I really need help. RC is absolutely killing my score, and I'm honestly so frustrated and disappointed. I feel like I just don't understand Reading Comprehension at all, no matter how much I practice.
What tips or strategies helped you improve your RC? I'd really appreciate any advice you can share.
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my score on RC improved when I started doing untimed drills, reading the questions before the passage, drilling 1-2 passages of just the hardest levels, and using a color-coded highlighting strategy. I basically highlight facts/support in yellow, anything mentioned from the questions in green, and anything revealing author attitude in blue. this helps me find what I need to answer the questions, and it also helps me consider the intention behind the writing while I read. so for example, I just did an RC passage where the questions asked about "Draft Articles," so whenever I saw that in the passage, I highlighted it in green. Then, if I see a word that is particularly emotive or expresses an opinion, like "unfounded" or "shocking" or "incredible" or whatever, I highlight it in blue because it helps me keep track of the author's point of view. but truthfully the biggest improvement came from focusing on untimed drills to really nail the fundamentals without time pressure. speed came later.
I struggled with RC for a long time, and a lot of the common advice that I was given never really worked for me, especially "low resolution summary" because I would find that my summary was actually either completely wrong or that I had missed important details and focused on stuff that didn't matter. I was told not to get into the habit of highlighting when I first started because it "wastes time", but I recently started highlighting while reading the passages and it has helped me a ton by forcing me to look for important information and focus better on the reading. I tried the method of highlighting the authors attitude/main point/ etc. in different colors and I do feel like THAT is kind of a time sink, but just going through with one color while reading and just highlighting specific words that you feel are important to the passage doesn't take much extra time and I find that it helps sustain my focus more than just going through and reading it passively (I would waste so much time losing my place and skimming over sentences that are probably important and by the time I got to the questions I would realize I had a very poor understanding of the passage). I find that it is like a return on investment when you spend some extra time fully grasping the passages because you can answer the questions quicker + with more confidence. At first it is kind of hard to decide what is important enough to highlight because it all seems important, but with a lot of practice/ taking a lot of sections it becomes pretty easy to figure out what is important/worth highlighting and what is not, and developing the skill of discerning important information in the passage actually helps a ton.
If you want to try this out, here are some things I have learned through trial and error about what to highlight and what not to highlight:
Do highlight:
words that indicate author's attitude or a certain person/group's attitude toward something (ex. if author refers to a phenomenon as "unfortunate", highlight "unfortunate", if a scientist being discussed in a passage refers to a new technology as "groundbreaking", highlight "groundbreaking")
differing positions/different groups (ex. "critics argue ____", proponents argue ____", "historians do ___ but scientists do ____"), you really only need to highlight "critics", "proponents", "scientists," or "historians" just to differentiate them, if there's a question about either's stance you can come back to the passage. I had a lot of trouble differentiating different groups that do different things and I wouldn't catch the difference when passively reading, highlighting the different groups has helped a lot.
main point (ex. "We should do ___" or "This is ___ because ____")
Do NOT highlight:
Examples, only highlight what the examples seek to prove. If you have an understanding of what the example seeks to prove then you can easily refer to the passage to find the stated example.
Entire sentences, stick to words and short phrases. Highlighting entire sentences make it difficult to discern what is actually important within the sentence (you can/should highlight multiple separate words in one sentence if they are important to the understanding of it), and highlighting entire sentences makes it tempting to highlight the entire passage, then this strategy loses its purpose. Sticking to words/ short phrases trains your brain into determining what is actually important.
This is just a brief explanation but feel free to message me for more details if you need more info, I am happy to help!
I am having the same difficulty, but have been making some incremental improvements. I think it is really something that will come through continued practice and purposeful drilling. Additionally I have been reading more recreationally to strengthen my RC, but approaching it with the same purposeful dissecting as an RC passage. I highly recommend Thomas Sowell, his writing has been used in the LSAT and is very clear non-fiction with the format of arguments through premise -> conclusion.
I have noticed improvements by going at it with training wheels for now. I have been deliberately taking the time on the front (reading the passage) to save time on the backend (answering questions).
While typically it is suggested to be reading the passage in about 3.5m, putting in more time up front can not only help answering the questions clearer but also easier as well.
Here is what has been starting to work for me.
1) Low Res Summary: Focus on a Low Resolution Summary
When attempting a passage try the low res summary. After each paragraph look away and try to recall the purpose and main point of the paragraph, I try this even when reading recreationally now. It actually feels like I read slower than before, I will backtrack mid sentence to earlier in the paragraph to make connections and make sure I am correctly identifying and labeling the main ideas. Stimulus Xray is really fun if you need to work on this: Stimulus X-Ray — Free LSAT Argument Structure Game | 7Sage
You will need pen & paper. Read the paragraph, and jot down the briefest note you, and move on. At first my notes were long, and when I would go back I couldn't recall what it was reference to. With time they have gotten shorter, been more useful, and I am able to use that trigger to recall easier.
Focus on a Low Resolution Summary
2) 2m bail-out rule: It appears that you are running out of time in RC. The RC sections have more errors towards the end. What can happen is a high difficulty question can sap our time which then compounds. As we move on we notice less time, panic sets in, pacing is thrown off, and suddenly we are reacts desperately, no longer in control.
We can skip question in RC. I used to think you wouldn't want to leave a passage unfinished, and that it would be unproductive to return to, but that break in the action is said to be beneficial sometimes. We don't lose all memory of what we had just read. When returning to the question you can have a new perspective, or maybe recognize it is just junk we can't look at. Even then, that is a win!- we saved a bunch of time and avoided an evil LSAT trap trying to suck us of our vital intellect and life force?
3) PoE is necessary
Throughout LR we are told to answer with confidence, and try to save time. Anticipate, etc.
Those rules don't carry over into RC. I was making some mistakes from not doing PoE. It is said that PoE is necessary for most RC.
Here is another takeaway I heard from high scorers. They weren't even able to complete the full RC section until just before the exam date. That up until not long before the exam date they were running out of time in RC prep.
It is important to do things correctly, as we can see by the data speeding up does not help, especially when it produces X wrong X answers. We would be better trained to take our time and make sure the task is first being done correct, before being done fast.
Attempt some untimed RC where you put into practice the tools shared in the curriculum. That way you can see what works for you.
I would be very careful about attempting to make any drastic changes soon before an exam. Experimenting on test day could cause a section collapse. Try to keep a balance going into exam, and do a pre-exam week prep to protect your knowledge and psyche.