LSAT Timing Strategy: The 90-Second Skip Protocol

You can know how to answer a question and still lose the point. It happens when one question eats the minutes meant for five others. An LSAT timing strategy is a set of rules you decide on before the section starts, so the clock never makes the decisions for you. This page covers the one I teach: a 90-second cap per question on your first pass in Logical Reasoning, about 40 seconds per question in Reading Comprehension, and a firm plan for the last two minutes.

1What a timing strategy is, and how to tell yours is failing

Every question on the LSAT is worth one point. A question you can finish in 45 seconds and a question that takes four minutes count the same. Timing strategy is the habit of spending your minutes where points are cheap and saving the expensive ones for later.

You can spot a timing problem in your own practice sections. Look for these signs:

• You reach the end of a section with questions you never saw.
• You remember one question you fought with for ages.
• You have blank bubbles when time is called.
• Your first five answers were careful, and your last five were a guessing blur.

If any of that sounds familiar, the fix on this page is not reading faster. It is deciding ahead of time where the minutes go.

2The test map

Your plan has to fit the test, so start with its shape. The LSAT has four 35-minute sections, plus Argumentative Writing.

You can't tell which section is the experimental one, so treat every section as if it counts. Check the LSAC LSAT page for the current format before you test.

3The LSAT timing strategy, step by step

The plan has one set of rules for each section type. Logical Reasoning has about 25 questions in 35 minutes. Reading Comprehension has 4 passages. Start with Logical Reasoning.

1. First pass: 90 seconds, then flag and move. Answer the question, or flag it and keep going. The 90 seconds is a cap, not a target. Easy questions should take less.
2. Second pass: flagged questions, easiest first. Now you spend the time you saved. Don't start with the flag that scared you most. A hard question you leave for last is one you may never reach, and that's fine.
3. Two minutes left: answer everything. Stop working on any single question and fill every bubble.
4. Never leave a blank. Wrong answers cost nothing.

Reading Comprehension runs on a different clock, because the passage takes time before you see the first question.

• Map each passage for about 3 minutes.
• Give each question about 40 seconds. Don't reread whole paragraphs.
• At 8:00 left, move to the last passage now.
• On the last passage, take the main point and located details first.

The last passage is triage. Go for the questions that ask for the main point or for a detail you can find on the page. Leave the rest for any time that's left.

4Worked example 1: the bridge question

These examples are made up for practice. They are not test questions.

You are in a Logical Reasoning section. Question 9 is about a town called Eastville that argues for building a new bridge. You read the stimulus, and the answer choices all look close. At 90 seconds you are torn between (B) and (D).

Here is the move that costs you. You think, "I've already put in a minute and a half. If I stop now, that time is wasted." So you keep going. Two more minutes pass. You pick (D) and you aren't sure.

Here is the protocol. At 90 seconds you circle your better guess, flag the question, and move on. Questions 10 through 14 go quickly, and you bank those points. On the second pass you return to question 9 with fresh eyes. Often it looks easier on the second look. A word you skimmed past the first time now stands out.

Question 9 didn't change. What changed is that it stopped costing you the five questions behind it. A flag is not a failure. It is a note to your future self that says, "not yet."

5Worked example 2: the 8:00 mark

Now Reading Comprehension. You have just finished the questions for passage 3, and the clock reads 8:00. Passage 4 is still unread, and three questions on passage 3 are flagged.

The pull is to go back. "I almost have them." Don't. At 8:00 left, you move to the last passage now.

You open passage 4 and map it for about 3 minutes. Then you go straight to the main point question and the questions that point to specific lines, and you answer those first. After that you take whatever looks easiest. If time remains, you return to the flagged questions from passage 3.

Either way, you saw every passage. The points waiting in passage 4 count just as much as the ones you were chasing in passage 3.

6Traps that look right

Each of these feels reasonable while it's happening. Name the trap, then skip it fast.

Sunk cost

You have spent four minutes on one question, so you feel you can't quit now. That time is gone whether you stop or not. The only live question is where the next minute should go. Flag it at 90 seconds.

Rushing the start

You want to bank time early, so you tear through the first questions. But the early questions are your cheapest points. Rushing them is how easy points leak away. Read the first questions at a steady pace and trust the 90-second cap to protect you later.

Blank bubbles

You skip a question meaning to come back, and then time runs out. A blank is a guaranteed zero. A guess is not. Guess. When you fill in bubbles at the two-minute mark, do it without agonizing, because a quick guess beats a blank every time.

7Checklist before you answer

• Watch checked at the start of each pass.
• Flags marked clearly.
• Every bubble filled before time.

Timing problems are easier to see after the fact. After a practice section, note which questions took the longest. Those are the ones to flag sooner next time. To go back over them without the clock, use an LSAT blind review.

If you want to practice this plan in a small group, see the group courses.