Sources of Tough Reading Outside of LSAT Passages?

Sarah889

Hey All,

So, I've been looking for some tough reading material to read in my spare time in order to better condition myself for RC sections. I know JY mentioned The Economist and New Yorker in one of the curriculum videos, but both of those publications require (not cheap) subscriptions. Any ideas where I can purchase maybe 4 or 5 old issues of either of these publications? Or does anyone have any other ideas of tough reading materials that do not require subscriptions?

Thanks!

shahla.s-1

So when I met the LSAT test makers during the LSAC forum I was literally harassing them because they made it seem like RC is a piece of cake! So what I got out of them, was pretty general knowledge, which is to read as much of these magazines listed below. All of these I found at Public Library, you can check out the old editions. If you want to purchase them, check out any local bookstores, they are usually a dollar each. Oh also if you have them at your library, I would ask them to keep the old ones instead of throwing it away. Cause after i think a certain time they just get rid of it. It doesn't matter how old they are, actually the older the better for you. So if they are kind enough they will just keep it on the side for you to take it.


Economist
Scientific America
The New Yorker book review (they emphasized on this)
Foreign Policy

I also purchased this book written in 1943 called "How to read a book" its an amazing book on techniques on how to read philosophy, science, and other books. I would suggest you to quickly skim through it and highlight, cause some really good points in there!

Best of luck!

bjphillips5

The Economist offers its Editors' Picks on its app for iPhone/Android each week. It's not a ton of reading, but it's something! I'd also recommend an app like Pocket, which allows you to save and read nearly unlimited articles from those sites as long as you have the URL. But Pocket also recommends dozens of articles a day that usually have a harder-reading level and all of it is free.

Sprinkles

@bjphillips5 said:
I'd also recommend an app like Pocket, which allows you to save and read nearly unlimited articles from those sites as long as you have the URL. But Pocket also recommends dozens of articles a day that usually have a harder-reading level and all of it is free.

I'm going to check this out! thanks

Tinyosi1

I find that reading "old" works really helps me grasp modern writing.

I'm not sure many would agree, but reading stuff like The Illiad(or any other ancient Greek work), Shakespeare(and other plays of that time), and stuff written by people like JS Mill(was reading "On Liberty" recently so this popped in my head) really helps me. I think it is because the vocabulary and structure of stuff like this can be kind of complicated, and so in comparison modern sentences just feel so much more concise.

If you've ever seen things like Dragonball(I'm a proud nerd) they train with weights on and take them off when they actually fight. This is exactly how reading stuff like this feels to me. Also, a lot of the stuff I mentioned can be found in one form or another within the public domain, which means free!

Alex

The best are Scientific American and The Economist as you mentioned above. You can find free articles online of these publications with a cursory google search. The best part is that many passages have come straight from Sci Am and The Eco and the article all seem to be formatted similar to what you would encounter on the RC section.

Also, any dense philosophy book always keeps me in the mode to read complicated, dense material.