Timed HW Questions & PT's

[cshumphrey]

Dear PowerScore,

Tomorrow, lesson #5 of PowerScore's online course will be presented via BlackBoard. I am registered to sit for the December 2016 LSAT administration. I am curious to know when I should start taking PT's (timed and untimed), and how many per week (timed and untimed) should I be taking? In addition, when should I begin timing myself in the HW lessons? If I do not complete a HW question in the allotted time (LR: 1 min 25 sec), then should I mark that question incorrect and move on to the next question, restart the timer and immediately retry the question, or come back to the question later to try it again? Any help will be greatly appreciated!

-Chris

[David Boyle]

Dear PowerScore,

Tomorrow, lesson #5 of PowerScore's online course will be presented via BlackBoard. I am registered to sit for the December 2016 LSAT administration. I am curious to know when I should start taking PT's (timed and untimed), and how many per week (timed and untimed) should I be taking? In addition, when should I begin timing myself in the HW lessons? If I do not complete a HW question in the allotted time (LR: 1 min 25 sec), then should I mark that question incorrect and move on to the next question, restart the timer and immediately retry the question, or come back to the question later to try it again? Any help will be greatly appreciated!

-Chris

Hello Chris,

Good questions! --There is no hard-and-fast rule about when to take practice tests. In the full-length courses, students have to take a practice test before taking any of the lessons! So, you can start whenever you want, though if you would feel more comfortable starting after taking a lesson or two, that is understandable.
As for how many a week, you may burn yourself out if you take more than two, or three at the very most. If you take too many tests, one danger is that you won't have time to thoroughly review each test and all the questions and answers, to see why each one was right or wrong. "Quality is more important than quantity", so taking too many tests can be bad if you don't even understand all the questions/answers on the test.
Finally, you are not obliged to time yourself in the homework lessons, although timing has some uses, naturally. I wouldn't go so far as to mark an answer wrong if you don't finish in 1:25!! There is some natural variation: some answers may be so easy you can solve them in 45 seconds or less (seriously), whereas some of the Parallel Reasoning or other answers may take several minutes to answer. So it's great that you're trying to be stringent with yourself, but don't be *too* strict! as that could be counterproductive.

Hope this helps,
David

[cshumphrey]

Hi David,

Yes, that helps a lot! In the OSC (Online Student Center), there is a "Critical Homework List - PowerScore LSAT Course" page that lists three steps to "ramp up" to the appropriate time per questions - Step 1: Do the first 5 to 10 questions untimed, do not worry about how long you take to complete each question; Step 2: Do the next 5 to 10 questions without pre-setting a time per question, but track the amount of time it takes to complete each question; and Step 3: Do the remaining questions at or near the appropriate time per question. Does this method still apply to PowerScore's online course? If so, should I use it when attacking the HW's question sets at the end of each HW lesson? Or, refrain from timing the HW questions as stated in your previous post? Thanks again for your help!

-Chris

[Clay Cooper]

Hi cshumphrey,

Thanks for your reply.

It does apply to PowerScore's online course - in the sense that it is a useful technique to use on homework question sets (as you have surmised). It is not well suited to actual class session, because it doesn't really lend itself to the format (that's not exactly how the classes are conducted). That said, it certainly wouldn't hurt you to try and apply the principle behind this technique as you attend an online class: start out slow and deliberate with the first few questions your class does, then begin to monitor your time, and eventually actually set yourself a time limit.

I would plan mainly to use it on HW practice sets - that's where you'll really benefit from the timing practice.

Keep working hard!

[cshumphrey]

Awesome! Thank you Clay and David for both pieces of advice, it certainly has helped!

-Chris