Blunt Advice About Speed

Students constantly fixate on timing.

They're convinced that if they could just read a little faster, answer a little quicker, or finish a few more questions, their score would jump.

Usually, they're wrong.

In this episode, Nathan and Josh deliver a tough message: if you're not scoring high, speed isn't your problem. Accuracy is.

Stop Treating Speed as the Goal

The listener's question was straightforward: how do I get faster?

But Nathan immediately challenged the premise.

If you're missing questions while taking all the time you need, going faster won't help. It will probably make things worse.

Many students treat the LSAT as a balancing act between speed and accuracy.

The Demon doesn't.

Accuracy comes first. Everything else is noise.

Accuracy Reveals Understanding

There’s a distinction between accuracy and understanding.

Suppose you're getting 20 out of 26 Logical Reasoning questions right while working untimed. That might sound decent.

But how many of those questions did you truly understand?

If you narrowed a question down to two answers and guessed correctly, you earned a point. But you didn't solve the question. The same uncertainty that caused you to miss some questions probably existed on others that you happened to get right.

That's why students often overestimate their understanding.

Can You Get Ten in a Row?

Josh offers a simple challenge.

Forget timing for a week.

Instead, try to answer ten questions in a row without missing one. Take as much time as you need. Don't worry about “pacing.” Don't worry about finishing a section. Just focus on solving each question correctly.

Many students discover they can't complete the challenge.

That's because timing was never the issue in the first place.

Build a Better Foundation

If you're missing questions in the first half of the section, why are you worried about the questions at the end?

Before you concern yourself with question 25, make sure you're consistently solving question 5.

The LSAT doesn't reward speed. It rewards understanding. Every mistake is an opportunity to improve that understanding, but only if you take the time to figure out what you did wrong.

Get the questions in front of you right. Review them carefully if you don’t. Then worry about doing more of them.

Let Speed Happen Naturally

You do not improve by trying to go faster.

You improve by understanding more.

As your reading improves, your predictions improve. As your predictions improve, answer choices become easier to evaluate. As answer choices become easier to evaluate, you move through questions more efficiently.

Speed is not something you force.

It's a byproduct of understanding.

As Nathan puts it, don't focus on accuracy first. Focus on accuracy only. Let speed happen naturally.