You're Training Yourself To Miss Questions | Demon Daily, Ep. 1492

Main ideas / lessons conveyed

• Switching from untimed to timed LSAT practice can cause a sharp accuracy drop, especially if a student has trained themselves to work without considering time.
• The goal of timed sections is not to “rush,” but to practice ignoring the clock and becoming comfortable solving only a subset of questions accurately.
• Very low timed-section accuracy implies not just missed time but a lack of understanding.
  • The speakers use the Demon Understanding Heuristic (DUH): if you’re not getting above ~50% correct, you’re likely not understanding the material behind the questions.
• Untimed performance can be misleading.
  • Averaging “17–19 correct per untimed section” doesn’t necessarily mean strong understanding if the student still made many mistakes that could have been avoided with better skill targeting and review.
  • Many “correct” answers may have been lucky (e.g., narrowing to two choices and guessing right) rather than truly understood.
• Doing too many questions at too-high difficulty (e.g., hard level questions at the end of sections) reduces learning efficiency because the student spends large amounts of time without building the needed foundation.
• Drilling is presented as more effective because it matches your current skill level and forces deliberate review of mistakes.
• Recommended training adjustment: return to a foundation-building cycle (drill → review → timed attempt) where timed practice starts only after early questions can be answered correctly.

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Methodology / instructions given (detailed)

What the student should change (based on the speakers’ advice)

• Stop thinking of untimed sections as “progress” when accuracy is still low; untimed work can hide poor understanding.
• Use a drilling-first approach rather than pushing through full sections untimed.
• Use a structured cycle:
  • One day: untimed drilling with immediate review of mistakes.
  • Next day: attempt a timed section.
  • If needed: repeat the drill → review → timed cycle until the timed attempt is stable.

How to approach timed sections (for this specific student example)

• On timed practice, the student must be getting the first ~5 questions right.
• The speakers emphasize:
  • It’s better to spend the full 35 minutes just to get the first five right than to try to “build on” a weak foundation.
  • If early questions aren’t solved correctly, don’t move on to “building more” (i.e., don’t progress to larger/advanced timed goals yet).
• Treat it as rebuilding the foundation:
  • “Pour the foundation properly” by correcting underlying skill gaps before expanding performance.

Review process requirements (during drilling)

After drilling mistakes, the student should:

• Review thoroughly
• Read written explanations
• Watch video explanations
• Use the “ask” button if clarification is needed

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Key reasoning used in the discussion (examples / logic)

• Example contrast:
  • The student reached question 16 on a timed section and got 6 correct (out of 16).
  • The speakers argue this reflects very little understanding rather than merely a timing issue.
• Untimed accuracy reinterpretation:
  • If someone “gets 18/25 correct” on an untimed section, that corresponds to 7 mistakes.
  • The speakers argue there are likely additional questions where the student narrowed to two choices and got lucky, so the number of questions that were “not really understood” may exceed the number of missed questions.
  • Conclusion: many untimed “correct” answers may not represent mastery.
• Difficulty targeting:
  • The student allegedly spent too long doing and understanding harder (level 3/4) end-of-section questions, resulting in low effective learning.

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Speakers / sources featured

• Nathan Fox (co-founder of lsatdemon.com; hosts LSAT Demon Daily)
• Ben Olson (co-founder of lsatdemon.com; hosts Thinking LSAT)
• Reddit post / user: u/mb_nb (on r/lsatdemon)