Seem to understand RC passage, but miss a lot of questions

loganmaddoxmay

I average anywhere between -10 to -15 on RC which is by far my worst section. But I feel as if I understand the passage fairly well, even confident when finishing a timed section. Is this a misunderstanding in the questions and what they are asking? It is puzzling.

Matt Sorr

What does your BR score look like? If you're missing a lot in BR, then I'd say you're not understanding the passages as well as you think you are. If you're missing far fewer in BR, however, then odds are you are understanding the passage but you're either not going fast enough, you're going too fast, you're not understanding the question stems, you're not managing your time well, or some combination of those things. A few other particulars could be hurting you, but looking at how you're scoring in BR will go a long way in diagnosing your issue.

ProfLayton

I agree with what Matt said. There's no shame in doing bad in certain sections and I'm worried you may be conflating poor performance with being dumb.

RC is tricky in the sense that you have to be really good at quickly collapsing the passage into the key point of each paragraph and being good at inferences. "The author likely reacts to X", "X would most likely support", and other question stems all depend on you being able to derive the main point of each paragraph.

I'd spend time doing the RC curriculum and going over the difficult RC problem sets. Once you've done enough, you'll see what type of problems you're getting wrong to hopefully help you address the incorrect reasoning that's leading you to losing points

loganmaddoxmay

BR is generally a few questions lower, typically -8 to -11. Thank you all for the help!

harveyeli549

@ProfLayton happy wheels game said:
I agree with what Matt said. There's no shame in doing bad in certain sections and I'm worried you may be conflating poor performance with being dumb.

RC is tricky in the sense that you have to be really good at quickly collapsing the passage into the key point of each paragraph and being good at inferences. "The author likely reacts to X", "X would most likely support", and other question stems all depend on you being able to derive the main point of each paragraph.

I'd spend time doing the RC curriculum and going over the difficult RC problem sets. Once you've done enough, you'll see what type of problems you're getting wrong to hopefully help you address the incorrect reasoning that's leading you to losing points

Thanks! This makes sense.

lisettevictoriasp

I was averaging between -5 - -11 on RC until I changed my methodology. I have always actively read in the sense I highlight, annotate, and mark anything I find important. However, I watched a few youtube videos and LSAT gurus on how to improve on RC and most say to ditch the annotating. RC is not testing us on memorization of facts, names, dates, etc. I completely changed my methods and instead I read it once through with minimal annotations (annotate if its a theory, hypothesis, opinion etc.) and answer the questions without looking back to the passage... Huge difference. I noticed my confusion lay in going back and forth from the question stem/answer choices and the paragraph. Also, trap answers will be answers that make logical sense, but pertain to information not in the passage. In other words, it will trick you into assuming and deducing right answers. Not to mention, PTs 1-35 have harder RC because it was changed in the 90s to fairly easy passages. So I saw RC scores in the PTs 45-60s get really high and then dropped again in the 70s to current. So I abandoned older PTs RC sections because they are drastically different from modern tests. Last point, when doing comparative passages, JY says to read passage A alone and see how many questions you can answer like that and then read passage B.

Best of luck! Youtube, JY live test taking videos, Powerscore, and Reddit have great resources on how to improve!

loganmaddoxmay

@lisettevictoriasp said:
I was averaging between -5 - -11 on RC until I changed my methodology. I have always actively read in the sense I highlight, annotate, and mark anything I find important. However, I watched a few youtube videos and LSAT gurus on how to improve on RC and most say to ditch the annotating. RC is not testing us on memorization of facts, names, dates, etc. I completely changed my methods and instead I read it once through with minimal annotations (annotate if its a theory, hypothesis, opinion etc.) and answer the questions without looking back to the passage... Huge difference. I noticed my confusion lay in going back and forth from the question stem/answer choices and the paragraph. Also, trap answers will be answers that make logical sense, but pertain to information not in the passage. In other words, it will trick you into assuming and deducing right answers. Not to mention, PTs 1-35 have harder RC because it was changed in the 90s to fairly easy passages. So I saw RC scores in the PTs 45-60s get really high and then dropped again in the 70s to current. So I abandoned older PTs RC sections because they are drastically different from modern tests. Last point, when doing comparative passages, JY says to read passage A alone and see how many questions you can answer like that and then read passage B.

Best of luck! Youtube, JY live test taking videos, Powerscore, and Reddit have great resources on how to improve!

Thank you! I think most of my confusion stemmed from looking at the difficulty of the RC sections I took and from all of the 1 or 2 stars to the 5 stars I missed the same amount, and while reading they didnt seem any more difficult than others. So upon further review I think it is just misunderstanding question stems and falling for trap answers.

claremont

@lisettevictoriasp,

When you say you dropped the older PT RC sections because they are drastically different from modern tests do you mean everything prior to PT70 or did you mean PTs 45-60 due to their decreased difficulty? Basically what I'm asking is did you find the RC passages from PT1-35 to be worth the time investment or would you recommend sticking to PT70 onwards? Thanks.

wjamanda117

@lisettevictoriasp, same question here. Are you suggesting that focusing on RC practice from PT1-35 and PT70 onwards is better than PT45-60?

P.S. what is your opinion on PT 36-44 hehe

lisettevictoriasp

@claremont
I attended a PowerScore crystal ball and essentially what they said was PT 1-35’s RC was much more similar to modern tests, hence much more helpful in gaging your skill for test day. Therefore, I still complete the 40s, 50, 60, and 70s RC, but I am not using them as an indicator for what I should expect to see on a real LSAT. So I still completed them for the practice, but I also did all of the “harder reading comprehension” drills under the core curriculum for better practice. Powerscore also said that modern RC has much less specific question types like “on line _” and is shifting to more abstract, closer to LR type questions, with an emphasis on author’s opinions, implications, and inferences. Again, more practice is NEVER worse but place an emphasis on 1-35 and mainly 80-90s for harder/similar to modern RC sections. Unfortunately, 40-Mid 60s has notoriously easier RC than modern day …

@wjamanda117 For the second half of your question, based on personal experience … From preptests 36-44 I was doing really well on RC. Since my test is coming up on the 15th I switch to preptest 80 and up to get a better sense of what a modern test is … and was shocked at how poorly I did on RC. Then I attended the Powerscore, CrystalBall Seminar and they spoke about the changes in RC so my answer discrepancy made much more sense.

Good luck to everyone!

claremont

@lisettevictoriasp,

Thank you. Good luck on the 15th!

Juan23vr

self evaluation is the best way to improve. Your message itself reveals a lot "seem to understand" if you are missing that many Qs. then you simply do not understand the passage. You may be paying attention to the wrong details of the passage. Try to look at Q. stems and recognize what they usually ask for and keep that in mind next time you read.