LSAT Mid-Life Crisis Please Advise! (RC/speed dilemma)

michellemoon0708

Hi all,

So I have been studying over 7 months for this darn exam, but I am still not reaching my potential despite significant gains! For instance, I blind review at a 169, but receive only about 50 correct under timed conditions. I leave 40-60 questions unanswered. I have seen dramatic increases in my LG after going through all of 7sage's LG lessons, so thanks a lot for that YJ! However, my LR and RC have remained stagnant and I feel I hit a hump here completing about 14-18 LR's/section and 13-14 RC's/section. I have faith that I can get over these humps, considering I have score perfect on all three sections before.

However, RC is my main problem right now, since it is difficult to cut problems, and do much more practice on apart from blind reviewing the passages in comparison to "the fool proof method to a perfect LG section method." After reading an RC book by manhattan and going up a handful of points to about 11 correct on RC, I have consistently scored 9-13 correct on this section without fail. This is sort of expected, because I don't really practice RC the way I do LG, as I don't drill RC at all besides in PTs' (I am scared to run out of RC passages for PTs' - stupid I know), but I also replaced them with Economist passage drills. In any case, Is their any suggestions for both RC and getting my speed up to a 160+ speed?

Thanks everyone!

ENTJ

Michelle, are you reading for structure versus reading for context?

AlenaLSAT

The only way to improve on RC for me was to scan questions before reading the stimulus and separating general ones from specific. I highlight the key word/phrase in the specific question and as I read the stimulus, I answer those questions. This way, by the time I am done reading the stimulus, 30-50% of the questions are already answered.

AlenaLSAT

To improve on LR, I don't think it is enough just to keep practicing preptests. You need to apply your knowledge of logic to the tests, rather than learn logic from them. Here is a useful link I found http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/tvs.html

ONuellaO

Hey Michelle, i’m having the same problems as you are with RC but i find that with RC well at least for me, it helps if i drill into RC for a whole day, do it untimed and then timed but with 10 minutes per passage and then reduce the time as the day goes. I also find that once i skip a day or two without any RC work, i slightly forget how to do read them. It happens for certain ppl in LG and LR as well.
Also, like @Al said, are you reading for structure vs. context? i was reading for context for over 4 months and was getting no where, and once i started reading for structure i found my RC improved drastically.

And yes, you can definitely be at 160+ progress, you just have to take a section and drill into it..

Jonathan Wang

There are a lot of factors that go into speed in RC and LR. Are you getting hung up by vocabulary, or by grammar, or by some combination of the two? Are you having trouble understanding the argument's structure/the author's method of reasoning? Are you a slow reader (as in, the thing that takes time is the actual act of reading the ink on the page)? Are you finding yourself re-reading things a lot? If so, for what reason? On the answer choice side - are you having difficulty making things more abstract? Less abstract? Switching between the two? Switching between question types? Understanding what the question is asking of you? The list goes on forever, and all of these issues have different remedies.

A general note - the LSAT is a MASTERY test. This is the heart of your issue. You know enough to eventually be able to identify what's going on and stumble your way through those answer choices (hence, your high blind review score), but you don't know it well enough to spot it on sight or manipulate it on demand. When you get better at the underlying skills, the speed will come. Identifying which underlying skills need work, therefore, is the first step.

michellemoon0708

Yeah you are completely right! ^ I am lacking some underlying skills, so I take the back door approach per say and "eventually" can find my way to the correct answer, but I cannot do it well enough yet on sight or manipulate abstract logic on demand in my head that is. Its none of the techniques people mentioned, because I feel my technique is good (i.e. I read for structure, ). I don't have trouble understanding the author's logic/structure of argumentation, switching between questions, or understanding the question stem. However, the questions you posed opened my eyes to some underlying skills I do (emphasis added) need to work on. For instance, I get hung up by big vocabulary words, and grammar (though not as much thanks to the grammar lessons here), I may be a slow reader (started at 160WPM and brought it up to 250WPM with software-so again not as much), I do re-read often due to lost focus or vocabulary, and on the answer choices I do have difficulty making things more/less abstract and switching between the two.

So, now that you have shown me a handful of skill I consider (hyper-specific) weaknesses how can I both work on them without messing up test material and find all the other (hyper-specific) weaknesses I may have??

Jonathan Wang

That's what you find out in your review process. Not only are you responsible for figuring out the answers, you're responsible for figuring out how you were supposed to know what to do in the first place. Go beyond "this is the logic" and ask yourself "WHY did I make that mistake?". The answer, if you really sit down and honestly evaluate yourself, will illuminate the things you truly have to work on. NEVER settle for the cop-out answer of "it was a stupid mistake" - there is no such thing.

Talking with a tutor obviously helps, but it's cheaper if you can figure it out on your own. Either way, you have to resolve or at least identify your issues before moving forward; flawed practice is worthless practice.

YY MMMM.

Hi Jon, I saw ur response here:
http://7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/683/answering-a-question-problem
Just want to ask that by 'have to answer questions quickly' do you mean most of the time there's no need to refer to the passage?
Thanks!

Jonathan Wang

If your memory is good enough, you can do the whole thing from memory. Sadly, mine was never quite that good. I personally refer back to the passage a fair amount, but it never takes me very long because I always know where to go and what I'm looking for. I always know at least the structure and flow of the argument, and therefore usually have a pretty good idea up front of what the answer to each question is. I check back only to verify that my memory is correct.

Most students, when they refer back, are hunting for the answer to the question. That aimless searching, hoping to stumble upon the answer, is what really eats up time. When you refer back, you should be refreshing your memory on a specific piece of information, and you should know where (generally) that information appears.