Who else finds the difficulty of the RC passages to be pretty subjective?

JohnnyKarate

So for whatever reason I found that I struggled WAY more with the easy to moderately easy passages involving law/economics stuff than I did with the moderately difficult to difficult science passages. Is this just me? I mean I studied computer science in undergrad so maybe that's why?

Return On Inference

I tend to find 5-star passages harder than other passages, but there's definitely some subjective parts to it.

I personally hate art passages but love science/law ones

noncompoop-1

I am sort of the same way. Prior to my LSAT I was PT'ing about -6 on RC with me losing the most points on passages I didn't find particularly appealing. On test day, I found all but one of the passages fairly interesting and made an all time best of -3 on RC.

I do find that the RC Strategies covered in the CC and live sessions were really helpful in general though.

TexAgAaron

It definitely can be subjective. I'd rather go watch paint dry than read about art history, but I just have to fake interest. But there are plenty of hard passages I nail because the topic is a bit more interesting to me.

One thing I have been working on is seeing the "forest and not the trees." In other words, focusing on structure rather than the details which is what the LSAT tends to test us on. Focusing on the details I think can compound the issue of being bored with a topic; we simply just don't care enough. By just focusing on where the overall argument is going, it can minimize (not completely) the issue of being bored while reading. We're more concerned about what the author is communicating to us and not about some painter dude from 100+ years ago and what kind of brush stroke he likes to use.

When I started doing this, the passages that seem boring have decreased for me quite a bit and it is easier to fake interest.

NovLSAT2019

@akeegs92 said:
It definitely can be subjective. I'd rather go watch paint dry than read about art history, but I just have to fake interest. But there are plenty of hard passages I nail because the topic is a bit more interesting to me.

One thing I have been working on is seeing the "forest and not the trees." In other words, focusing on structure rather than the details which is what the LSAT tends to test us on. Focusing on the details I think can compound the issue of being bored with a topic; we simply just don't care enough. By just focusing on where the overall argument is going, it can minimize (not completely) the issue of being bored while reading. We're more concerned about what the author is communicating to us and not about some painter dude from 100+ years ago and what kind of brush stroke he likes to use.

When I started doing this, the passages that seem boring have decreased for me quite a bit and it is easier to fake interest.

I actually need help with seeing the "forest and not the trees". I think being trained in classical music perversely conditioned me to see the latter... Would you be willing to share some tips on this??

TexAgAaron

@BrianSeo Absolutely! Disclaimer: I'm no expert yet but I have seen gains for myself doing this, especially with regards to the questions. If anyone else has thoughts, please add away!

I guess for me, I'm a detail guy and I want to understand everything so I am properly prepared for the questions. This has lead me to struggle with RC because in essence I wanted to be prepared for anything and everything. But then they ask what role does mentioning author X play in paragraph 3, something I'm not prepared for or was even thinking about. Initially I thought I just wasn't reading the right details and I kept on with the same tactics.

Recently the past few months I changed approaches. My man @daniel.sieradzki helped me start to see this forest vs trees issue. The LSAT writers care about the reasoning structure more than anything and the questions reflect this. Are there detail questions? Yes, of course (MSS style along with inference questions) but a good portion of them will be highlighted where they are located (i.e. in lines 30-35 what do XYZ mean?). However, seeing the structure helps tremendously because it lends context to why certain details are mentioned.

This is where I am currently trying to break bad habits and build new, correct ones. I have to constantly ask myself what is the general point of a paragraph.

Let's use an example. Let's say there is a new theory in physics that blasts Einstein out of the water.

Paragraph 1: Introduces new theory- this could include what use to be the standard and what may replace it now.

Paragraph 2: Introduces new details of this brand new theory. Also could introduce outside support from critics or could also raise concerns with it.

Paragraph 3: Depending on previous paragraph could debunk the concerns by giving an example of the theory in action, raise concerns in the future, or just raise a new question in the world of physics if this new theory holds.

Forgive me if the example is not clear. When you're reading the passage (and especially when you finish, you need to ask "What was the main point? How does the author go about his argument?"

The main thing is you want to see how the paragraphs flow together along with the ideas/people relate. You would be shocked how clear some of the questions become once you focus on the structure. And if you know the structure, you have a better understanding why certain details are mentioned in certain paragraphs. Everything is there for a reason.

Last thing I will mention is the markings you make while reading. I simply notate next to each paragraph what that one is particularly about briefly (couple of words) so I can quickly reference where something most likely is. It also gives you a brief map of how the author goes about reasoning.

I recommend taking a couple of individual passages with questions and doing them untimed just to get the feel of it and go from there. I hope this helps! While I'm no wizard yet, I'm right in the same boat as you so I know the struggle. If there is something I missed, please ask!

Seeking Perfection

I thought that the difficulty for me was pretty unrelated to what others or the 7sage ratings thought.

For example, on my real LSAT in September I found the first passage hard and time consuming and didn't even remember the judicial candor section everyone used to identify the experimemtal section. I was kind of in a hurry by the time I got to it and didn't find any of the questions strikingly hard.

One thing I noticed sort of biases the 7sage ratings which I think are just how others do on the games when they enter them in was that they are ranked harder if they either deal with science or have big words. Since I am able for whatever reason to focus on science passages just as well as anything else and have read enough over the years that I never came across a word I didn't know in any of the reading comp sections I think it wasn't so much that these sections were hard as that insugficient vocabulary and practice paying attention to science were keeping people from paying attention and efficiently reading through the passage.

For you maybe the hard part to focus on is law and economics stuff. A lot of future lawyers probably are Econ, political science, or prelaw majors and a lot of the rest are probably avid newspaper readers or followers of politics so the average test taker probably does over perform on those sections. I probably didn't notice this because I fit that mold too.

So don't worry about hard and easy, just learn to pay attention to all the passages and efficiently read them through.

tringo335

Oh absolutely! I find the passages that relate to some sort of background I'm familiar much more simple than the others. I guess it helps to be well read

kwdardis

That is great advice @akeegs92 I find that as soon as I realize it is a science passage, my brain literally shuts off. I have tried to feign interest, but that method really hasn't had much impact. Knowing that I should focus on structure is much more motivating and do-able for me.

eRetaker

I had the same experience as everyone else here. As a STEM major, I found all science passages to be free points including water bugs, flowing glass, Maize, etc. However, art passages like the one about the Japanese sculptor Noguchi and Eileen Gray made me want to consider med school lol

Adam Hawks

I often find my problems with 5-star passages is retaining the amount of detail under timed constraints, putting those pieces of the puzzle together rapidly to attack the questions, and there are often 7 to 8 questions. For 5-star passages the difficulty lies also with those questions too. It is when I do the more difficult passages that I finally understood that my reading comprehension level is not sufficient for success.

I still love tackling the difficult passages, and this is a starkly different attitude that I had three months ago because I know that these difficult passages are essential to my success as a law student, however I still have a long way to go before I attain that higher level of mastery.