Reading Comp

June LSAT Retake

What has been your most useful, in summary, tactic in improving your points in RC? I seem to be doing the standard "summarize each paragraph" as I go but maybe it is just me but it is not clicking. I feel like there is more science to it than just summarizing as you read the entire passage.

Anyone else?

CiaraUCLA

I try to find the main point then try and think of everything I read as serving a purpose in regards to the main point. It helps me really understand the structure, which lends to my understanding of the passage as a whole. I also maybe write 2-4 words per paragraph on my scratch. I used to do more but felt that I would be more focused on the summarizing part rather than the passage itself. Everyone is different but this is what has worked for me.

woods.tyler31

Following because I am having the same issue.
I've tried summarizing instead of highlighting. Highlighting one sentence of each paragraph. Trying to read from authors point of view and nothing is helping me either.

June LSAT Retake

@CiaraUCLA said:
I try to find the main point then try and think of everything I read as serving a purpose in regards to the main point. It helps me really understand the structure, which lends to my understanding of the passage as a whole. I also maybe write 2-4 words per paragraph on my scratch. I used to do more but felt that I would be more focused on the summarizing part rather than the passage itself. Everyone is different but this is what has worked for me.

I like this idea a lot ill give it a try

bananabo

What helped me on RC was practicing active reading and relating each sentence/paragraph to each other. While reading, I also try to notice whose opinions are whose and when the author interjects their opinion. Ultimately, the end goal of reading the passage is to understand what the author is trying to tell us and the reasoning behind their opinions.

Also, this really helped me improve in RC: https://7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/22588/a-guide-on-rc-improvement

yang9999

so one of the pointers that I've carried over from my history of taking RC sections in similar types of standardized tests (i.e. the GRE and the SAT) is that the more efficient approach to tackling RC is remembering general argument structure over details on a first pass -- if you do this, I've personally found that it makes answering MP and author's view questions much less time consuming. It also frees up time for those pesky specific detail questions (though I benefit from having photographic memory, so those questions don't bother me as much). As for inference questions, the one key rule I always follow is this: the correct answer can almost always be supported by information explicitly stated in the passage. If an answer choice leaves you wondering "was that ever mentioned?" or "does this stray too far from what was mentioned in the passage?" it has a high probability of being wrong.

June LSAT Retake

@bananabo said:
What helped me on RC was practicing active reading and relating each sentence/paragraph to each other. While reading, I also try to notice whose opinions are whose and when the author interjects their opinion. Ultimately, the end goal of reading the passage is to understand what the author is trying to tell us and the reasoning behind their opinions.

Also, this really helped me improve in RC: https://7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/22588/a-guide-on-rc-improvement

Thanks. what do you mean by active reading? Like reading as normal?

bananabo

Active reading as in critically engaging with the content. When I actively read, I’m constantly asking questions in my head to make sense of what the author is trying to say and I’m also trying to anticipate what will happen in the following paragraphs.

larnlevitt

I found it helpful because I was getting about -15, -14 on RC that someone told me that if you really focus and work through three of the passages, even if you don't have enough time and guess on the last passage, you will do better than rushing through. When I was rushing I was getting some wrong on each passage because I wasn't reading well enough. Now when I take extra time, even time that I don't have to thoroughly read each passage, re-reading sentences that I didn't comprehend the first time, I haven't had time for a fourth passage. I put all one answer for the fourth passage, go back and do detail questions instead of main point or structure, and I usually end up with around -7 instead.