Advice for isolating RC

lady macbeth

Like many, I hate RC. It's my worst section. I was wondering if any of you have any advice on how to isolate and focus on RC studying between weekly preptests? For LG, I fool proof past games and for LR, I just review old questions and target problem areas/question types. These two methods seem to be working well for me as I've made considerable progress.

However, besides using the memory method, I have no idea how to begin isolating RC practice. Feigning interest in the passage topic somewhat helps a little bit but it's not enough for me to really speed up my reading and increasing my accuracy when it comes to tackling the questions. Currently I'm more so worried about accuracy and confidence during RC practice rather than speed.

Any pieces of advice are welcome! Xx

kimpg_66

I just did a bunch of passages. I started out doing untimed; maybe just one or two a day, taking as long as I need to match every answer to the text. Once I felt comfortable, I started timing myself. I also don't like RC, but I just had to force myself to get in front of a lot of passages.

I also took two lit courses, in addition to two theory courses, this semester which I think actually helped improve my retention

Alex

@"lady macbeth" said:
Like many, I hate RC. It's my worst section. I was wondering if any of you have any advice on how to isolate and focus on RC studying between weekly preptests? For LG, I fool proof past games and for LR, I just review old questions and target problem areas/question types. These two methods seem to be working well for me as I've made considerable progress.

However, besides using the memory method, I have no idea how to begin isolating RC practice. Feigning interest in the passage topic somewhat helps a little bit but it's not enough for me to really speed up my reading and increasing my accuracy when it comes to tackling the questions. Currently I'm more so worried about accuracy and confidence during RC practice rather than speed.

Any pieces of advice are welcome! Xx

Definitely agree with @kimmy_m66 on beginning with a bit of untimed work. I know that certainly helped me get my bearings when I was starting off. I also "fool proofed" RC by doing a good amount of passages. 1-2 a day like Kimmy says is plenty if you take your time reviewing them.

The memory method is great but have you seen the new lessons on low-high res summary? I think it's helpful to incorporate those strategies into your RC drilling. If not, check it out, it's a simple method that makes a big difference in how we think about RC.

Lastly, I would just write out my own explanations for each passage I did. After a while, my mind would naturally start doing it while I was reading passages timed.

Most of all, I truly believe that RC isn't necessarily the hardest section to improve on or anything like that. I really believe that it's mostly hard because we often don't drill it or put the same amount of time in it as we do to improve in LR and LG. Partly (and, understandably) because everyone hates it, haha. Just keep practicing and you'll get there

Oldest_Trick_Inda_book

I started using what I like to call "G-PIMP" (mostly because it's fun to say) a method in which I go through each paragraph of a passage, like so:

• 1st read—thorough read (vocalization) and identify what it is doing in General (i.e., background info or context, introducing a viewpoint, introducing a traditional and new viewpoint)

• 2nd read—quick read (little to no vocalization) and identify players (those holding a view point) AND identify indications (NOTE: this is subtle stuff—could be anything from a term or idea that is repeated, to the author indicating how she feels about a view/issue with a word or sentence)

• 3rd read—lightning speed read (really more of a recap) and identify the main point of the paragraph.

Just to be clear, if there are 3 paragraphs, this is what I would do:
-- P1 (1st read, 2nd read, 3rd read)
-- P2 (1st read, 2nd read, 3rd read)
-- P3 (1st read, 2nd read, 3rd read)

After that I review the main points of each paragraph and get a Main Point pre-phrase.

Ohh and full disclosure, I went from scoring -10 to a -5 average in RC (not amazing, but I did see an improvement)

seharris14

I would look up challenging articles on Scientific American, the Economist, and others and then meticulously read over them without the titles. I would highlight words and paragraphs, information I thought might be asked about if it were on the exam, and I tried to figure out the main point and what the title might be. I did this untimed and found it very helpful because intimidation was a big challenge for me when approaching RC, and getting up close and personal with pieces on gene mutations, black holes, recent developments in medical research and the science behind telescopes helped me a lot with my confidence (science passages were the worst for me). Plus, the LSAT includes difficult passages but offers context with difficult terms and questions that are based on the text alone. Meanwhile, I feel that these tough articles tend to assume the reader already knows something about the subject matter and sometimes uses jargon very difficult for me to grasp when depending entirely on context. In this way, when I moved back to reading and practicing actual RC passages, they didn't seem as scary and difficult as they once had.

Habeas Porpoise

You can drill RC!

I think it's a misconception that RC can't be practiced. @AllezAllez21 talks about this in his AMA, and I adapted something similar to what he does for my own practice.

Start with an RC section you've already done, and go passage by passage doing the following:

PTXX, Passage 1
Paragraph 1
(Semi-)high-resolution: 1-2 sentence summary of the paragraph.
- EX: Social scientists say that technology, while negatively impacting face-to-face communication, has improved interactions between individuals across widespread geographic regions.

Structural summary (i.e. low-resolution): 1 sentence generic summary of the paragraph.
- EX: Introduces a POV on negative and positive impacts of an issue.

Key words: Any words that indicate change in focus ("consequently", "however", "nonetheless", etc.), the author's tone ("disappointingly", "ignorantly", "as expected", "unsurprisingly", etc.), perspective ("some say", "critics", "viewpoint"...).

Repeat this for every paragraph in the passage.

At the end, address these three things for the whole passage:

Main Point
- EX: While social scientists are not wrong, it is incorrect to say that internet-based communication can adequately replace the benefits of face-to-face interaction.
Author's Purpose
- EX: To contest a POV on an issue
Author's Tone
- EX: persuasive, informative, imploring

I usually do 1-2 passages a day like this.
You won't have time to write any of this down during a PT, but you'll be able to outline in your head/recognize it while reading. It's helped me read for structure and not get caught up in the details or bogged down by a lack of understanding. Also makes it a breeze to answer main point and infer author's ______ questions.

Positive

@"Habeas Porpoise" Thank you for this RC review template! very helpful : )

Habeas Porpoise

@"Kings Never Die" said:
@"Habeas Porpoise" Thank you for this RC review template! very helpful : )

No problem! I'm glad it helps!