Advice on how to parse a difficult LR passage

mikeelliott

Hi there,

Does anyone have any tips on how to answer an LR question that has a passage that you simply can't understand? This happens infrequently, but it is quite troubling for me when it does happen. When this happens, I will know how to attack the question (according to the question stem) using the strategies learned from the 7sage CC, but if I don't understand what the argument is, I obviously will be unable to use this strategy properly.

Should I just guess on these questions and move on?

Thanks,

Michael Elliott

Habeas Porpoise

Yeah, I get this, too. Sometimes a stimulus just make me think the author had a bad case of word vomit.

During a timed PT, I would circle it an come back at the end. You might find that, having mostly finished the section, you can concentrate on the question better since you're probably less stressed (if you're anything like me). This might solve half the problem.

If I do come back and find that I'm still struggling to understand what on earth I'm reading, I try and simplify the stimulus by cutting out the details, parsing what's left (the bare bones argument), and then filling the details back in one by one.

For example (taken and modified from the CC):

"Candidates who vastly outspend all rivals have an unfair advantage in publicizing their platforms, and such candidates further legitimize..."

I focus on the words that create the foundation:

"Candidates [...] have an unfair advantage [...] and [such] candidates further legitimize..."

Okay, so the candidates being described have an unfair advantage and this legitimizes something.

Then I fill in details, making sure I understand everything before adding more details back in:
What candidates? - Those who outspend all rivals.
An unfair advantage in what? - Publicizing their platforms.
"Such" candidates? - The one who outspend all rivals and thus have an unfair advantage in publicizing their platforms.

After doing this with the argument, make sure to mark out/clearly delineate the context/OPA(s) (if any), premises, and conclusion. I draw horizontal lines really quickly on the size of the paragraph.

I realize that this is pretty elementary (beginning of the CC, anyone?), and in practice may be harder to implement because the subject matter is likely more abstract and convoluted, but the method is largely the same. Try and separate ideas, make sentences simpler and more direct (i.e. figure out what each referential phrase is pointing to, whether one sentence defines a word in another), and connect the ideas together again (synthesize).

It might also seem to take a lot of time, but doesn't -- at least not as much as if you were to keep re-reading the stimulus and hoping to grasp something. Again, as you already mention, not understanding the stimulus is an infrequent issue, so you would only have to do this for a rare question every so often.

Hope this is even a little helpful!

twssmith

When taking a timed PT, the second you recognize that you do not understand the LR stimulus/passage, skip it and don't waste your time when you can answer other questions accurately.

Couple of things to consider...
- Keep track of the specific LR questions, do a thorough Blind Review of them, watch JY's videos for clarification and reach out to the community if still struggling.
- Work on skipping strategies to have extra time when you finish the section to return to curve breaker questions. Sometimes just skipping the question and returning at the end of the section has been incredibly helpful for many people to answer tough questions.

7Sage has many webinars that have been incredibly helpful if you haven't checked them out: https://7sage.com/webinar/

twssmith

@"Habeas Porpoise"
"Yeah, I get this, too. Sometimes a stimulus just make me think the author had a bad case of word vomit."

Me too!!

Alex

@mikeelliott said:
Hi there,

Does anyone have any tips on how to answer an LR question that has a passage that you simply can't understand? This happens infrequently, but it is quite troubling for me when it does happen. When this happens, I will know how to attack the question (according to the question stem) using the strategies learned from the 7sage CC, but if I don't understand what the argument is, I obviously will be unable to use this strategy properly.

Should I just guess on these questions and move on?

Thanks,

Michael Elliott

Skipping is certainly an effective strategy when you just can't understand what an argument is saying. One way to set yourself up to better understand the stims is to always zero in on the argument core. Find the conclusion first and then the support for the conclusion. I find that doing it the other way around can lead to more to confusion. If you cannot locate the conclusion and find the support, then it is probably best to distance yourself from the question and come back later. As @twssmith says, "don't waste your time when you can answer other questions accurately." This is very, very true!