Helpful LSAT Timing Exercise: The Time Shave

by Mary Richter Feb 15, 2012

NOTE: This is the first of many posts by one of our most beloved teachers, Mary Adkins. A graduate of Yale Law School, Mary is one of Manhattan LSAT’s 99th percentile rock stars based out of New York City.

The February LSAT is over and done! You know what that means. One: Mardi Gras. Two: folks–February test refugees and otherwise–are gearing up to prepare for the June exam. As we enter the beginning of this study season, I want to share a tool that might be useful to those of you facing a particular breed of LSAT challenge.

Recently, I worked with a student who came in every week reciting the same outcome of her practice. Whenever she did sections untimed, she rocked them. She scored in the 160s, her goal range, and did so consistently. But as soon as she set the clock, her score plummeted fifteen points–consistently. The kicker? She wasn’t even taking that much more time when she wasn’t on the clock.

This student–we’ll call her Charmayne–needed to trim about eight minutes off her logic games section and ten minutes off each logical reasoning section. So pacing was something to work on, sure. But it was clear that the extra time wasn’t the only source of her higher scores (and that lack of it wasn’t the only source of her lower scores). When she felt herself on the clock, she’d snap into panic mode, abandon or forget strategies, and fly through the test wildly. Picture a woman in a blindfold, swinging her arms to try to hit cartoon As, Bs, Cs, Ds, and Es swarming around her. (For the record, this creepy nightmarish image is mine, not hers.)

It occurred to us that one reason she was having a hard time improving her pacing was the paralyzing anxiety she felt as soon as the virtual LSAT proctor entered the scene.

Together, we came up with the Time Shave. The basic idea? Marathon training. You can’t expect to run a seven-minute mile when you’ve been running twelve-minute miles, and you can’t expect to run twenty-six when you’ve been running fifteen. Without a miracle or consuming some illegal substance (hidden in a mechanical pencil or digital watch, perhaps), you’re unlikely to meet either goal without injuring yourself.

I half-ran* a half-marathon last January, and while 13.1 miles is not 26.2, it’s… well, half of that. It’s also six times farther than I had ever run until several months before the race. My years of logging casual, two-mile jogs around Prospect Park had to evolve, and gradually. First, I challenged myself to run four. Then six. Then nine. Eventually, I could stand at a starting line with a number pinned to my shirt and know that I was about to travel double-digit mileage by foot–and could. In fact, I didn’t freak out until mile eleven, when I became irrationally convinced that the race organizers had miscalculated the distance.

We decided that if Charmayne could complete a section in forty-five minutes comfortably, then she’d try it in forty-two. The next week, in thirty-nine. And so on. Eventually, a strong, thirty-five minute section didn’t feel as foreign, as insanely unachievable, because it was only a few minutes under what she knew she could do instead of (what felt like) a far reach from her safety zone.

Shaving Time
If you are finding that your pace is not what it needs to be, instead of setting the alarm for eight minutes and cursing yourself when it goes off with three questions to go, try giving yourself enough time to complete the section confidently and comfortably while still moving forward. Then set a goal several minutes under that time. Little by little, build to the requisite time cap.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting this as a replacement for doing timed sections, generally. But the shave is a tool to play around with, and since the next test is still well over three months out, now is a good time to take it for a spin. Have fun!

*I more or less walked mile twelve. I confess. Why not mile thirteen? Hello! My friends were at the finish line. #vanity

Mary Adkins is one of Manhattan LSAT’s 99th percentile rock star instructors based out of New York City. She’s also available for Private Tutoring, both in NYC and Live Online.