Focus on Focus

Importance of Speed on the LSAT

With only 35 minutes allotted for each of the sections, the time pressure is very real.

An inability to pace oneself effectively could result in unanswered questions, and every question left blank is a point lost. Additionally, even if you do get through all of the questions if you’re rushing through them then the chances of having a good enough understanding to get them right is significantly lower.  The same applies to the reading comprehension passages.  If you’re rushing through them you’re not getting them. 

Understanding where time gets wasted is the first step in optimizing speed. The key thing to remember is that generally speaking your biggest time-sink is time spent re-reading arguments or passages that you didn’t understand.  By far, the most consistent way to increase your speed is to get better at what you’re being asked.  Mastery leads to speed.

Misconceptions about Speed Reading

Speed reading might seem like an attractive skill to develop for the LSAT, given the time constraints. However, this technique comes with its own set of misconceptions and problems.

Skimming is a common speed reading technique that involves reading only the first and last sentences of each paragraph and parts of the sentences in between. While this may work for quickly scanning news articles or blog posts the test is designed to measure your ability to understand complex materials and draw logical inferences. Skimming can lead you to miss crucial details and relationships.

Likewise, speed and comprehension are not the same thing. Research shows that as reading speed increases, comprehension decreases. The LSAT is not just a test of how fast you can read but also how well you can understand, analyze, and apply what you’ve read. Therefore, pushing yourself to read faster than your optimal speed can be counterproductive. This is not to say that improving your reading speed has no value, but it must be balanced with equally strong comprehension skills.  In other words, simply training yourself to move your eyeballs faster isn’t going to help.

So if reading faster isn’t how you’re going to deal with the time pressure then what are you going to do?  Well, one thing, as I already mentioned, is to improve your understanding of the material.  Related to that is to develop your ability to maintain focus and engagement.

The Role of Focus

The term “deep work” refers to the state of being fully immersed in a cognitively demanding task with zero distractions. Deep work is especially relevant for the LSAT, where you need to understand and manipulate complex logical structures within a limited time. The focused state promoted by deep work allows you to engage more deeply with the material, enhancing both speed and comprehension.

The basic issue is that our brain naturally responds to discomfort by looking for distractions.  The test is, by its nature, uncomfortable. As you engage with the arguments and the passages you’ll find yourself wandering off and thinking about something else and just sounding out the words in your head.  When you recognize that you’ll then have to go back and re-read what you had “read” but weren’t focused on.  If you are engaged and focused on one read-through then, even if it takes a bit longer to read, you’ll still be saving time since you won’t have to go back and re-read.

Developing Focus

So, how do we make sure that we’re doing “deep work” and that we’re engaged and focused on one read-through?  There’s a couple of things that you can do:

Mindfulness meditation is very useful for developing your general capacity for focus and attention.  I’ve written about it in another post and I suggest you check it out.  Basically, if you focus on your breath and train yourself to bring your attention back to your breath whenever it wanders you’re training yourself to become attentive to your mind wandering.  Once you get good at that you’ll be able to recognize much more quickly when you’ve lost focus and can bring it back more quickly. Identifying what distracts you and bing aware of signs that your mind is drifting away from the task at hand brings your focus back.

In addition to strategies for more generally improving your focus there are a couple of techniques that you can apply directly for increasing your capacity to maintain attention while reading.  Engaging deeply with the material can elevate your reading experience and improve your comprehension. Marking important phrases or sentences as you read can serve as mental bookmarks, helping you to review and absorb key points more effectively. Jotting down brief notes in the margins can help you better understand complex arguments or structures, aiding in recall and understanding. Breaking down large passages into smaller ‘chunks’ can make the material more digestible and lessen the cognitive load.  But the best technique that I teach my students is to visualize as they read.  The way that you train yourself to do that is to force yourself to give a summary or recap in your own words after you’re done with an argument or a paragraph.  But, don’t go back and skim to do it.  Instead, train yourself to do it without going back through what you read.  You’ll find that if you are diligent about visualizing as you’re reading then you’ll simply have to describe what you’ve visualized in order to summarize what you read.   

The goal is to maintain focus and engagement as you’re reading so that you don’t have to re-read.  Even if it takes you more time because you have to slow down a bit you’ll still end up saving time.  Work on your overall focus and attention by meditating and employ reading-specific strategies to train yourself to be engaged while reading.

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