Self-study
Hi all! I hope everyone is having a fabulous time studying. I know I am.
I've been studying for the June test and plan to take it this weekend. I have improved dramatically in LR and am projecting my goal score when taking LR sections but still find myself stuck with lower RC performance pretty consistently around ~-9/-11. LR is typically -2/-5. Does anyone have any tips for scoring more consistently on RC? I feel like I am understanding the passages but sometimes feel that none of the answers really fit so I am stuck choosing the least problematic one and end up being wrong. I've been outlining the passages and translating them as I go which has been helping but not totally effective. It's also not a timing issue so any advice from high RC scorers would be greatly appreciated.
Good luck to all who are testing this week!
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6 comments
"none of the answers really fit so I am stuck choosing the least problematic one and end up being wrong" -- something that is helping me is reframing how i approach the ACs. Instead of picking the one that seems less problematic/more "right", I try to instead eliminate the one that feels MORE wrong. Something to consider!
One thing that I noticed from your post is that you might be focusing too heavily on understanding individual paragraphs and translating micro-sections as you go. That's definitely useful, but in my experience the bigger objective in RC is usually understanding the passage-wide structure.
By the time you finish reading, you want a clear sense of:
Where is the author's thesis sentence?
What are the general reasons the author uses to support the thesis?
What is the overall passage structure (paragraph by paragraph) as seen through that thesis/general supporting reason lens?
IMO, RC targets big-picture structural understanding more than detailed paragraph-by-paragraph comprehension.
I also notices that you mentioned the answer choices sometimes feel like none of them really fit. A lot of high-level RC improvement comes from learning to recognize a thought match through a wall of non-matching words.
The LSAT writers are exceptionally good at disguising correct answers by changing the wording, increasing the level of generality, or expressing the same idea from a different angle. Sometimes the correct answer can feel almost off-topic because it's stated much more broadly than the specific discussion in the passage.
Meanwhile, the attractive wrong answers often feel familiar because they reuse the passage's language. Correct answers often match the passage's ideas without matching the words. Wrong answers often match the passage's words without matching the ideas.
I'd spend less energy asking "Do these match what we are talking about?" and more energy asking "Does this answer express the same underlying idea as what the question requires?"
If you're already at roughly -2/-5 in LR and -9/-11 in RC, you're probably past the point where more effort is the answer. The next gains are likely to come from refining what you're reading for and how you're evaluating answer choices rather than simply reading more carefully.
I hope that helps!
@SCOTT_LEBO thanks so much yeah that makes a lot of sense! I have noticed my answer choices tend to be too tonal which I know is usually not the way to go. So, you'd recommend choosing more general answers as a baseline rule of thumb? Are there any other general tips you'd recommend? just like to have in the back of my mind when approaching answers. Kind of looking for somewhat of a formula if you think there is one, but I know that's kind of a slippery slope.
@mkos99
"Kind of looking for somewhat of a formula if you think there is one, but I know that's kind of a slippery slope."
Right, so this is the key. The formula (unfortunately) means being aware of the very broad spectrum of 'answer types' and letting the answer choices speak to you, remind you that the answer type you might be looking for at the moment is not one of your options in this paerticular question. That's how to stay properly aligned with what is needed question to question.
@SCOTT_LEBO thanks! very helpful. Going to try to study the types more this week and hopefully thatll help!
@mkos99 Best of luck!!