TIME REDUCTION TIPS!!!

[minhtientm249]

Hello,

As of this moment, I can speed through any LR section and get about 2-4 wrongs each, only if I have a 3 minutes of additional time. I'm happy about my accuracy but how to improve my speed?

I'm an ESL (non-native English user). It takes me about a minute just to read through a question, leaving only about 20 second left to think, which is not enough most of the time. Can reading speed be improved (without any sacrifice to accuracy)? And how?

Thank you very much.

[chike_eze]

Hello,

I'm an ESL (non-native English user). It takes me about a minute just to read through a question, leaving only about 20 second left to think, which is not enough most of the time. Can reading speed be improved (without any sacrifice to accuracy)? And how?

Thank you very much.

1100 views and no response? I couldn't resist.

"Improving reading without sacrificing accuracy" is something most LSAT'ers struggle with, including me. In the end, you'll just have to practice to the point where you get a feel for how fast you can read without sacrificing accuracy. I know my answer sounds like "duh, I already knew that"... but it's the best answer anyone can give you. O wait, let me rephrase... it's one of the better answers you'll get from anyone out there (LSAT moderation).

Some suggest grouping LR question types, and reading high-level or detail, faster or slower depending on the type.

Inference, Assumption, Strengthen/Weaken - read slower, cos the correct answer is almost always subtle or strictly logical.

For other question types, you may read for structure (high level) and go deeper if the structure is not apparent. For example, Match reasoning/flaw. I also find that "Main point" and "Role of sentence" questions lend themselves to reading for structure, though for the more difficult questions, you'll probably have to re-read the conclusion or premise to choose between two promising answer choices.

Sorry-- no easy answers here

[ohthatpatrick]

I liked the previous poster's thoughts (and antipathy towards extreme language).

I agree that there are no easy, universal answers to the question. And, without discouraging you, I must warn you that needing 1 minute on average to complete your reading of the stimulus is definitely on the high side.

I'm very impressed by your high rate of accuracy, given that you're not taking this test in your native language. (I shudder to think how hard LSAT would be in a 2nd language)

It's difficult to think you'll gain much time in LR by reading the stimulus faster. After all, a precise understanding of the stimulus is usually necessary to discriminate the correct answer.

However, you can gain a lot of time by becoming better and better versed with LSAT's reasoning patterns (which transcend individual question types, even though some patterns are more to be expected with certain question types).

I mean patterns such as:

- Author is trying to solve a problem or make a recommendation (so relevant issues are whether the solution treats the entire problem and whether it may backfire in some way that would thwart the intended result)

- Author is assigning causality (so the relevant issues are whether there are other ways to interpret the author's evidence, in such a way that looks more like reverse causality, some third causal factor, or any other way to explain the supporting data)

- Author is using an analogy/comparison as his evidence (so the relevant issue becomes whether there are any meaningful differences between the things being compared that weaken the relevance of the analogy)

... and so on

The more you become attuned to the reasoning patterns (and relevant flaws/assumptions), the quicker your mind digests the text and anticipates the issues a correct answer might address.

Also, it's possible to pick up some time by moving more aggressively on questions that lend themselves to predicting an answer.

For example, on a Main Conclusion question, you should decide which clause in the argument is the main conclusion and start scanning the answer choices for an equivalent paraphrase of that clause.

There's no need to arrive at our answer via a process of eliminating all the other wrong answers. If (B) matches what you were looking for, then move on to the next question!

Of course, as you experiment with pulling the trigger more quickly once you believe you've found your answer, find out if you end up making careless errors, errors that deprive you of points you normally would have gotten with another 15-20 seconds to look over all the other answer choices.

The questions for which I am most likely to know ahead of time exactly what I'm looking for are:
Sufficient Assumption | Main Conclusion | Principle Justify | Describe the Role of the Claim | Describe the Response/Method | Identify the Disagreement

If you're currently thinking, "How does he know what to predict for those question types?", be sure to re-read the strategy for these types of questions and practice doing them (while actively trying to predict the answer before you look at the choices)

The questions for which I'm most likely to have a fuzzy prediction of what I'm looking for are:
Flaw | Match the Reasoning | Strengthen | Weaken | Logical Completion | Evaluate

The ones where I'm most at the mercy of reading all five answers are probably:
Inference | Resolve/Explain

On average, when I take a new test, I'm able to pretty well predict somewhere between 30-40% of the answers. While that's obviously less than half, being able to do so gives me a cushion of time at the end of LR.

When I started doing LSAT, I would need almost all of the 35 minutes to finish an LR section (but I was very accurate). Nowadays, it takes me closer to 25 minutes (with basically the same accuracy). There's no way my reading speed has caused that acceleration. Instead, it's my reasoning and pattern-recognition speed.

While I know this is a long and broad answer, you should at least be optimistic that the more you practice this material, the faster you can get. (In other words, just because you're getting most of the questions right doesn't mean your abilities have peaked or plateaued).

Hope some of this helps.