Why is economist cited as best RC prep?

spittingnickels

Perhaps the magazine has worked for you, but I find the economist to be very soft reading material and unsatisfactory for RC improvement. For a food analogy, It's like chewing Gerber baby food, when RC passages are like tough sinewy steak.

However, I will say that what seems to work for me is reading philosophy books, in particular books by Daniel dennett. I'm currently reading his book Intuition Pumps, and after reading a few chapters of it, when I do rc passes, I feel myself breezing through them. (I know he's most famous as a new atheist, but his philosophical insights are his most impressive contributions to thought in my opinion).

If you're struggling with RC give him a try. Freedom Evolves, Brainstorms, etc. He has many books from decades of writing. Also, consider that every lsat question you've ever read was written by someone who was either a philosophy PhD or in pursuit of a philosophy phd. The two subjects , LSAT and philosophy, seem to be almost the same thing. Best luck to all, keep studying!

ntrepanier5

I agree. The Economist is definitely a higher brow than most popular news outlets, but it's nothing crazy, especially if you enjoy reading high-level philosophy stuff. Like I can't say I'd put a given Economist article on the same plane as some of the denser science or law RC passages.

I think the main reason people point to it is that it's easy to build a habit of reading the news everyday, so you might as well read something with a slightly higher vocabulary/sentence structure as other outlets.

Thanks for the pointer on Dennett!