Timed practice answers a blunt question: can you make decisions under pressure with acceptable accuracy? It exposes skipping, rereading loops, and the habit of “saving” hard questions for a mythical later pass that never gets calmer.
Untimed practice answers a different question: can you explain each answer choice’s role in the argument? It is where you build the language you will eventually use in thirty seconds on test day. If you skip untimed work, timed practice becomes a lottery.
A practical compromise is to keep timed pieces small enough that you can review them the same day. If review slides to “later this week,” you are effectively practicing mistakes without installing corrections.
Use timed sets when you need honesty about pace. Use untimed sets when your error log shows repeated misreads or unfamiliar structures. Swap the emphasis every week based on what your log says—not based on how motivated you feel.