Defensive vs. Receptive Reading in RC

TinaTheLlama

After a bombed reading comprehension section on my last practice test, I'm doing some reading comprehension drills and trying to evaluate myself and my methods.

This evening I drilled from practice test 31. Not even half way through the third passage, I thought, "Who is this hoe?" (the author the passage was discussing). On the fourth passage, about philosophers advocating subjectivity or objectivity, I realized I was drawing on past philosophy courses and personal reading, comparing what I was reading to knowledge and beliefs I already had. I bombed the questions for this passage and in going through them, argued against the correct answers (angry at LSAT again). Again, each time I had to say, "Fine. I see where you're coming from."

Then I had something of a eureka moment: in general, I've been reading very defensively and evaluatively and thus closing my mind off to a set of interpretations of the core subject matter, any one of which LSAT can subtly amplify and design the questions around.

PowerScore said to read "aggressively" but I'm not sure that was the right word to use. I now think the right mindset might better be described as actively receptive.

Maybe in logical reasoning, the defensive/evaluative mindset is where you need to be, but in reading comprehension you have to relax a little and be more receptive.

Has anyone else had a similar experience or, at least, found they needed to consciously shift their mindset between section types?

FerdaFresh

This is a really interesting post. I too have a very different mindset when doing LR vs RC sections. I'm unfamiliar with PowerScore lingo, but it sounds similar to yours. For RC, I find myself a lot more relaxed (i.e. less critical) in my reading of the passage and very open to accepting a lower degree of "strength" for what constitutes a right answer choice. I've noticed substantial improvement to my RC scores, almost on par with LG improvement (I'm talking from like 6 to 12 wrong to about 2 to 4 wrong). I think it's an ironic skill to develop, learning to be "casual" during RC passages -- and a very useful one at that.

Also, for LR, there's generally a few questions where I pick an answer choice I like and move on without reading the rest, especially if it's a "hunt mode" question (and in the first half of the section). For RC, I hardly ever choose an answer choice without looking at all the other options. Anyway, whatever works for you! Glad to hear about your eureka moment!