Study Method

[ljack4]

Good evening,
Currently, i am Scoring In the high 160s on untimed practice tests. Typically, i get all of the logic games question correct, miss about 8 total logic reasoning, and about 7 from reading comprehension. I will be taking the October LSAT and am aiming for a 180. I have 3 bibles, 3 workbooks, 3 training types books, and 20 of the most recent LSATs. I know timing is critical and while i have seen some improvement in my speed, i am still nowhere near where i need to be. Any advice/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I've considered taking either the advance logic reasoning online course you offer or purchase private tutoring hours but am not sure what would be most effective for me.

[Clay Cooper]

Hi ljack,

Thank you for your question. It is a good one, and a common one.

It sounds like you are well-equipped with course materials. Unfortunately, untimed practice test scores rarely translate very accurately to timed test scores. Very often, then, students ask how they can improve their timing and thus make their timed scores improved as well.

My general advice is this: in order to be faster we must get better at applying the techniques and concepts taught in the course. In other words if you want to get faster I would encourage you to keep practicing the approaches to each question type outlined in the books. As you become more comfortable with these techniques your speed will improve and your accuracy as well.

Tutoring and advanced courses can help in this regard, but based on your practice test scores, I think you understand most of the basic ideas behind our approach to the test, and I think you could make up at least some ground in the area of timing by really focusing in your own practice on perfecting your approach to each section and each question type.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any other questions on this topic.

[ljack4]

Thank you Clay for responding. So would you suggest i continue doing untimed tests or switch to.timed? Additionally, should i focus more so on using practice tests to study or completing individual question types/passages from the training type books?

[Emily Haney-Caron]

Hi ljack,

Clay may also chime in again, but I thought I'd go ahead and answer your question. I would do a mix of timed and untimed questions, and a mix of practice tests and questions from the book. The idea here is to improve your speed and get used to the time constraints while also improving your technique (which may mean taking longer on each question right now). So when doing full tests, I'd do them timed, under simulated conditions. When doing questions from the books, I would do a mix of timed and untimed, and try to focus on identifying the types of questions that are hardest for you and take the most time and do as many of those types of questions as possible.