RC Strategy

Theresa K

I have a question about RC. When starting the RC section of the LSAT, is it a smart strategy to glance at the number of questions per passage and then dive in first with the one that offers the most points with the most questions? For example, I just did a PT and I usually just go straight through beginning with passage one then onwards. Passage one only had 5 questions, while passage four had 8 questions. To me, it would have made more sense to start with the last passage for two reasons: 1) I’m the freshest and most alert and 2) I have the opportunity to score 8 points. As it was, I ran out of time and end up having to guess on several of the last questions. Thoughts??

Cant Get Right

I might call this a patch rather than strategy. Good strategy corrects problems. This accepts the problem and seeks to minimize its consequences. And that can absolutely be a part of your approach to the section. But I'd be much more interested to discover why you didn't finish the section and what might could be done about that.

However, if the goal is to routinely finish the section, then it doesn't really matter what order we do the passages in. The main thing to watch out for is the balance of difficulty. Depending on where you're currently scoring, easy passages with 5 questions may tend to represent as much or more point potential than the hardest passages with 8 questions. So just make sure to consider that. If you can strike that balance, though, I say go for it.

valentina.soares-1

Hey @Theresa K ,

I agree with what has been said here in that the root cause of not finishing the section is what we really want to identify and correct. Are you over target time on the easier passages? Is the first passage always the one that takes the longest? If you're close to test day and need to be smart about how you allocate time, then I think this is a solution that could work. However, if you have time to prepare, training good reading habits (low res summary, question type strategy, etc) in RC will be much more beneficial. Its hard to say what could be causing the issue without working with you, but if you decide this is something you would like some expert eyes on, I think working with one of our tutors to diagnose your issues and train the solutions would be really valuable. We do offer a free 30 minute consultation where we can look at your analytics, talk about your experience with the section and the test, and answer any questions you might have about the LSAT, studying for it, or the tutoring program. If you are interested, feel free to sign up for a meeting using the following link: https://calendly.com/7sage-consult/7sage-tutoring-free-consult?utm_source=FCA_A&month=2022-12