- Wed Jul 15, 2015 4:05 pm
#19105
Hi Cademarino,
Thanks for the question!
Generally, I advise my students to focus on practice without timing until they feel they've become as proficient as they can be in each question type and skill, and only then to focus on improving speed -- assuming the test is not rapidly approaching.
An ideal time-table would be hitting the point where you're happy with your aptitude on the questions, without time pressure, when the test is no sooner than 4 weeks away, and then working on picking up speed under timed conditions. Of course it doesn't always work out that way for everyone depending on how easily the skills come, and how early a given person begins preparing, but that's the best case scenario. Assuming you're preparing for October, you've definitely got time now to focus just on skills development!
It's also important to understand that the LSAC is intentionally testing your ability to catch and notice small details that might seem incidental to the text's main point or central message -- much like a practicing attorney needs to catch small variations in language, when reviewing the draft of a legal contract for instance. So it is greatly to your advantage to keep practicing attentive close reading -- or "reading like a lawyer". Though lawyers and law students certainly know how to skim, in this field, we also need to be able to essentially flip the mental switch that tells us to read closely and with careful scrutiny directed at ambiguous phrasing or confusing concepts. That's how you'll be challenged to read legal cases for instance, in law school. So even beyond your LSAT performance, the more you can start to practice becoming a detail-oriented or close reader, the better for your future as a law student, as you will then hopefully start your education already more oriented towards the skills you need to build during your legal education.
This is a very different from the way that most K-12 and college students generally learn to read -- even just as a survival strategy, most students have to endure enough boring or poorly written textbooks, that skimming just enough to pass the test or write the paper or answer the question becomes a standard practice, mostly not even one we notice. But if you read that way on the LSAT, it will certainly hurt your score, as the "gist" or main idea of the text will often not be enough to help you answer the question.
So not only is it important not to rush reading too much on the LSAT, it's actually more important than it would be in many other spheres -- you kind of have to be pushing in the other direction, learning to slow down, process carefully, notice things you would normally miss.
The challenge however, and part of why the LSAT is a hard test for most people, is that the test is still timed -- so you can't slow down to an optimal level when you have to perform within 35 minutes. But what I say to most of the students I've tutored or taught is that if you have time to prepare -- first slow down at least for several weeks, work on re-establishing close reading habits, get used to reading very intently, and only when that's starting to feel more habitual, then work on speeding up, without losing focus or missing too many of the details. It's going to be a balance of course, but in the beginning, taking your time is entirely to your advantage.
Hope this helps!
Beth
