Hit me up with your worst RC sections

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• 2 Likes

  eRetaker Free Trial Member

  December 2018 2043 karma

  I took every PT and these were the ones that I found to be most difficult. PT 27, 38, 43, 45, 50(riddled basins), 51, 53, 54, 55 (talk story), 72 (Glass), 76 (Karl Popper), 79(Eileen Gray.. dear lord). I got better at RC by fool-proofing these sections.
• MindyKale Alum Member

  December 2018 350 karma

  @eRetaker said:
  I took every PT and these were the ones that I found to be most difficult. PT 27, 38, 43, 45, 50(riddled basins), 51, 53, 54, 55 (talk story), 72 (Glass), 76 (Karl Popper), 79(Eileen Gray.. dear lord). I got better at RC by fool-proofing these sections.

  Thank you Retaker. What kind of improvement did you see? Like what was your score initially and what was it after?
  By foolproofing, did you mean you did them over and over?
• 2 Likes

  eRetaker Free Trial Member

  December 2018 2043 karma

  @MindyKale said:

  @eRetaker said:
  I took every PT and these were the ones that I found to be most difficult. PT 27, 38, 43, 45, 50(riddled basins), 51, 53, 54, 55 (talk story), 72 (Glass), 76 (Karl Popper), 79(Eileen Gray.. dear lord). I got better at RC by fool-proofing these sections.

  Thank you Retaker. What kind of improvement did you see? Like what was your score initially and what was it after?
  By foolproofing, did you mean you did them over and over?

  I was around -4 to -7 initially when started and it stayed at that range for the first 5 months even after exhausting 70ish PTs. During my last two months of study I incorporated the fool-proof method to my RC studying same way people fool-proof LG though you would need a slightly longer time in-between redoing sections since RC questions are easier to memorize. I blind reviewed each time as well. I borrowed the Manhattanprep RC book during this time as well and it had really good tips.

  On recent tests, these RC questions look a lot like the LR "most strongly supported" questions.

  Do this during your blind-reviews as well:
  Incorrect RC answer choices:
  Too broad: the answer is too broad making it incorrect
  Too narrow: the answer doesn't include everything about the passage, particularly on Main Point questions that only talk about one short paragraph of the passage, making it incorrect.
  Contradiction: directly contradicts the passage
  Not supported: Most common incorrect answer is when the answer choice looks correct but the passage actually doesn't support that! This is a popular trap answer for people who don't pay attention to detail.
  For each of the questions I get wrong on practice passage questions, I would write down next to each incorrect answer choice which category it falls into.

  Correct RC answers:
  I didn't believe this until I was late in my studies, but each correct answer is supported by the passage. I used to think they pulled that answer out of nowhere, but there is indeed a line reference for each correct answer in the passage. I would put a line reference next to correct answers that I missed.

  During my final PTs I was averaging -0 to -2 on RC and finished with -1 RC on test day.
• MindyKale Alum Member

  December 2018 350 karma

  That is amazing improvement! I am going to try it.
  How much time did you spend on average in this process? For foolproofing and such?
• 1 Like

  eRetaker Free Trial Member

  December 2018 2043 karma

  1. 35 minutes timed as part of the original PT
  2. 30 mins blind review (blind review gets faster over time)
  3. a few days later: redo as 35 min timed single section
  4. blind review for another 30 mins and compare the results and see if i truly learned from my mistakes.
  5. If I didn't do much better then I would take a deeper look at my process for those passages and redo in a few days until I was close to perfect on it.

  You can also try to only do difficult passages and time it as 9 mins if you are short on time.

  Other perhaps handy tricks: Some passages I would read twice if I didn't understand the first time. I listened to an advice from the LSATHacks founder and he mentioned that most of the time we waste on RC is actually on the questions themselves rather than the passages. I timed myself and he was right. I think most ppl take 2-3 mins to read the passage and 6-7 mins to do questions. If you instead do 2-3 mins first read and then 30 seconds to do second skim then your understanding will be much better and the questions will fly by in 4-5 mins. Give that a shot for some of the passages as well. Remember to time yourself and use bubble sheet at all times.

  Useful link for RC explanations: https://lsathacks.com/explanations/
• 1 Like

  _oshun1_ Alum Member

  December 2018 3652 karma

  Riddled basins. In pt 50.