Self-paced
Basically, I have used all of the RC material that's available for drills and sections. That wouldn't bother me at all if I knew for a fact that I can still improve regardless of whether I've seen the passages before or not. However, I don't really know how to feel about it. For example, I just finished a section and got the best score I've ever gotten, but I don't know if it's because I had read those passages before or because RC finally clicked for me. I will admit that I don't really remember any of the answers to the questions that were being asked, so I felt as if I was answering them myself, but at the same time I did have a tiny little notion of what the passages were about, and I felt like going through them was a lot easier because I had already read the passages before...
So, because I've never gotten a score higher than 161, I was wondering if some other people experienced this issue before and if that fact stopped them from progressing or if they were able to get better despite it. And if so, then do you mind sharing some tips? For example, now that I have read some of these passages, what should I focus on? What can I do in order to make sure that I am still improving? How can I feel confident that whatever result I get is mine alone and not just previous knowledge? Any information would be super useful.
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5 comments
Hello,
It is completely normal to feel unsure about your score on a repeated section, but remember that even if your familiarity with the topic made the read a bit easier, you still had to correctly execute the logic to get the answers right.
In my case, I actually found reviewing already-seen RC passages to be incredibly beneficial. I went through every single RC passage at least three times before my final exam. Here is how you can ensure you are still progressing with reused material:
Notice repeating mistakes: The questions you get wrong twice or more are gold. They indicate a persistent flaw in your method or logic that you need to fundamentally change.
Space out your retakes: As others have said, focus on the passages you haven't touched in the longest amount of time to minimize your memory. You can also dip into much older PTs for extra practice.
Focus on structure: Since you already have a vague idea of the content, use these passages to strictly practice your structural reading. Read a paragraph, quickly recall the key info, and identify its purpose (Is it introducing the main point? Is it outlining a critic's perspective?).
Read outside material: As Altan suggested, you can practice your structural reading on dense articles from places like The Economist. Try to identify the purpose of each paragraph, the overall structure, and the main point.
I hope this helps!
I have found that sometimes reusing passages helped improve my ability to pick out the relevant information from the passage. Having that subconscious feeling of what is or might be in the questions actually started to translate to new passages as well. Being able to identify and jot down the important information is a huge time saver and greatly improves accuracy too!
You could also treat other texts like a passage. Scientific American and The Economist are similarly situated sources that can improve your RC without the questions attached to them. As long as you pick out the main points well, the correct answers will follow.
I had this issue too and did all of the very old material (which honestly I think is really helpful because it's pretty tough) and then have been doing as Marcus also commented and just going by what I did least recently. You can't filter by that but I filter by recent and then scroll all the way down, lol
good luck!
You can use the older PrepTest (7-23) reading comprehension material. The questions and the content are largely equivalent to what you’ll see on the LSAT aside from there being no comparative passages.
rotate them back around in the original order you took them so you see your oldest RC first for the second pass. you won't remember - if you somehow do, then you should get perfect on them all. if you don't, then they're good to reuse