Hey! Im taking the November LSAT, I feel good with LR but there's something about RC I can't seem to grasp. Ive tried everything, nothing has stuck. Any tips that helped change your perspective on RC approach.
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Hey! Im taking the November LSAT, I feel good with LR but there's something about RC I can't seem to grasp. Ive tried everything, nothing has stuck. Any tips that helped change your perspective on RC approach.
5 comments
im the opposite -- fairly good at RC but really shaky on LR. for RC, what really changed the game for me was just reading stuff. i randomly increased my book intake, so im now reading more (fiction) books in general and ive been able to have 1 the stamina for RC and 2 the ability to take away alot of info quicker. besides that, reading each sentence and reacting to it has helped a ton. i try to take it literally a sentence at a time and briefly identify what its saying and what it's doing. but, there are some passages i literally dont know what i read and the ctrl f function SAVED my life. literally nothing is NOT in the passage. once you ctrl f enough + learn to skim the few lines before and after the sentence w the word you found, you get a general sense of what that portion is saying and thats usually good enough to eliminate 2-3 ACs. for the last two, spend time picking apart the AC word by word (like in LR) and note the difference and then ctrl f for that! this has really helped me go from a -8 avg in RC to like a -1 to -4 now. also using the highlighting feature. ik people r usually on opp spectrums on this, but i really love it! i use yellow for main ideas, pink for author, green for specific people and i hate the blue so i leave that. this rlllyyy helped me for questions abt the authors tone bc i used to never understand those. looking for really small indicators + taking time to understand if a sentence is being said by the author or if the author attributes to someone else really helped me start nailing those. tldr; read more of anything!!
hope this helps (and if it does pls give tips on LR 🙏 bc i cant grasp for the life of me)
@helphelphelpme Thanks SO much for the advice, maybe I should use the ctrl f a little more, I found myself doing this before and thought I was wasting time. I highlight as well I think what I miss mainly are those underlying subtle assumptions. I think time is my main stressor and since I am so close to the exam, I've been trying to fix exactly that. As for LR the biggest difference I made was wiring my brain to stop word matching. I would understand questions and make correct predictions, and then let the answers take over and subconsciously word match. Since at this point I had the fundamentals down I knew I needed to change my approach to the questions, this meant being more confident in my predictions AND STOP WORD MATCHING. The LR FAST TRACK videos in the lesson library were amazing in helping me change my approach, I saw this biggest difference after rewiring how my brain approached each AC, because I would sometimes let the AC's sway my predictions. I also like to highlight in pink, any words in the AC's that make the answer wrong. When predicting find the weak points and recite what the answer choice has to do, and not waste time coming up with some alternate scenario that may not even be in the AC's bc the LSAT loves to be creative with their AC'S. And lastly ofc read the question first.
Please give me your LR tips. I’m also taking November and struggling with time management on LR.😍 For RC, have you tried low res summaries? I started doing those with untimed passages, physically writing out six words max about the details of each paragraph on the left and maybe three or four words about the structure of each paragraph on the right. I cannot do that on timed passages though, so I spend my time up front, highlighting important details and anything that shows the author’s opinion, thinking about structure after each paragraph. This has really helped me. Spending my time up front this way helps me get through the answer choices quickly. If you’ve tried that already and it hasn’t worked for you, I recently heard Eric suggest in a class, spending less time in the passage and more time on the questions so you can go back into the passage and check your answers. I still find myself sometimes having to look back in the passage, so maybe this will help if the former method doesn’t. Also, don’t be afraid to use the search bar!! I hope this helps some! I’m also taking November and am so scared. You’ve got this!!
@allisonlayne for me, identifying premise and conclusion first was so helpful in spotting the gap between the two, which allow you to address a variety of questions (flaw, strengthen, weaken, assumption, etc.) the biggest game changer for timing as pre-phrasing. Identifying the flaw, assumption, parallel pattern, etc. without looking at the AC’s helps you get the right answer quicker and not get distracted by trap answers. A couple of Bailey’s live classes really helped me master this! Best of luck!!
@Glitterunicorn thank you!! Definitely trying to get better at trusting my prephrases. Also, I love your pfp haha. Big Bob the minion fan 🙌🏻