The RC Timing Paradox: Read Slower, Score Higher

Adrian Calloway

If you are, uh, if you're spending two minutes skimming an LSAT Reading Comp passage so you can "save time" for the questions... you are- you're essentially setting your score on fire. It's a total illusion.

Nora Ashford

Oh, I- I- I did that for the first three weeks of my prep. I thought, okay, 500 words, I need to get through this in two minutes flat, otherwise I'm... I'm dead in the water. But then, guess what? I spent, like, 90 seconds per question, just, uh, desperately scrolling back and forth, second-guessing every single choice.

Adrian Calloway

Exactly. Because you didn't actually read it. You just... your eyes crossed the words. The math of this is, is completely counterintuitive, but the best test-takers, they aim to spend about 80% of your time reading and understanding the passage and 20% reviewing the answer choices. Eighty-twenty.

Nora Ashford

Eighty-twenty. That... okay, when you first told me that, Adrian, I had this massive wave of timer panic. Spending, what, like, six or seven minutes on a single passage before even looking at question one? It- it- it felt like jumping out of a plane without a parachute.

Adrian Calloway

But what happened when you actually forced yourself to do it? When you- when you took that leap?

Nora Ashford

Well, the weirdest thing happened. The questions... they- they became almost a joke. Like, instead of a minute and a half of agonizing over two attractive choices, I was looking at the stem, knowing exactly what the answer should be, and clicking it in fifteen seconds. Literally, fifteen seconds. Because the passage was already, like, a- a three-dimensional map in my head.

Adrian Calloway

Right. Because the questions aren't testing your speed-search skills. They're testing your comprehension. And the tool I use to force this with my students is what I call... well, it's the "Sentence-by-Sentence Translation" drill. You treat every single sentence like a deposition. If you read sentence one, and you cannot immediately explain it to a, say, a ten-year-old, in plain, everyday English... you do not- you absolutely do not move on to sentence two.

Nora Ashford

It's so painful at first. You- you get to some insane sentence about, uh, science, like, "aztreonam-induced metallo-beta-lactamase production..." and your brain just... freezes.

Adrian Calloway

Right! And that is where most students get bogged down. They- they try to memorize the jargon. But here is the trick: de-emphasize the nouns and focus on the verbs. That's the secret. You don't need to know what "metallo-beta-lactamase" is. Call it... call it "Jargon X." If the sentence says "Jargon X blocks Jargon Y," that's it. That's your translation. The verb "blocks" is the actual logical relationship. The nouns are just window dressing.

Nora Ashford

Yes! I remember reading a passage about, um, volcanic ash, and instead of trying to pronounce these crazy mineral names, I literally just told myself, "Okay, gooey rock stuff makes the other rock stuff slide faster." That was it! And it worked perfectly.

Adrian Calloway

It's about reducing cognitive load. Which... actually, this brings us to something that's been driving me a bit crazy lately. You know, LSAC's Executive Vice President Susan L. Krinsky announced that the new LawHub interface would introduce a redesign featuring fully functional highlighting and underlining across the stimulus, question stems, and answer choices.

Nora Ashford

Right, the new 2026-2027 interface. Everyone's, like, celebrating this. "Oh, finally, we can highlight the answer choices and the stem!" But... you're not a fan?

Adrian Calloway

I think it is a cognitive trap. Highlighting is... it's a security blanket. It- it tricks your brain into thinking it has processed information just because you colored it yellow. You- you click and drag, and your brain goes, "Ah, okay, I've secured that fact, I can forget it now." It's passive.

Nora Ashford

Hmm. You know, I- I think you're right. When I used to highlight, my screen looked like a coloring book, but if you asked me what the paragraph was actually... like, what its point was? I had no clue. I just knew I highlighted some nouns.

Adrian Calloway

Exactly. So, what I challenge my students to do—especially now with these fancy new tools—is the "No-Notes, No-Highlights" challenge. When you're practicing on LawHub, ban yourself from using the highlighter. No pencil, no digital scratching, nothing. Force your brain to do the heavy lifting of holding that structure in your working memory.

Nora Ashford

That sounds... terr- terrifying. How do you- how do you track where you are without any of those crutches?

Adrian Calloway

By building what I call a Paragraph Function Map. Instead of tracking *what* the author is saying—which is what leads to highlighting all those messy nouns—you track *why* they are saying it. At the end of each paragraph, take five seconds. Just five seconds. And assign it a precise, action-verb function. Is this paragraph "introducing a claim"? Is it "undermining a counter-analogy"? Or is it, say, "conceding a loophole"?

Nora Ashford

Oh, I see. So, instead of highlighting "the sedimentary layer contains iridium," I just write in my head: "Paragraph two is the evidence for the impact theory."

Adrian Calloway

Boom! Yes! That's it. You're mapping the architecture of the argument, not the interior design. If you know the first paragraph is the "old theory," the second is the "new discovery," and the third is the "author's caveat"... you don't need highlights. You know exactly where to look when a question asks about a weakness in the author's view.

Nora Ashford

It's like... it's like learning to walk without training wheels. It's scary for the first ten minutes, but once you realize your brain can actually do this... you- you never want to go back to those digital crutches.

Adrian Calloway

Exactly. So, next time you're on LawHub, close the highlighter tool. Trust your brain. It's a lot stronger than a yellow digital marker.

Nora Ashford

Alright. Let's do it. Good chatting, Adrian.

Adrian Calloway

Talk soon, Nora.