What makes RC so inconsistent?

Ohnoeshalpme

I see these posts a lot on 7sage about students who are unable to reign in their inconsistencies with RC. In my recent prep, I've noticed the same phenomenon. For a given section I might finish a 5/5 difficulty passage + questions in 8 minutes and miss only 1 question, but on another 3/5 difficulty passage in the same section it takes me 14 minutes and I miss -3/7. The answer to the inconsistency question here is probably "exposure" but are there any other methods or principles that you all have used that help you approach and tackle an RC section with consistency in mind?

Another thing that I've noticed is that there doesn't seem to be a difficulty gap between passages in RC, they all feel equally hard to me, regardless of difficulty rating - unlike LG where difficulty is highly predictive of performance.

Legally_Speaking

I've noticed that two things have consistently correlated with how well I do on any particular RC passage:
1) Whether I'm intuitively engaged with the topic being discussed (I historically perform better on non-science passages)
2) Whether it's an older or more recent passage. The frequency and kind of certain RC questions has definitely changed over time with passages from the 60's onward rewarding an ability to "read between the lines". Accordingly, inference and passage structure questions are far more frequent.
To answer your question, though, I definitely think exposure to lots of recent RC passages is key first and foremost. I've found that I've had to almost "rewire" how I read since my natural tendency is to read very quickly. Obviously, this only becomes compounded when I know I'm actually reading under timed pressure. Forcing myself to slow down has helped tremendously in developing an understanding of the underlying structure of the passage. Mike Kim's LSAT Trainer makes a great point in that, at least in the beginning of studying,people are typically fighting the constant urge to remember every little detail in the passage instead of simply the main point of each passage, how they relate to one another, the overall point, and the authors's tone. In a way, I would analogize this to taking the time upfront in LG to make as many inferences as possible though the comparison is admittedly a rough one. For what it's worth, however, I think RC passages can be foolproofed in their own way by taking the time to match each correct answer choice to the corresponding portion of the text.

Ohnoeshalpme

@"forest.dearing.2017" said:
I've noticed that two things have consistently correlated with how well I do on any particular RC passage:
1) Whether I'm intuitively engaged with the topic being discussed (I historically perform better on non-science passages)
2) Whether it's an older or more recent passage. The frequency and kind of certain RC questions has definitely changed over time with passages from the 60's onward rewarding an ability to "read between the lines". Accordingly, inference and passage structure questions are far more frequent.
To answer your question, though, I definitely think exposure to lots of recent RC passages is key first and foremost. I've found that I've had to almost "rewire" how I read since my natural tendency is to read very quickly. Obviously, this only becomes compounded when I know I'm actually reading under timed pressure. Forcing myself to slow down has helped tremendously in developing an understanding of the underlying structure of the passage. Mike Kim's LSAT Trainer makes a great point in that, at least in the beginning of studying,people are typically fighting the constant urge to remember every little detail in the passage instead of simply the main point of each passage, how they relate to one another, the overall point, and the authors's tone. In a way, I would analogize this to taking the time upfront in LG to make as many inferences as possible though the comparison is admittedly a rough one. For what it's worth, however, I think RC passages can be foolproofed in their own way by taking the time to match each correct answer choice to the corresponding portion of the text.

What did you do to drill RC if the 60's and onward are different than previous sections? I thought that drilling was supposed to come from 35 or older. Did you just get exposure from the 60's-80's practice tests and BR - or did you drill 1-35 and then alter your strategy slightly for newer PT's?

Legally_Speaking

I took a few PT's in the 60's and used those to blindreview RC. PT's 1-35 are very useful for LG foolproofing, but I've found them less helpful for RC in my own experience. Essentially, I'm leaving all PT's from the high 60's-80's for PT material. In other words, I'm trying to walk the line between burning valuable PT's and refining my technique on PT's that I feel more closely resemble the modern LSAT.

eRetaker

Yeah, I mentioned this previously as well. I think most people consider LG the easiest to improve because they spend the most time improving it. Consider this. How many people have you heard fool-proof RC? Also people can check J.Y.'s free LG videos online whereas the free explanations for RC are much more limited. Based on an online user's suggestion, I personally fool-proofed RC towards the end of my studies and started to see consistent (-0) to (-2)s, and that was with me only fool-proofing the RC from PT 60-78 while I fool-proofed LG from 1-83, A, B, C, C2, and F97. I believe that reaching consistent -0 on RC is possible if you fool-proof every passage in LSAT history.

Ohnoeshalpme

@eRetaker said:
Yeah, I mentioned this previously as well. I think most people consider LG the easiest to improve because they spend the most time improving it. Consider this. How many people have you heard fool-proof RC? Also people can check J.Y.'s free LG videos online whereas the free explanations for RC are much more limited. Based on an online user's suggestion, I personally fool-proofed RC towards the end of my studies and started to see consistent (-0) to (-2)s, and that was with me only fool-proofing the RC from PT 60-78 while I fool-proofed LG from 1-83, A, B, C, C2, and F97. I believe that reaching consistent -0 on RC is possible if you fool-proof every passage in LSAT history.

I think you can use this strategy for LR too. There's no doubt that the test is beatable in every category, it's more a matter of staying dedicated over a long period of time and being intentional about what you're studying.

Legally_Speaking

I completely agree. While the frequency of different LR question types can change, being able to quickly spot the gap in an argument, parse language, quickly understand referential phrases, ect. are all skills that make any question manageable. For me, the challenge now is banking enough time on easier questions and knowing when to skip and return later.

eRetaker

Yep, I legitimately believe if people spent half as much time on RC and LR as they do on LG, the section score distributions would be very very different for most test takers. Also consider that getting LG down to (-0) is easier because there are only 23 questions versus 27 for RC.

ebalde1234

@eRetaker said:
Yep, I legitimately believe if people spent half as much time on RC and LR as they do on LG, the section score distributions would be very very different for most test takers. Also consider that getting LG down to (-0) is easier because there are only 23 questions versus 27 for RC.

I Think the reason this happens is because the rc baseline is more intuitive and can depend on someone’s active reading strategies. Plus as noted above rc inconsistency depends on passage type and question type. Rc has also been changing slightly from what I’m seeing / hearing .

ebalde1234

Should we rule out pts 50 and below for rc ?

Ohnoeshalpme

@ebalde1234 said:
Should we rule out pts 50 and below for rc ?

I have this same question - for any RC experts out there

I can't imagine that PTs 1-50 aren't useful, however. They are fundamentally similar to the new stuff, even if they are a bit easier and have different question focus.

eRetaker

Yeah, I'm glad you guys mentioned that. So I've taken every PT at least once and BR'ed each at least once. I once counted the question types to find out why I thought the RC in the 50s and 70s were so much tougher, and I found that the proportion of Most Strongly Supported and LR-type RC questions were more frequent in those PTs. The older RCs will definitely improve your ability to answer MP questions or MBT RC questions, but less helpful for training MSS RC questions.

ebalde1234

@eRetaker said:
Yeah, I'm glad you guys mentioned that. So I've taken every PT at least once and BR'ed each at least once. I once counted the question types to find out why I thought the RC in the 50s and 70s were so much tougher, and I found that the proportion of Most Strongly Supported and LR-type RC questions were more frequent in those PTs. The older RCs will definitely improve your ability to answer MP questions or MBT RC questions, but less helpful for training MSS RC questions.

Good point. My initial assumption was that each passage section asked a certain amount of each type . Do you know what pts drill inference type of questions? Those are my weakest points - just took a quick glance looks like newer 70s 80s have this ... correct me if I’m wrong.

eRetaker

@ebalde1234 , I would just fool-proof 60-80. Take them as part of a normal set of PTs with LG and LR and BR them. Then, in a couple weeks redo them as single sections.