The LSAT is designed so that most people cannot finish on time — and the fast pace required makes the test fiendishly difficult. Because time is scarce on the test, it is crucial to budget your time wisely.
Think about how you manage your time at school or at work. When you receive a slew of new assignments, you don’t just sit down and do them in the order you received them. If you find a task taking longer than expected, you don’t let it take over your calendar.
Instead, you set a realistic schedule to get as much done as possible within the time you have. You prioritize each task based on how long it will take and how important it is.
Likewise, time management on the LSAT means taking control of your time. If you find yourself falling short, don’t get frustrated and don’t just try to work faster. Work more strategically. Follow these tips to manage your time more proactively:
— Master the fundamentals.
— Understand where your time goes.
— Do questions in the best order for you.
— Keep a steady pace.
Master the Fundamentals
When you are first studying for the LSAT, you may find unfamiliar terms and concepts daunting, like the variety of logical fallacies. It is tempting to skim through the basics and move quickly to practice.
Unfortunately, practice tests can be addictive. The more you do, the more you want to do, as anxiety drives you to roll the dice one more time to try for a better score.
However, if you’re not using practice tests correctly, you’ll just burn through practice tests, putting in hundreds of hours of work while seeing little score improvement.
This is because good technique is critical on the LSAT, as it is in sports, crafts, and other skill-based activities. Study the fundamentals on your own, or with the help of a course or other test prep option. Then use untimed practice to build good habits and approach each question type skillfully.
If you use the best methods to approach every LSAT question, you will pick up speed naturally.
[READ: What to Do if Your LSAT Practice Score Is Stuck.]
Understand Where Your Time Goes
Once you feel comfortable with each question type, move to timed practice to hone your timing. Pay careful attention to reviewing the questions you get wrong, understanding why, and figuring out how to avoid repeating those same mistakes.
But wrong answers aren’t the only thing you should be tracking in your practice. Reflect on which types of logical reasoning questions or reading comprehension passages take you the most time regardless of their difficulty.
Not only will this highlight weak points to drill intensively, but it will also help you avoid getting bogged down on the actual test.
[READ: How to Build LSAT Skills With Deliberate Practice.]
Do Questions in the Best Order for You
Remember that on the LSAT, every question is weighted equally and there is no penalty for wrong answers. It is better to guess than to leave an answer blank, and it is better to correctly answer two easy questions than one hard question.
Once you know what questions you find most difficult and most time-intensive, you know which are the lowest priority for you. Save them for last.
It is easy to flag questions to revisit later. So if you realize a logical reasoning question will take extra time or energy to complete, flag it and move on.
Reading comprehension passages are especially important to approach in the order you prefer. If you’re turned off by passages about science and technology, for example, do them last. Knowing how much time you have left will help you stay focused and unafraid to take educated guesses as needed.
Keep a Steady Pace
Test-takers often get questions wrong in clusters. They’ll get 10 questions in a row right, then miss two in close proximity. Why? Because it is critical to stay in flow on the LSAT. Being thrown off balance can result in careless errors.
Moreover, whenever you feel lost, stressed and uncertain, you are liable to lose precious time and focus. That opens the door to test anxiety.
So whenever you notice yourself stuck on a question, take a guess, flag the question and move on. Whether or not the question was hard, it is more important to get back to a sustainable tempo and confident attitude.
The LSAT is a marathon, not a sprint. Rather than cutting corners or trying to speed up, pay attention to where your time is going and how to use it better. You will find improving your score is just a matter of time.
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Tips to Finish the LSAT Faster originally appeared on usnews.com
