Studying With Extra Time Accommodations | Demon Daily, Ep. 1495

Main ideas & lessons

• Accommodation (100% extra time) changes pacing, but not the underlying skill. The goal of LSAT/ELSAT prep is still the same: fully understand what you read and then answer questions based on that understanding. Extra time mainly means you must spend more time practicing those same skills.

• Reading difficulty often comes from not “thinking while reading,” not only from ADHD. The hosts argue that even without ADHD, many students:

  • read too passively,
  • don’t stop to process meaning at sentence/punctuation boundaries,
  • and lose earlier meaning because they never synthesize what they’re reading.

• A core reading strategy: stop at punctuation and build meaning incrementally.

  • Stop at every period and every comma
  • Think about how the current portion connects to the passage meaning you’ve built so far
  • Synthesize “core ideas” as you go (rather than only relating new text to the literal earlier words)
  • “Good readers” effectively assemble a puzzle progressively; that prevents losing the beginning.

• Logical reasoning vs reading comprehension confusion.

  • One caller claims they do better on logical reasoning because ADHD causes them to “lose the beginning.”
  • The hosts counter that long sentences on both sections require the same kind of processing pauses (often at internal structure), and that the real issue is engagement/synthesis, not solely ADHD.

• Using section practice scores to estimate full-test performance.

  • The caller avoided full practice tests due to time cost.
  • The hosts say doing multiple sections and combining results can still predict full-test outcomes:
    • You can merge 3–4 section results into an estimate of a full test score.
    • Section timing still predicts well.

• With double time, expect more work and possibly longer timelines.

  • If a student effectively covers half as much content per day, improvement may be about half as fast unless they compensate.
  • Two compensation options are discussed:
    • Increase daily study time
    • Study over more weeks/months
  • They suggest an approach like “optimal is probably half and half” (some increase in daily time and some longer duration).

• Practice full tests frequency.

  • For most students: no more than one full test per month.
  • For a double-time student: about one full test per month is still recommended, but it’s a larger time commitment:
    • the “test day,” and
    • the separate review day.

• Practical note about finishing early on official accommodations.

  • The hosts advise that even if extra time is granted, official test software likely won’t let you move on early / it isn’t designed for finishing early.
  • Therefore, students should practice under realistic accommodation timing and expectations.
  • There’s also a cautionary example: some people have found certain large accommodations (e.g., 70 minutes) hurt them and may wish they had requested less than double time; however, for this caller’s profile, double time seems necessary.

• Realistic expectation of finishing sections at current score level.

  • Based on the caller’s diagnostic (~146) and current score (~155), the hosts imply:
    • it’s unlikely they’ll finish sections even with double time,
    • and finishing is not the primary focus anyway.
  • They offer an approximate “path to the 150s”:
    • about 2 strong reading comprehension passages, and
    • about 15 logical reasoning questions correct.

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Methodology / instruction list (detailed)

Reading comprehension / reading skill routine

• At minimum, for each sentence:

  • Stop at every period
  • Stop at every comma

• At each stop:

  • Ask: What is this saying right now?
  • Connect it to the meaning you’ve already built earlier in the passage (the “puzzle pieces” approach).
  • Integrate the new information into your synthesized/core-idea framework, not only by matching the literal previous wording.

• Goal of the strategy:

  • Continuously build meaning “as you go,” so you don’t lose earlier parts of the passage.

Study planning with 100% extra time (double time)

• Accept the constraint:

  • Reading assignments take about twice as long, so you must spend more total time learning/processing.

• Choose one or both compensation strategies:

  • Increase study time per day, or
  • Increase the number of study weeks/months

• Practical scheduling guideline proposed by the hosts:

  • Keep a similar structure (mix of drilling + timed sections), but:
    • because a timed section already takes ~70 minutes, you must account for that plus review,
    • you can either:
      • do fewer sections per week but extend the timeline, or
      • do the same number of sections by increasing total weekly time.

• Full practice test recommendation:

  • Aim for ~one full practice test per month.
  • Plan review time as well (review effectively takes another half-day block similar to testing time).

• Section practice alternative for estimating performance:

  • If full tests are too time-consuming, do multiple individual sections and then combine results to estimate full-test performance.

Practice accommodations realistically

• Practice using your accommodation timing, because:

  • you may not be able to end early and automatically advance in the official software environment.

• Caution about accommodation size:

  • some students may find certain large accommodations counterproductive, so consider that if relevant (though the hosts think the caller’s double time seems justified by the reading time described).

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Speakers / sources featured

• Ben Olsson (co-founder of elsademon.com; host)
• Nathan Fox (co-founder of elsademon.com; host)
• Gigi / GG (the email writer/student asking for advice; implied speaker/source via the correspondence)