Need Help

blakkdoll

Is there anyone that can help me with Reading Comprehension? I'm reading the passages and I'm having a hard time understanding it and answering the questions. I can't even get the questions right without it timed. Am I the only one experiencing this?

beemomo8

I was in a similar boat as you- getting questions wrong even without being timed. But things have improved so much after I began reading excessively. I was out of school for a bit and I majored in something that did not require much readings. After acknowledging my weak point, I began to read NYT (the opinion section), The New Yorker, Economist and Scientific America EVERYDAY.

Read while identifying all the referential pronouns and embedded clause and after each paragraph, in your head, summarize the topic. Placing a pen on a page to guide your eyes to read the letters will help greatly-reading out loud while reading is not very helpful with speed later on.

Always summarize the whole article after reading- the author's main point and the supports she is giving you.

Also, re-do the RC questions, especially really challenging ones. RE-doing them will help you understand the way the LSAT writers want you to answer their questions. I have been redoing RC questions under timed-condition and now I get 1 or 2 wrong per section. It is a gradual process, read as much as you can and try not to rush your improvement.

Drini925

so i majored in english - that involved a ton of dry and convoluted reading that went on for paaaaaages. a lot of the times, if i'm being honest, i would come out of it wondering wtf i had just read. there is no shame in that, everyone does it. your brain begins to space out when something doesn't immediately catch your interest and captivate you. that means you have to make it fun. or, in this case, as fun as possible. start making a movie in your head about the things you are reading. if it talks about scientists manipulating genes to make crops insect resistant, start picturing kevin spacey in his full-on Outbreak (the movie) hazmat suit standing over a bunch of beakers and petri dishes yelling that he HAS to find the gene. it might seem dumb at first, but give it a shot, you'll be surprised how much more you retain.

another trick is reading it out loud. no, you can't do this test day so eventually you'll have to make it work in your head. but you can tweak the tactic a bit. pretend you have kids, and you're reading them a bed time story. kids seem to always want you to do different voices while really getting into character and acting out the words/delivering them with fervor. do that, IN your head. just pretend you're reading to your baby cousins and are trying to make this gene splicing sound super interesting. get excited, use different voices and read it with emotion - just, again, in your head.

the last thing i can say is after reading a really complicated/confusing paragraph, or maybe even sentence, stop. pause. reiterate into easier and more straight forward words what you just read. summarize it. because most of the time, these readings are just seeing if you get the jist of what's going on. you don't have to worry about focusing on memorizing each and every fact and figure, because the test will direct you to those exact lines "in lines 34-42 the scientist says 58.6 percent of..." focus instead on the overall purpose. ask yourself why they would be telling you all this.

AlenaLSAT

Reading Comprehension section is designed to measure one's ability to see the point at issue, evaluate opposing arguments and evidence presented to support those arguments, since this is what being a lawyer is about. So, when you read, first see what the subject of contention is. Then identify all the opposing views and see whose side the author is taking, or if his position is neutral. For each argument see what evidence is presented. As you read, engage yourself by trying to foresee who is going to win the argument. Also, it is very important to mentally summarize each paragraph in just a couple of words. Hope this helps.