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For RC masterminds, what is one tip you have for getting a perfect section?
Bamboosprout
Alum Member
It's hard for me to even understand how people get a perfect score for RC, because there are always answers that I can't get, even after BR and then, even after I watch JY's videos. I have never been able to get a perfect RC section, and recognize that it's my biggest weakness.
For people who can get close to 180 or people who get perfect RC sections, what is one thing you changed or developed that helped you get to where you are for RC sections? You insight would be much appreciated and invaluable. Thank you. 
Comments
I never went -0 in RC but I did go from -8 avg to -4 avg.
What helped me most was getting better at identifying the function of paragraphs (support, competing view, authors recommendation etc) and building brief (less than 10 words) paragraph summaries. If you do this well, there's no reason you can't score about -4 every time because it means you can distill the structure efficiently.
@Bamboosprout it sure is frustrating, is it not? I am averaging about -5 per RC section, with my best ever being -2, my worse was -8.
Now I sincerely regret not reading The Economist, or the New Yorker, or other heavy-duty magazines and journals in spare times when I was younger.
My friend who read these things for enjoyment over the course of years, is basically a reading comprehension savant. Thinks RC in this test is a joke.
I totally agree with @tekken1225 .
Although I’m by no means a RC mastermind and I’m still struggling with RC, I do see that the design of RC on this test rewards certain kind of ppl. Fo example, my SO is naturally a very intellectually curious person and has been reading, debating, researching materials or watching videos online for topics of a variety of disciplines- economics, philosophy , physics, religion, cosmology, politics etc. Whenever I encounter a LSAT passage that I thought was interesting and talk to him about it, he can give me a lecture on that topic goes far beyond the depth of that particular LSAT passage I was talking about (with the exception of art. That I know more than him lol). I believe this kind of ppl are (one kind of?) those who are able to grasp the passage in depth in 3 mins and be able to fly through the questions. (He never took the LSAT but took the GMAT years ago with minimum prep but scored 99 percentile on RC. He said that the passages he was given were something he was already very familiar with and some articles he even read them before).
To be a good lawyer, you need to be informed, intellectually curious, well versed in different disciplines , and the LSAT ( and not just the LSAT) rewards this kind of ppl—that’s the quality they want in a promising lawyer. Not someone who just jam the test all day and isolate from the world ( I used to be this type of person, but now trying to break off from it lol).
Yeah, you're not going to like my answer. I got -1 on my diagnostic and pretty much stayed in the range without much "studying." I never did the RC core curriculum. I did have a little inconsistency during PTs, and the only thing I really needed to do to fix that was internalize the pace I needed to work through a section (sometimes out of lack of discipline I was running out of time). I did find science passages relatively more challenging, so I tried to work through the easier (for me) passages faster.
My average for reading comp. is -1 to -3. Some sections I go -0 and some I go -4. I've always read a lot, and my strength on past standardized tests has been reading comprehension. While I agree that reading comp is the section of the LSAT where your innate aptitude is the most important, I think there are few concrete tips I can offer.
1) As an overarching strategy, I try to only read the actual passage in 2-3 minutes. From this, I think you should be aiming to gather a solid grasp of what the author is arguing and how they are making that argument.
And there are a lot of common structures the LSAT relies upon. Often, the first paragraph will be discussing two prevailing theories about something and then they'll introduce something new (whether that be a new thinker/scholar or a piece of evidence) which will represent a paradigm shift of sorts for a third way of thinking about something that will either marry or make irrelevant the two aforementioned theories. A more "straightforward" structure ("straightforward" meaning in the sense we were taught in middle school: a thesis supported by two paragraphs of support) is another one the LSAT relies upon frequently. I'm sure both you and I can think of more, and that would be a helpful exercise. Those were two right off the type of my head.
The challenge, of course, is discerning the opaque and unclear way these passages are written. I imagine it must be a particular ignominy for an author to find their passage in an LSAT, evidence of the bastardized Frankenstein of a 3 paragraph argument they've created. In passages where it is hard to find clearly the author's argument, a useful crutch can be to try to simplify as you read and keeping a sort of running thought of what the author is trying to argue.
The benefit of reading the passage solely for structure and argument is that it leads you with plenty of time to return to the passage when it asks you about specific words or sentences. Likewise, having a sense of its structure will allow you to return to specific parts quickly.
2) Read the questions carefully. I think your capacity to read carefully and accurately is tested in the actual questions far more than within the passage. Watch for places where the audience is expanded or narrowed too much (i.e. if the passage is talking entirely about indigenous Native American or Mexican communities, which it almost always is, and an answer choice says all communities or all North American communities), throw it out.
3) Throw answer choices out readily and quickly. If there is one word that seems wrong or makes you furrow your brow, cross it out and move it out. 99% of the time it's wrong.
4) If within the passage, there is any talk of one thing causing another or as X goes down, Y goes up, there is going to be a question about it. If you get confused about the trend, write it out. Be sure you are clear on what an inverse relationship is because that'll be an answer choice (i.e. the number of beers I drink tends to vary inversely with my LSAT score, but what can I say, I like beers and the point of this hearing is not about liking beers @brett kavanaugh).
I'm sure there are other things; forgive my Joycean stream of consciousness post here.
Something I read from a 180 scorer was that most RC questions feature 3 answer choices that are glaringly wrong. Not sure how much that will help you but it definitely made the questions less overwhelming for me. I now actively seek out the obviously wrong answer choices. I think an average passage will only have 1 or 2 questions that force you to decide between two really attractive answer choices. And for the questions that force you to go back to the passage, if you only took 2 mins to read the passage, then you'll have plenty of time to look for the answer.
Personally, I can't get a good grasp of the main point and argument structure in 2 minutes.
It it just me, or when you come down to 2 very attractive answer choices, you end up choosing the wrong one majority of the time? Murphy's law? Lol
I have been able to get down to -4 in RC and the only times I'm able to get -4 is when I invest the time to understand the passage (I take ~4 mins for me). Each and every time I rush through any passage (~2-3 mins for me), I miss questions and end up with something like -8 for the section.
RC seems like one of those sections where every person's strategy is bound to be a bit different since no one reads in the exact same way.
On a positive note, I think we're able to become more worldly just by reading the RC passages from the LSAT. Hahahaha
Well, that's just unfortunate for me.
Oh yes! This is a good reminder. I've stopped rephrasing paragraphs for a while now, and I've noticed that my comprehension has gotten worse, although I got faster. I need to hammer down the good habits.
Don't worry. There are definitely people like you who are savants at certain topics of the lsat, and it doesn't make sense to not be happy about it. I know a few classmates who never even studied for the lsat and got 170+. They also got 2300+ score on the SATs without studying for it. I'm use to it by now. Hahahahaha. Yeah... timing is a big issue for me, especially when I start zoning out and lose aggression. RC questions are the hardest for me to eliminate because of how much more subtle they are compared to LR questions.
I'm a slow reader and can rarely finish a passage in under 4 minutes. To make up for it, I limit myself to 30 seconds per question. I've never been able to read a passage in 2 minutes, even if I read it 2 or 3 times. My eyes and mind just can't seem to process the words that quickly. Do you have a trick for fast reading, one that isn't the speedreader thing?
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Yeah, this is where I focus most of my effort. I'm a hyper aggressive eliminator, and sometimes, I finish sections in under 20 minutes, but I still have the most difficulties in RC eliminations. They're just so much more subtle, and detailed in ways that are not logic, but based on memory. =(
This is such a great practical piece of advice. I've added it to my RC rules document. It's so true: sometimes when I see a confusing relationship, I think that I'll figure it out or the passage will explain it better later (JY often says this), and I move on without fully understanding it, but the problem for me is that I didn't give understanding it enough of a chance.
Lol it's so uncomfortable for me to see a man who is so familiar with the judicial system that he can manipulate the process so easily take full advantage of his knowledge in a setting where there is no recourse for such a demeanor. It's like watching an asshole driver cut someone off, or a literal man stealing candy from a baby. It just feels so wrong.
Thanks a bunch for sharing.
Lol, neither can I. I need 4 minutes per passage...
The advice about 3 easy answer choices is good in principle, but for me and probably a lot of you, it's always the last two that are the deal breaker. I already know and have studied the art of trap answers and speedy eliminations, but it's the last two, man. It's the old 80/20 rule. About 20% of the questions contain about 80% of the difficulty.
For me, I usually have at least 1 or 2 questions that force me to decide between attractive answers in every passage. And if I'm lucky, that gets me a -1/-2, but if I'm unlucky, I end up with a -5/-6. So the variance is huge on my RC. Any tips on deciding between attractive answers?
Lol, maybe you should just box in the one you didn't circle in the future?
Yeah. I'm going to take some time this week to slow down and do some drill. I'm going to review the memory method and build up a ruleset for when to be more explicit with my notes, and when to just make a few symbols.
Not just you - happens to me almost all the time. So frustrating! Haha
I think I have an idea, when you come down to 2, then pick 1, but instead of bubbling that one, bubble the other one. Haha.
I think it depends largely on what sort of reader you are. I didn't miss any RC on the September LSAT, and I make sure to take my time reading and understanding every word. I know that's contrary to a lot of the advice around here, but it works for me. I still go back to consult the passage during some questions, but most of the questions I can answer without going back to it. The key to this approach is being present and focused 100% of the time you are reading. I know that when I read casually, I often read whole paragraphs without being present, and consequently haven't really read it. Needless to say that's a no-can-do on the LSAT.
So, if you're like me and you don't like to unnaturally parse and chop up these passages (a method that makes me more stressed; "do I do that when I'm reading the New York Times? No. That must mean this is special. Uh oh. Perform, perform!") deliberately and continuously reading every word, pretending you're reading something for pleasure that you're genuinely curious about might work for you. Obviously you have to be a good reader who can stay focused (which you probably are) for this method to work, and you've got to cultivate that focused curiosity in everything you read, which should be a lot, and include poetry (explanation below).
Again, I realize this is contrary to the advice 7Sage typically offers, and if it doesn't sound helpful, ignore it. But I'll leave you with some lines from Robert Frost that I've always tried to keep in mind when both reading and writing.
"The best reader of all is one who will read, can read, no faster than he can hear the lines and sentences in his mind's ear as if aloud. Frequenting poetry has slowed him down by its metric or measured pace.
The eye reader is a barbarian. So also is the writer for the eye reader, who needn't care how badly he writes since he doesn't care how badly he is read."
That's savage. Hahahaha. I 100% agree with you. Need to focus, focus, focus!