LR timing

[lsatlsat]

Dear powerscore,

I have been practicing for the LR section for quite a while, however everytime I can only finish 18-19 questions max. per LR section, and without scoring everything correctly. My goal is to score at least 19-20 questions correct for each LR section. I've tried several methods, and they have all not worked:
1) I have tried not finish all the questions, but more questions correct, however I found that I can score higher by finishing all the questions rather than improving on accuracy and not finishing all questions
2) I have also tried skipping questions that I do not know how to do, however this doesn't allow me to score around 19-20 questions correct as well.
So my question is, how would I be able to improve on timing?

Also, I will be taking the feb lsat, and my goal is to score a 160. However I found that when I do practice tests untimed, I can score around a 157-158, BUT when I do timed, I can only score a 145-146. My question is, is it still possible for me to practice and reach my target score of 160 timed by the feb7th, 2015 lsat? And how would I be able to improve on this?

Furthermore, by this time, should I start doing full timed practice tests, or should I still do timed/untimed sections separately? I feel that because I am not reaching my target score by doing the sections separately, there is no pint for me to start doing full timed practice tests yet. What would you suggest?

Thank you very much for your help! Your suggestions are always extremely helpful to me!

[Andrew Ash]

Hi Lsatlsat,

Good to hear from you again!

It sounds like your accuracy has really improved, but you're having difficulty with the time pressure that the LSAT imposes. This is a common problem, of course - the sections are designed to have more work than the majority of people can finish in 35 minutes. In order to start working faster, I recommend a two-pronged approach:

1) Focus on fundamental concepts. Typically, working slowly on the LSAT is actually just a symptom of not having a super-solid grip on the fundamentals. Can you take a contrapositive in your sleep? Can you diagram an "unless" conditional statement with one hand tied behind your back? When you come across a causal argument, do the five standard ways to weaken it spring to your mind instantly? These ideas show up on the test again and again, and they work the same way every time. If you can shave off a couple of seconds in how long it takes to deal with each one, you'll shave minutes off of your time!

Remember, too, that we have tons of strategies that are designed to help you accelerate through the test. One great example is the Elemental Attack, which often lets you crush time-consuming Parallel Reasoning questions in under 60 seconds. You've taken our classes and you have these tools at your disposal; make sure you're getting as much mileage out of them as you can!

2) Take full practice tests. One of the most difficult elements of the LSAT is that it requires over three hours of sustained effort. Often, when our brains get exhausted, we tend to slow down. The only way to fight this is to get used to grinding out three hours of sustained logical thinking, and the only way to do that is to take full practice tests. That's why I think full tests will serve you better than individual timed sections. And since your main struggle right now is timing, I don't think taking untimed sections or tests is going to be useful to you.

You have a month before the February test, which is a long time, so it's difficult to say how much you'll be able to improve your score between now and then. Fifteen points is a very large jump for a month, but it's not completely unheard of. My advice is to stick to the recommendations I've outlined above, keep an eye on how your score is doing, and stay positive - the LSAT is a learned skill, and with practice, it can be beaten!

Cheers,
Andrew

[lsatlsat]

Thank you very much for the suggestions. They are very helpful!