Improving on political questions?

c_eaton6269

Hi there!

Looking for any and all suggestions on how to improve on political/ economics based questions in the Logical Reasoning section (for example, those that talk about government structure, public opinion of policy, legislation, etc). Admittedly (and with some shame), I do not follow politics very closely. I find when I am reading the stimulus that I am getting hung up on the language and spend too much time trying to decipher what it is saying (I don't seem to have this issue with many other questions), and in the end I find political questions to be a huge time sink for me as I try and decipher what they are saying, and then, subsequently, mull over the answer options.

I am planning to take the October LSAT and am currently PT'ing in my ideal minimum range. Currently, I consider most of these questions to be a write-off, however, I would like to get to the point where I am more comfortable with them (I typically score 85-88% in the LR section, though I get few politics-based questions correct).

What would you do given the time limitation? Drill political questions? Read certain articles/resources? Any and all help is appreciated! I don't plan on deferring my test date since I am already scoring in my target range, I am just hoping to boost my score if possible, or add a little padding room to account for nerves on test day (or the possibility that the test in Oct contains a larger number of these types of questions).

Pacifico

Honestly as long as you can understand most of the words then the topic should not matter. But if you're really psyching yourself out about the subject matter in this case then this is one of the few times I'd recommend reading The Economist or some CFR stuff. If you commute at all or work out, I think the best use of your time would just be audiobooks to passively learn some vocabulary and get a general understanding of the topic.

GSU Hopeful

I agree with @Pacifico. The knowledge and skills that you have learned in dealing with LR questions should transcend all topics. As long as you can accurately ID the conclusion and its support, you are on your way. If there is an argument present, that's the first and most important two steps. The topic shouldn't matter; the stimulus is just a bunch of words. You're still doing the same thing that you do on questions that you find easy. If you are subconsciously telling yourself you're bad at a certain topic, then you could be giving up on questions that are possibly easier than topics you feel more comfortable with.