RC Strategy Question - Understand fully or compartmentalize and move on?

Creative UsernameCreative Username Member
in Reading Comprehension 93 karma

help

I have a quick question that I was hoping some of the more experienced LSAT takers might be able to answer (or maybe JY himself).

In one of the first couple of Reading Comp videos, JY says that if you don't understand something, you'll just let it slide. But often, it will just snowball into a bigger and bigger misunderstanding.

Later, in several of the other videos, JY says that it's important to be able to compartmentalize things that you don't understand, and to not let them impact your efficiency in dissecting the rest of the passage, since it might not be worth spending all that time trying to understand something that turns out to be relatively insignificant.

Can someone please help me reconcile this apparent discrepancy (had to make the LR joke :p )? Does anyone have ways of determining when it's necessary to fully understand something versus when it's not? If you could share some of your own experiences and results that would be awesome.

Thanks so much.

Comments

  • KaterynaKateryna Alum Member
    edited April 2018 984 karma

    Spending some time upfront to understand RC passages helps me go through questions and to get more correct faster. I think the discrepancy you are talking about is in regards to context itself. You may not understand terms used or what exactly the subject matter is about (like some weird fish that lives in Red Sea and eats blue fungus), but what is crucial is to fully understand relationship between passage parts. You need to see the relationship between sentences and paragraphs.

  • ExcludedMiddleExcludedMiddle Alum Member
    edited April 2018 737 karma

    @Kateryna said:
    Spending some time upfront to understand RC passages helps me go through questions helps me to get more correct and go through them faster. I think the discrepancy you are talking about is in regards to context itself. You may not understand terms used or what exactly the subject matter is about (like some weird fish that lives in Red Sea and eats blue fungus), but what is crucial is to fully understand relationship between passage parts. You need to see the relationship between sentences and paragraphs.

    Well said. In other words, don't let the intimidation factor of unfamiliar material kill your confidence and cause you to get bogged down in trying to understand every little detail. Compartmentalize it, move on, and try to understand each passage as well as you can without sacrificing efficiency.

  • Creative UsernameCreative Username Member
    edited April 2018 93 karma

    @Kateryna You're right. Fully understanding "weird fish/blue fungus" may not be as critical as understanding the argumentative structure. Thanks so much for your reply. It's really helpful.

    @3984589235 Thank you! Won't be intimidated and won't be sacrificing efficiency! :)

  • olepuebloolepueblo Alum Member
    235 karma

    I think @Kateryna is right. The idea is to understand the argumentative structure of the passage and use it to try to make sense of gaps in your understanding of the content. This way your understanding of the passage is relative to the argumentative structure rather than just regurgitated facts.

  • studyingandrestudyingstudyingandrestudying Core Member
    5254 karma

    Maybe try the Reading Comp webinars on here. Also, understanding will increase as you do more passages.

  • Creative UsernameCreative Username Member
    93 karma

    Thank you @swamlepow and @lsatplaylist!

  • SamiSami Yearly + Live Member Sage ⭐ 7Sage Tutor
    edited April 2018 10806 karma

    Yeah sure. I think a bit of it is experience in realizing how a passage unfolds. For example,
    If the passage is about a phenomena the RC passage is trying to explain and I am having trouble understanding the phenomena or the different hypothesis that explain it, I am going to spend bit more effort trying to understand it and if even after the breakdown its not super clear, I would keep reading and hope it gets clarified in later sentences. But for example, if I am having trouble retaining or understanding at the part where they talk about how the experiment was performed, I'll do my best, take note that I don't understand it and if a question tests that part, I will skip it first and if I have time I'll re-read that part and try to figure out how to answer it.

    So I think the difference is more about subject matter that I will be reading vs a bit of details about that subject matter. Often times, I have to re-read the first line of the RC passage because it will say things in a convoluted manner. The reason I don't skip it right away is because I need to understand what we will be talking about. But if even after reading it again its clearer but not super clear, I make a mental not about what's not clear and hope that sentences later on will clarify that understanding.

    There are times when it will be just a lot of details about things. Again, you do your best, if it seems a bit overwhelming, you make a note of how these details fit and come back to get clarification if a question is asked about it.

    I hope this helped a bit.

  • Creative UsernameCreative Username Member
    93 karma

    @Sami thank you so much for your message. It's funny, I was so intimidated by RC at first, but the more passages I look at, the more excited I am by the prospect of looking at the next one. I think this is because when your ability to understand the passages increases, the more simple each passage becomes, and rather than appearing as a daunting, convoluted essay, it feels more like a little compact, nugget of information :'D

    But anyway, I've got so much to learn.

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