Day 97 of 168 · Week 17
Day 97 / 168 Week 17 of 28 Phase 3: RC Deep Dive

RC Timing: Passage Order, the ~8:45 Budget & When to Move On

🕑 ~75 min · Archetype B — RC Deep Dive

RC Timing: Passage Order & the ~8:45 Budget

Formalizing what Day 84 estimated: a real per-passage time budget, and a strategy for which passage to tackle first when you have a choice.

1. The ~8:45 Budget

35 minutes across four sets is roughly 8:45 per set on average — but not every set needs equal time. Spend less on a passage that maps cleanly, bank the surplus for a denser one.

2. Passage Order Strategy

You can attempt passages in any order within the section. If a quick skim of all four flags one as unusually dense or unfamiliar, consider saving it for last so early momentum and confidence aren't lost on the hardest material first.

3. When to Move On

If a single question is eating more than roughly two minutes without progress, flag it and move to the next question — the same discipline from LR's hard-question strategy, applied to RC.

Practice items on this page are curriculum-authored in LSAT style; they are not official LSAC questions. Real drilling happens on LawHub — see the assignment below.

Q1. A quick skim shows Passage 3 is unusually dense and abstract. What's a reasonable strategy?

A. Always do passages in printed order regardless of content
B. Consider saving the dense passage for later in the section, after banking points on the more approachable ones
C. Skip it entirely
D. Spend unlimited time on it immediately
Correct answer: B. Building confidence and banking points on approachable passages first, then tackling the hardest one with remaining time, is a reasonable order strategy — though passage order is a personal-preference tool, not a rigid rule.

LawHub drill-tier RC section, timed, deliberately practicing the skim-then-order strategy.

Tomorrow: hard passages specifically — dense abstraction, unfamiliar vocabulary, and recovery technique.