Hi all, I finished the LR curriculum at the start of summer, and I am now nearing the end of studying 7Sage's RC curriculum. In anticipation of this, I cannot help but to begin brainstorming the direction that my studies should take next. I do not take the LSAT until August 2027, so I have ample time; however, my issue here seems to be a lack of direction on what to do after I am done studying both the LR & RC sections on 7Sage. I believe 7Sage had a little breakdown section on what to do next after RC, which included a breakdown of the wrong answer journal and other techniques, but I cannot seem to find them on 7Sage anymore, so now I'm highly confused about what to do.
I have a steady plan for LR, where I plan to start by taking only one LR section a day, and then reviewing every single question I get right or wrong, plus noting my reasoning behind them(aka Wrong Answer Journal). This is to help me build extreme accuracy before I begin to increase the sections per day for endurance and then, lastly, introduce time constraints. I believe I could be approved for accommodations, but I am studying like I have none until it is solidified.
The RC section, on the other hand, I find quite intimidating; it wasn't as straightforward for me to study. While I was going through the curriculum, at the end of each lesson (e.g critique & debate), I was unsure of whether to keep drilling the passage styles till I saw an improvement in accuracy, or just be okay with simply understanding the thought process to have whilst reading the passage, knowing what each question type is actually asking and how to do a low-res sum.
To cut to the chase, once I am done with the RC section, do I simply keep drilling passage styles at different levels till I notice a trend in high accuracy, or do I just follow something similar to my LR tactic by taking just one RC section a week in this case and focusing heavily on review? idk i'm overwhelmed with confusion here. PLEASE help a girl out.
1 comments
Hi there! Since you have a lot of time to study, you can afford to target very specific areas to study until you feel comfortable with them. I will say I really recommend against taking a full LR section each day. LR sections should act as a test of knowledge you have been working on and strategies you've been practicing, so they should not be your primary form of study. Instead, try targeted drills! That means you pick a question type, strategy, process, type of reasoning, or other goal to work on and drill only that. For instance, you might do a targeted drill aimed at reading carefully, or work on Weaken questions, or CondR questions (don't do all at once, pick one per drill!). Review and use a wrong answer journal, and reflect on how that specific goal went after the drill. This will take more time per question (since you're going to do a pretty in-depth review), but I've found that targeted drilling really helps students improve in areas they need most.
To be honest, especially if you're feeling pretty good about the core curriculum, a full LR section every day won't do that much for you. Most of it won't be something you need to practice, and it's really hard to get better at particular question types, reasoning types, and strategies if you're always practicing them mixed in together. So try for targeted drills as a primary study strategy, and only use LR sections when you feel like you've improved in a few goal areas or have something new to bring to the section. Same goes for PTs! This is also to make sure you don't run out of sections, PTs, and questions super soon. There are fewer LR sections than you'd think, and it's important to make the best use you can from each question!
For RC, I actually recommend almost the exact same thing! Try targeted drills, both timed and untimed (same as LR) where you pick a goal. Maybe it's identifying the author's POV and other POVs, maybe it's justifying your answers clearly, maybe it's reading carefully, or maybe it's a passage subject or type! Start with lower difficulty questions/passages and work your way up as you feel good about your goal, drilling only 1-2 passages at a time. Review and use a wrong answer journal, and make sure you really understand why each answer is right/wrong. The biggest thing to NOT do is drill again and again until you see improvement, without any reflection or clear goal. That's not going to work out well for RC or LR (same with doing sections again and again until you see improvement). So make sure you focus on targeted drills with clear, specific goals, and review and reflect as you go! Hopefully that helps!