate this every time you encounter this question type. Hope this helps!
• 1 Like

  Serena13 Core Member

  December 2022 128 karma

  @Mike_Ross I thank you very much for your advice. On BR there is a sort of semi-habitual approach to answer each QT but it's definitely not standardized. The goal will be to form my own sort of "how to" from the resources I've learned over time and apply it to each QT. I'm sure over time and with consistency I will see the drastic approach that will help my understanding in timed circumstances when I approach them. Again, thank you!

  @pnwrunner I BR each question. I know it is time consuming but I want to ensure my understanding of the stimulus and QT. I have struggled in the simplicity of the foundation in the stimulus and what it is saying for some time. I've seen improvement though. On the timed sections, I am pure anxiety and answering the questions seems foreign. I will work on a skipping strategy for the timed section on my next approach. Thank you for your help!
• Mike_Ross Alum Member Sage ⭐

  December 2022 3106 karma

  No problem! Best of luck and feel free to reach out or pm me more more targeted advice!
• 1 Like

  sh.francis Core Member

  December 2022 edited December 2022 246 karma

  check out this thread on time management

  https://7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/27356/finishing-a-section-right-on-time-v-early-and-doing-a-2nd-round
• 1 Like

  MorganS1- Member

  December 2022 50 karma

  Maybe the strategy I've been using will give you some insight. (LR is my weakest section and I am okay with that being as though I just want a 169, so my average is -5/-4). First, it is obvious that on average the questions 1-10 are the easiest so I finish those questions within the first ten minutes. Keep in mind there are some questions in the first ten that may be a little difficult if I can't finish them within around 1:30 I skip it. Next, I go to the five questions at the end for two reasons 1) sometimes these are the hardest and I have more time to figure them out or 2) they are not that hard and I can get them out the way and focus on the harder ones in the middle of the section. Once I finish the last five I finish the middle section and keeping in mind to be aware of how much time I spend on questions, if I'm feeling lost with the stimulus/ ACs I skip and come back if I have time. I don't waste time rereading stuff. In the end for me I know there are around 2 LR questions I know I won't get because even on review my mindset still makes me want to pick the answer I chose lol I don't worry about those. The main objective is using the time wisely so that you can answer as many questions as you can within the 35 minutes and answer them correctly. I hope this helps!!
• Serena13 Core Member

  December 2022 128 karma

  @sh.francis Thank you for sharing this post! It's absolutely helpful regarding timing and improvements for strategy.
  @MorganS1- Thank you for this helpful tip. It's an interesting strategy I would be willing to try for the next time. I certainly need to strengthen the timed tests.
• sh.francis Core Member

  December 2022 246 karma

  Good luck. I'm in the same boat as you, my gap was even worse and I'm still working on it.
• 1 Like

  elias.christensen Yearly + Live Member Sage 7Sage Tutor

  December 2022 37 karma

  You've already gotten a lot of great ideas here, but since you mentioned that you're having difficulties with time anxiety and freezing up, and it sounds like you can get the right answer pretty quickly on BR, I'd suggest stopwatch testing! The way this works is that you take the LR part of a practice test untimed and with the clock hidden, but still try to do it as quickly as possible without missing anything, and keep a stopwatch going to track your time somewhere out of eyesight/reach. Answer each question on the first pass through an LR section (if you're stuck on a question, pick your best guess and move on once you notice you're spending a long time on it), then check your stopwatch and make a note of how long it took you to work through the section. If you haven't hit 35 minutes on your stopwatch, do another pass and write down the final time for that as well. If you have hit 35 minutes, move on to the next section and take that one as usual. I started having a much easier time with the clock pressure when I realized that I actually could answer everything effectively in close to the time I had on each section when I wasn't paying attention to the clock.

  Best of luck! If you're doing this well on BR, you can absolutely find ways to close the gap under timed conditions. And if you find you're still having a hard time and need more ideas to combat the time pressure, you can always schedule a free consultation with one of our tutors for a little extra advice!