LR score went up with less time?

[menkenj]

Hi there, today I decided to pressure test myself to see how I would do with less time on LR. I ended up scoring -2 instead of my average -6ish. Is there something to this or was it just an easy section? I did PT 30 LR II.
Perhaps it was that I knew I had to skip time sucking questions and come back in the end so I did better with time management? I am having a hard time believing that I did so much better. Maybe it's that the LR sections of later LSATs are just harder?

[KelseyWoods]

Hi Julie!

There are a lot of factors that can go into your LSAT score--as you've observed! Maybe it was a section that played into your strengths better. Maybe you've been getting naturally better over time. Maybe you were having a good day. Maybe you were doing better with time management. Maybe it was all of the above!

It's totally normal for your score to fluctuate but it's good to pay attention to all of these factors so that you can start to identify patterns. You'll have to do some experimentation to determine whether your performance was specific to this section, specific to older sections, or specific to your strategy.

Time management is important and knowing when to skip questions is a valuable skill. If that's something you typically struggle with but that you think you did a better job with under the time crunch, see what you can do with the standard amount of time. For your next timed section, give yourself the full amount of time but tell yourself at the beginning that you are going to skip 5 questions. It can be any 5 questions you want to skip, but you have to skip 5. You can come back to them if you have time at the end, or just guess on them if you don't. This is a good practice to trick your mind into adopting a better time management strategy. It's often difficult to skip a question--no one wants to admit defeat! But if you plan to skip a certain number of questions at the beginning, it's not admitting defeat anymore, it's sticking to your plan. It will make it easier to skip questions as you're going through and often pays off with a higher score.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[menkenj]

Thanks, Kelsey!!! What a great idea! I will try this the next time I do a PT or LR section.