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My Guide to Reading Comprehension Part 1 (Long-ish Post)
jmarmaduke96
Member Sage ⭐
Hi 7sagers!
Given that several people expressed interest in my RC methodology, here is the basic outline of my approach for the Reading Comprehension section based on my own progression. This covers some very broad concepts that were significant for me. If there is interest, let me know and I will work to do a couple more installments like this and drill down on some very specific areas that are much more targeted, such as how to approach specific arguments, subjects, and question types in RC.
For now, I think that I noticed three distinct tiers or levels that I went through in my RC prep. My hope is that since these three levels represent three distinct stages in my own preparation, people at many different stages of their LSAT journeys will be able to benefit from at least something in here.
- Good Reading Habits
When I started out on the LSAT I frequently missed 18 or more questions on an RC section. I had to work hard to develop good reading habits. But, the good news is that these skills are like riding a bike. Once you have got them, it is just a matter of maintenance at that point. I know I am just going to be repeating things that other people have said here, so I will be brief, but it is so important. Reading with an eye to structure is incredibly important on the LSAT. This includes picking up on the low resolution and high resolution of the content as well as the structure. I think that it is very beneficial to do several RC passages/sections untimed (these can be retakes) and work on ingraining these skills. Although I am sure many of you have seen my posts on the RC passage explanation videos, here is the template that I used.
Paragraph 1 –
• Low resolution content:
• High Resolution:
• Structure:
• Sneak Peak:
Paragraph 2 –
• Low resolution content:
• High Resolution:
• Structure:
Paragraph 3 –
• Low resolution content:
• High Resolution:
• Structure:
Paragraph 4 –
• Low resolution content:
• High Resolution:
• Structure:
Main Point:
Tone:
Viewpoints:
Organization:
Cookie Cutter:
For those who aren't familiar with some of the terms, "sneak peak" refers to taking a quick moment after reading the first paragraph to see if you can anticipate what will come next and maybe even glance ahead in the passage to see if you are on the right track. The more you can anticipate what comes next, the more "at home" you will feel. Although we never want to become complacent or neglect to read actively, being "at home" with the passage will reduce the anxiety that I know I can feel when reading a new and overwhelming passage. There actually is a lot of uniformity in RC and many structures and patterns are used over and over again. For example, if the first paragraph describes to me a scientific study that was done a while ago, then my anticipation is that the next paragraph is probably going to tell me that the first group of scientists didn't really know what they were talking about. Another example would be a passage where the first paragraph describes some very complex or unexpected phenomenon that was noticed in nature. My anticipation here would be that the next paragraph will give me a hypothesis to explain what comes next. Those are pretty straight forward examples, but the principle applies broadly. Obviously, some passages are weird and your anticipation will be wrong. That is fine, that is not a bad thing. Anticipating what comes next is a tool to keep you active and engaged in the reading. The correct-ness of your anticipation is not nearly as important as the thought that you put into making the anticipation.
"Cookie cutter" is a related concept and refers to the common forms that are reused over and over in RC. So an example might be "phenomenon/hypothesis" or "OPA (other people's argument) is wrong."
"Viewpoints" is where I note which viewpoints we got in the passage. For example, we might have gotten the viewpoints of the author, some economists, and some political theorists. "Structure" under each paragraph is where I note what role that paragraph plays in the structure of the passage. Is it the main point? A premise? A sub-conclusion? Just context?
"Organization" refers to how the passage is put together structurally, so an example might be "two competing alternative explanations for an unexplained occurrence are given, an experiment is done that indicates one is more likely than the other to be correct, and the implications of this research are discussed."
In my own prep, I filled out the above template for every single RC passage from PT 7-89. While I think for most people that is overkill (and i'm probably just a slow learner) the repetition helped. I did it over and over for untimed retakes and I did it for every passage that I blind reviewed. Overtime, I developed enough muscle memory that I got to the point where I didn't have to think consciously about these things so much during a timed run. Having all (or at least most) of this information floating around in your head means you will have the information you need to answer probably all but the hardest and most detail oriented questions on the RC section. If you are a beginner in reading comp or are missing 4 or more questions in blind review, then I would say that this is probably the place to start.
- Timing
As important as it is to master good reading habits, unless these habits are paired with a proper timing strategy then you will have a difficult time translating your new skills into a significantly higher score when the clock is running. For some people this information will be repetitive, but it is worth repeating for those who haven't heard it. The single biggest jump in RC that I had came from treating the RC section similarly to the LG section. Initially, if I ran into a hard RC passage my instinct would be to give myself as much time as possible to deal with the questions, which inevitably comes at the expense of having time to deal with the passage.
But that isn't how I would approach a very challenging logic game. If I ran into a difficult game with a lot of rules that interacted in complex ways, the first thing I would do would be to see if I could split the game board, force out inferences, and see how much I could figure out before ever getting to the questions. Of course, splitting game boards takes time. But this is always worth it in the end because the questions go by so much faster, I am much more confident, and I am more accurate.
I used to try to think that I needed to finish reading an RC passage in about 3 minutes in order to have time for the questions. I had to actually let this go and give myself permission to take the time that I needed to understand everything in the passage. For many passages I easily took 3 and a half minutes, 4 minutes, or even more. For some of the difficult passages, I took more than 5 minutes to read it. We all know that 5 minutes is practically an eternity in LSAT time. However, this actually made me faster in the long run. My understanding of the passage was so improved by taking this time that I was able to dramatically cut down on the time spent on questions. In fact, I was able to cut my average time spent on a question by half. After spending so much time on the passage, I frequently could cruise through most questions in 20-30 seconds. This meant that even though I was spending way more time on the passage, my total average time for the passage plus questions dropped noticeably.
This was a game changer for me for another reason as well. For the first time ever, I started to semi-consistently have time for a second round on RC to go back to a question or two that I had skipped. Furthermore, because I had taken so much time with the passage up front, I had really retained the information and did not need to waste precious time on my second round trying to reread part or all of the passage. I was able to much more efficiently target my time and my effort. This is in contrast to before I had ingrained good timing habits. Back then, even if by some miracle I had a minute or two left over for a second round, I couldn't do anything productive with that time because I basically had to go back and reread the passage to give a question a second chance since I hadn't meaningfully retained the things that I needed to the first time I read the passage.
In my experience, a combination of good reading habits and decent time was enough to get my average PT score into the low 170s. I think this was because these skills together will be enough to allow you to answer all the questions that deal with the low res (I find that in a typical RC section about 19ish questions will be low res focused). After that, there will be another 3-5 questions that deal with the high-res that are aren't too challenging and can be picked up with a decent understanding that good reading habits will give you. Combined with a good timing strategy then, this much is usually enough to get you to a consistent -3/-4 in RC.
Now, at least in my case, the last points on the table are typically the result of the extremely difficult questions that are detail-oriented. These are generally the MSS/inference curvebrearker questions. For me, I generally knew that I would take so much time getting them correct that they would cost me points elsewhere, so I just had to accept that I didn't know the answer and move on to save time.
I knew that to push my score past the early 170s I needed to increase my retention of the very fine-grain information in the passage, which brings me to highlighting.
- Highlighting
Although many people have said that this can be counter-productive, highlighting made a noticeable difference for me. I began to consistently use the highlighting function liberally, including all three colors. I found this had two purposes. First, it just helped me to read actively, remain engaged, and cement details in my head. Second, I also began to use highlighting as a tool to keep track of and remember the little, tiny, out of the way details that the LSAT loves to use as support for very difficult MSS questions in RC. For example, I would highlight any word that was in quotes but was not a direct quote, since that means the author is using the word outside of its ordinary meaning. Whenever I would see something like that, as I highlighted it I would be thinking about the distinction between the way that the word might be ordinarily used in contradistinction to how the word is being used by the author at this time.
I would also highlight any conditional statement. I actually ended up being surprised how many conditionals are in RC. The LSAT hides these RC conditionals by almost never using group 1 or group 2 indicators, but they are there in almost every section and the majority of passages. For some reason, I was also surprised by how much conditionals matter in RC. I was well aware of their importance in LG and LR because those sections make much heavier use of them. But conditionals are no less powerful in RC. Sometimes they can be major premises and sometimes are they are conclusions. Sometimes they are just "throw away statements" and don't really contribute meaningfully to the argument. But regardless of what they do, they are very powerful. That makes them prime targets for very difficult MSS questions. The LSAT can take a statement that barely even relates to the argument in the passage, but use it to conclusively prove out one answer choice.
I also highlighted the little details that are irrelevant to the actual argument. This includes the little things where the author isn't even editorializing (since I would pick up on the editorializations as indications of the author's tone as part of having good reading habits). I'm talking about where the author is just adding extra words. This happens most often in the context of a passage that sets the stage for an argument. Sometimes a whole sentence falls into this category, sometimes it is just a word or two. But a lot of times the hard inference or MSS questions pull their correct answers from these details. All of this is in addition to highlighting things like viewpoint shifts, structural elements, and other things to keep me engaged and reading actively.
If you are thinking at this point that RC is generally the section where people are most pressed for time and this highlighting strategy sounds like it takes an additional chunk of time, then you are absolutely correct. However, I found that it was a worthwhile price considering how much my retention improved. I am a big proponent of taking a lot of time to understand the passage and then being able to power through the questions very quickly. One disclaimer that I should state up front is that this method takes a lot of self-confidence and trust that if you invest the time you will have a proper understanding. It can be jarring when you glance at the clock and see how much time you spent reading the passage, but I think that this is the path to a high score for many people. It certainly was important for me. If we take the time to really understand the passage in all of its intricacies and nuances (just like we take the time to split gameboards in LG) then we are going to be rewarded by not really having too much work to do in the questions, since we already did our hard work in the passage.
Full disclosure, with the exception of my proclivity for highlighting, pretty much all of this is material that I originally learned from @Sami who was my fantastic tutor during my LSAT prep. I hope that this helps some people with RC, it really is an extremely challenging section. If you have questions feel free to drop them in the comments. Im happy to try to answer anything!
Comments
This is great! Thank you for sharing.
Thank you so much James for sharing.
This is so helpful. It is jarring to look at the clock and see how much time I’ve spent reading. Good to see your results showing your method worked!
I was so amazed by @jmarmaduke96's highlighting strategy. When the LSAT was administered on tablets, the highlighting function sucked because the stylus they gave us to highlight was so inaccurate, so it was a pain in the butt to use. But now since you can use your mouse on the LSAT-Flex, for me I think it's a game changer.
Disclaimer: it didn't work for everyone. @DINOSAUR doesn't highlight at all, and that works better for her. So in the end do what works better for you!
Thanks for sharing this @jmarmaduke96! Your dedication is inimitable...but I'm still gonna give these strategies a try!
Would you also tell us at what point in your RC studies that you integrated the timing + highlighting stages? Was it only until you completed the full structure breakdown ("Good Reading Habits") for PT 7-89?
And a side question about studying for RC more generally. I know you wrote that once you gained the good habits you did, it was largely about maintenance (so, not getting rusty, right?). But in your opinion, is it better to have a "divide and conquer" approach to RC if it's a struggle area for us? I've pretty much done that for LG, but the process I guess would be shorter, timewise.
Thank you again!!!
This is amazing- thank you!!
@Christopherr is absolutely right. The highlighting strategy probably will not work for everyone. It worked for me, but at the end of the day these are all just tools that you can try to use for yourself. If they work for you, great! If not, that is okay. Different styles will work better with different approaches. I certainly tried some things during my prep that ended up not working well for me, even though they had worked well for others.
@"Lime Green Dot" Of course, I am happy to help!
I certainly did not wait until I had taken all of the PTs to implement my timing and highlighting strategies. I just ended up taking pretty much all of the PTs (not something I would recommend lol) and kept filling out my template, in part just because I wanted to keep my reading skills as sharp as I could.
I would recommend integrating the next level of strategy once you have a good handle on the previous level. So, for example, if you are missing 4 or more questions in blind review in RC, then I would start with working on the "good reading habits" with lots of untimed work. You could do some timed work if you want, but the main focus of this stage is ingraining skills. The speed will come later. That is why retakes work so well at this level.
Once you are consistently missing 4 or less questions in your RC blind review (and you feel that filling out the template for the majority of passages is not too difficult) then I would suggest adding more timed work and seeing how well you apply your skills when the clock is rolling.
Finally, once your timed score in RC is consistently around -4, I would suggest adding in the highlighting so that you can try to pick up the last points that you are leaving on the table. Although, since resources are limited, the first couple times you try the highlighting method, I would do it on an old passage. It helped me to do some passages where I already knew where the important details were. This allowed me to focus on my process for applying the highlighting. Then, once it works for you and you've made it your own, bring timing back into it.
I know it sounds like I suggest a lot of untimed work, but I wasted so many PTs by taking them timed when I had no business doing that. You aren't going to be able to develop new skills very well when you are under the pressure from the clock. It is much better to develop "muscle memory" in your brain when you are calm and untimed. After that, just let your mind do what it has already been trained to do when you bring the clock back in.
With respect to your question about a "divide and conquer" strategy for RC, i'm not exactly sure what you mean. Do you mean only trying one strategy at a time? Or, do you mean just focusing on RC and not doing as much work on LR and LG? Sorry, i'm probably being dense (slow learner lol). If you just clarify what you mean by "divide and conquer" I can probably give a better answer.
I hope this helps, thank you for the good questions!
Appreciate your detailed response, @jmarmaduke96! It's a great relief to know retakes serve a very useful purpose in RC (post-PT 36, I sadly have about 7 fresh tests left, and I've already drilled with most of the earlier ones solely for RC, too). I'm generally -1 to -4 on BR for RC, but I do want to try out this structured approach anyways to make sure my reading skills are rock solid. Thank you SO SO much for clarifying the transitions between stages.
You mentioned in the Webinar yesterday to hold the RC passage like a blob, then to apply that to each question. In my mind, that somehow vaguely clicked when I heard it, but I couldn't quite articulate why... Would you say this more a conceptual aid? Or a manifestation of your suggestions above/other strategies you've used (if the latter, could you kindly elaborate?)?
As for "divide and conquer," I meant the RC section as a whole with just an occasional touchup on LR/LG to stay fresh. I'm -3-ish for the other 2 sections, so I know there's still work to be done. But RC is by far the area where I need to earn back the most points. I'm just not sure if this kind of approach is suited to RC and was just wondering if mainly focusing on it for a period of time might have worked for you. Sorry for not being clearer, and thank you!
Hi @jmarmaduke96 thank you so much for sharing your advice and insight! I have a few questions I hope you can help answer:
JY's RC strategy is practicing and perfecting the memory method (https://7sage.com/lsat-reading-comprehension-the-memory-method/), and you mentioned that you fill out the aforementioned template for every passage you BR or retake untimed. Do you execute the steps outlined by the memory method (including reading the passage, writing low res summaries, flipping paper over to recall the summaries, and trying to answer the q'ns in 3.5 mins) before filling out the template, or do you not follow these steps and just proceed to taking the time to read the passage, fill out the template and answer the questions untimed? Before reading this post, I followed a similar template approach that @"Lucas Carter" outlined in a separate post, but I was wondering if I had to execute the memory method steps before taking the time to do so.
Regarding your description of how you highlight the indirect quotes, conditional statements, and details/lines that may not be relevant to the argument, how do you color code them, as to not confuse them with other parts that you highlight (e.g. Main Idea, differing VP's). Personally, I tend to highlight View Point 1 and View Point 2 in different colors to easily distinguish them and not get confused, and key indicators like "traditionally, surprisingly, but/however" because those tend to signify shifts in tone or VP.
Thank you!
@"Lime Green Dot" Absolutely, I was also relieved to know retakes could still be very beneficial. I had used a lot of PTs and I was afraid that those tests had pretty much spent their worth at that point. If you only have 7 fresh PTs left I would be very cautious about how you use them, as im sure you know.
If you are in the -1 to -4 range on BR in RC then you are already doing really well. I think that your plan sounds good as well. Try a couple retakes with the structured approach. If you breeze through them and you aren't having trouble articulately any of the points quickly, then you most likely are dealing with a timing problem.
As far as the idea of "holding the passage in my head like a blob," I think that it was somewhat conceptual and somewhat the culmination of the first two strategies I mentioned. My problem was that I was going through everything on the RC template under timed conditions. I was deliberately articulating to myself the low-res, high-res, main point, etc. The issue is that there just is not enough time to do that, at least not if you are a slow reader like I am.
So, this is where the trust and self-confidence comes in. With the "blob" method, I was still reading the passage in the same way that I used to, but rather than actually saying the main point and everything else to myself, I just formed all of understanding of the passage into a big "blob" in my head and pushed all the questions up against the blob. This way, I was still able to do the same amount of work, but I could do it in less time. I had to work out a system where I was very honest with myself though, because I knew I couldn't let this become a shortcut to poor reading. So, for example, after I finished a difficult paragraph, I might take a quick second to ask myself "If I had the time, could I articulate a decent high-res content/structural summary of what I just read?" If the answer was yes, I would keep moving to save time. It is hard to describe how to know the answer was yes, part of it was just a "feel." However, a big part of it was my highlighting. If I could glance back and see that I had highlighted the things that gave me my roadmap, I knew the odds were good that I had in my head everything that I needed.
With respect to dividing and conquering, I get where you are coming from. I would say that is a good idea. When RC was what was really holding me back I did put the other sections on a back-burner. Fo example, in a normal day during this time I might do a couple logic games and maybe 10 or so LR questions to stay in the groove, but I would spend hours on RC trying to really master the material. I think, based on what you described, that trying something like this might be good. If you are only missing -3 on the other two sections, then you probably are already scoring very well. Bringing RC in line with the other sections through some concentrated and targeted work could really take you to the next level though. What is the difference between your timed and BR scores in RC? Are there particular types of questions or passages that seem to really knock down your score?
Once you try a passage or two untimed with the structured approach, let me know how it goes/how it feels. That will help us to troubleshoot more effectively!
https://media.giphy.com/media/oBPOP48aQpIxq/giphy.gif
Hi @lsatdiva333 im happy to help!
As to your first question, assuming I am understanding correctly, if you are going through and doing untimed work with this structured approach, then I think that you will already be doing most of what is involved in the memory method. In fact, you will be doing more because you will also be taking the time to do the sneak peeks, hook backs, and various other techniques to crystalize your understanding of the passage.
I did start off in my prep with the memory method for RC, it just was not enough to get me scoring where I wanted to score. Like I mentioned earlier, I am a pretty slow reader and can get distracted easily. I needed a more structured approach to keep me engaged with all of the details that I needed to understand to tackle the questions efficiently. The short answer is, I think if you follow this structured method you will probably get the best parts of the memory method anyway. If you want to use the two methods in conjunction, then I would do the memory method first and then try this structured approach.
As to your second question, color-coding sometimes gets interesting since there are many more types of things that I want to highlight than I have colors available. To combat this, I try to keep related ideas in the same color. For example, a list of items or ideas. A passage might say, "the new method of synthesizing this mineral is dangerous, this is for three reasons." I would highlight the first word in each sentence that introduces one of the reasons. These highlights would all be in the same color. In other cases, I try to just keep alternating colors. If I highlighted something in the first sentence yellow, then absent a reason to relate the idea and use the same color, I will use pink in the next line and orange in the line after that. This just gives my brain a cue that these are all important ideas and probably intertwined to some extent, but probably not all parts of some larger whole.
I hope this helps, let me know if I can clarify!
Seriously thank you so much for writing this post. I have been struggling so much with RC and not improving much. I'm going to try your untimed drills to just get comfortable with different RC passage structures.
Thanks so much for writing this! RC is my worst section and I'm hitting it hard before the Jan test. Did you read any non-LSAT material in your preparation? I've heard that some people read dense articles or journals to get used to the feeling of some of the more difficult RC passages. If so, any suggestions?
@jmarmaduke96 So far, so good! I just began implementing the structured approach today, and I am already noticing the single sentences that really make or break you on the hardest Qs. It's eye-opening to know how much I can pretty easily forget. I can really see how the targeted highlighting can come in handy for the final few hardest ones. I will message you about my stats breakdown. No shame in sharing, but not sure if it would be all that helpful for anyone else.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful responses. Believe so many of us our benefitting from your sage advice (pun obviously intended) and detailed explanations of everything. You seriously rock!!
Hey @laurenalexis! I believe on a recent webinar, @jmarmaduke96 mentioned that as part of his job he had regularly read/reviewed court cases. Not sure which ones, though.
In another RC webinar, other tutors have mentioned The Economist, Scientific American, and Arts & Letters Daily (https://www.aldaily.com/ ...it's just a compendium of links to articles, usually in the "humanities" category). There's a limit to the number of articles you can read on these (except A&LD, which just depends on the article link you click on). I have also heard excellent things about the Scrotus blog (https://www.scotusblog.com/) for legal topic practice.
Personally, I've found AEON (https://aeon.co/) to be a great resource, too. Not sure if it's on par with the others, but I think there is a good balance of different topics they cover, and you can freely read as many articles as you want, as far as I know. Also, I've found that the length of their articles tends to be longer like many in-depth SA/Economist articles, which is great practice for maintaining longer-term focus.
Hope this helps!
@FutureLawyer77 No problem, I hope this helps you!
@laurenalexis I did read some non-LSAT material in my preparation that I think helped me, although I did so inadvertently. I work as a research assistant to a professor and we are working on a project dealing with legal history, so I have gotten a lot of exposure to court opinions. Those can be very dense, dry, and rule oriented. If you are interested in a specific area of law, try finding some cases that deal with that area and read them. Don't just read the excerpts that come in casebooks though, I would suggest challenging yourself to actually read and parse a full opinion. If the opinion has a dissent, then every better. Try to actually assess the arguments. Which judge is making more assumption? How would you strengthen the majority opinion to make it better against the dissent? These aren't necessary, but I think that they are fun and helpful exercises. I also think that just about any kind of science writing is very helpful. I have heard good things about the Economist, although I have not read too much of their material myself.
@"Lime Green Dot" Perfect! I am glad to see that you are already seeing results! It was eye opening for me as well.
You and I must have been typing responses at the same time lol. If you are interested in which specific cases I was reading, it was a lot of administrative law. Cases like City of Arlington v FCC, Perez v Mortgage Bankers Association, Auer v Robbins, Kisor v Wilkie, and NCTA v Brand X Internet Service to name a few. I agree with everything you said about reading resources. SCOTUSblog, Scientific American, and the others are fantastic.
Aeon is actually good as well. In fact, one of the RC passages on one of the last PTs that I took in my prep was drawn directly from an Aeon article!
Thank you for taking the time to write this post!
@jmarmaduke96 congrats! Thank you so much for sharing your experiences; this is a great post. I've been frustrated trying to rewire my engineer brain to love and accept the LR and RC sections haha. Will definitely try your tips on improving reading habits. Bookmarked your post to revisit periodically and look forward to the continuation of your post.
A couple questions:
Did you do anything to try to improve reading speed? I'm also a pretty slow reader myself so curious how you handled this.
Have you considered sharing a passage with your highlighting method? Would love to learn how to you think about and break down sections "live" as a few other people posted too.
@swanganie Thank you! im glad you have found it helpful!
As to your first question, I did try things to improve reading speed. They did not work and I do not recommend that anyone else try techniques to read faster. Focus your energy on reading more efficiently and the timing will fall into place after that. Almost always, simply trying to read "faster" will lead to a drop in comprehension. For a section like RC, that can be a death sentence. I ended up just embracing the fact that I am a slow reader and focusing all my energy into reading properly. That way, even if I took 5 minutes to read a passage, I could still answer the questions accurately and finish the section in time.
As to your second question, I do want to show people how my highlighting method works in real time. It is hard though because my understanding is that LSAC does not permit me to show the practice tests and can give me a substantial fine if I do.
However, I am leading a blind review call for the RC section of PT76 starting next Monday. Although I will not be able to show everyone my screen, I can talk in more detail about what I am highlighting and why I am highlighting those sections when we all have the same material in front of us. I hope this works as a stop-gap for now!
@jmarmaduke96 excited to hear about what you're highlighting on the PT76 passages next Monday, and thanks for answering all our questions!
I think practicing the template structured approach would be very helpful, but I'm worried that unconsciously thinking about all of this (low res, structure, organization, tone, etc.) won't be quick/natural during timed practice, especially when the passages are so dense/difficult to understand. Does it get better with lots and lots of untimed practice?
Also, kind of a random q -- but for A/B passages, do you read passage A first then answer the q's then read B then answer the q's, or do you read both passages, jot down a few notes for each, and then answer all the q's at once? I know JY tends to stick to the former, but I tend to do the latter, so I wanted to know what works best for you.
Thank you for this post! I've find it interesting for me
Hi @lsatdiva333 You are right, unconsciously thinking about all of these concepts certainly does not come naturally, nor will it be quick at first. At first it does feel a lot like just fumbling around for these abstract ideas. But I promise it does get better with untimed practice. This is why I think the untimed practice is so important. That is where you get comfortable. That is where you build muscle memory. You will have a very hard time building these automatic reflexes with the clock running and your anxiety up. Rather, when you are timed, you need to be able to let your training take over.
With respect to A/B passages, I always read A first and give the questions a pass, then I read B and finish the questions afterward. If another way works for you, then by all means stick to that. In my experience, I do not keep the information separated as well as I need to if I read both passages before attacking the questions, and my accuracy ends up being subpar.
And im happy to answer any questions, I hope this helps!
thank you @jmarmaduke96 appreciate it!
@jmarmaduke96 thank you so much for this incredibly helpful information! Regarding your template, do you recommend filling it out during BR without re-reading the passage in order to test retention? Is the final goal to be able to mentally fill out this template under timed conditions? I'm towards the end of my studies and like many others, RC is my worst section. I typically score +/- 8 while timed but -0 during blind review. Any tips would be very appreciated.
@a1ex_682 No problem, happy to help!
I think that if you can fill the template out in BR without going back and rereading the passage, then that should absolutely be the goal. If you can do that, then your retention really is top notch. The goal of the template is to get your very familiar with how to do these particular tasks so that you can do then subconsciously while you read. The goal is for you to be able to mentally fill out the template under timed conditions, but without having to stop and think about it. All of the information should just be collected in your head as you read.
I was certainly scoring very similar to you for quite some time. If you are consistently -0 in BR, then the issues do seem to be in your timing. Make sure that you are taking enough time to read the passage properly, that is where the answers are. Moving on to the questions won't help you unless your understanding of the passage is where it needs to be. How do you typically manage your time during an RC section? With a few more details I can probably offer some more targeted advice!
Hello @jmarmaduke96 excellent post and I really appreciate your help with RC. I was wondering how one can check to see if their RC low res and high res summaries are accurate? Thanks!
Thank you for sharing the post! I was personally in need of some helpful ways to study RC since it is something that I should work on in order to reach my goal. That being said, I was wondering if could let me know how you incorporated 'good reading habits' into your studying. It seems like you did most of it untimed first and I was thinking if I could do it timed then to 'good reading habits' during BR. For me, I am currently taking 3 timed PTs every week and I did what was mentioned in good reading habits during BR before revisiting flagged question. Do you think I should focus on doing RC untimed or should I continue with doing it timed and employing good reading habits during BR? Thank you so much for sharing your story and tips! I really appreciate it
I'm usually very pressed for time in RC! It's the only section that I'm unable to do a second or third round. I spend a lot of time on the first passage typically (not intentionally), and am rushing to do the last passage in time.
This week, I've been practicing an untimed "memory method" using your template to build up my retention, and am working towards being able to have this mentally stored during a timed passage. I put most of my work upfront in the passage and read the passage in ~5 minutes and try to complete each question in under a minute, sometimes taking longer for a difficult one which are usually the analogies for me. Since reading your post and attending the zoom sessions, I'm forcing myself to be less reliant on writing notes.
But I think that rushing causes me to misinterpret some information. My highest priority questions in RC are the 1. Recognition - what is stated 2. Inference and 3. Inference - authors perspective.
Hi @"Ozzy Sheikh" there is a little play in the joints, especially with low-res summaries. Different people could have slightly different low-res summaries that are all correct. So as long as you are in the vein of what the paragraph is talking about, then I think that you are in good shape. If you want something to brush your work up against, JY usually mentions low-res/high-res summaries in his explanation videos for the passages. He is obviously the master. There are also several people who scored 170+ that put breakdowns of the passages in the comment section of the videos. Those have low-res and high-res summaries and would be pretty good resources as well.
I hope this helps!
Hi @stmj3467 I did do a lot of untimed work, that is true. Although, I wouldnt use a PT for only untimed work. So I might take the PT or the section timed and then go through everything on blind review. I was trying to practice good reading habits regardless of whether I was on the clock though. In other words, I think that you could do the section timed first (use that to practice your habits as well) and then move on to untimed work. That being said, I would not be taking 3 PTs a week if I were you. Even studying full time, I am skeptical that proper BR work can be done for that much material in only a week. It really is so important to squeeze all the "juice" that you can out of every question, that is where the bulk of the learning is going to come from. I hope this helps! Let me know if I can clarify!
@a1ex_682 Excellent, I am glad you are doing those drills and it sounds like you are on the right track! I agree, RC was always the section I was most pressed on for time as well, I think that is true for most people. RC is just very challenging and also usually has more questions than the other two sections.
I think that you are doing good work by trying to make yourself less reliant on writing notes, particularly during any timed work. Reading each passage in 5 minutes would be a lot (20 minutes total for the four passages) but not necessarily too much. That would still give you 15 minutes for all the questions, which would break down to a little over 30 seconds per question. If you have a really good understanding of the passage, then moving through questions in 30 seconds or less is not unreasonable.
I would agree that rushing certainly can cause me to misinterpret some information as well. That is why it is so important to take our time with the passage. Do you find yourself making less errors of misinterpretation now that you are spending more time on reading the passage?
@jmarmaduke96 Thanks for that. I'll be checking those outlines out to test mine against those.
Hello @jmarmaduke96 , thanks for this. Really quick question, how do you differentiate between "low res content" and "structure" when filling out outline for each paragraph. Apologies in advance if this is an extremely basic q...new to all of this and want to make sure I have it down before i proceed. Thank you in advance!
Hi @austinfauni no problem! The "low-res" should be very focused on the content/subject matter of the paragraph. It should be fairly passage-specific. For example, a good low-res for a paragraph might be "abalone experiment." That gives me an idea of what the paragraph is about. I think that a good low-res should be one or two words that, if I keep asking the question "why" or "what," will give me the high-res for the paragraph. Something like this... low-res = "abalone experiment" okay, why? The abalone experiment was conducted to see if a certain mineral could be extracted from their shells. Okay, why? The mineral is important to use in manufacturing a new type of medicine. Now I have something closer to a high-res, going from my low-res "abalone experiment," all the way to "the abalone experiment was conducted to see if a certain mineral could be extracted from their shells because we need that mineral to create a special type of medicine."
On the other hand, "structure" refers to very high level language that would be applicable to almost all passages. So for structure I would be slapping labels on certain paragraphs, such as "premise," "main point," "context," etc.
I hope this helps, let me know if I can clarify!
Hi @jmarmaduke96 Quick question. Before you started highlighting liberally like you mention in your post, did you write down your low res summaries on a piece of paper when taking preptests under timed conditions or were you able to just keep it all in your head because of the exercises you were doing under untimed conditions?
@jmarmaduke96 you're a goat! TY so much!
Hi @"Ozzy Sheikh" I did not write down anything under timed conditions. I found that it really dramatically increased the amount of time that I had to spend on the passage (I am also a slow writer). I also found that writing things down did not do that much to increase my retention, certainly not after I had been practicing with my templates during BR. In short, I found that it was easier and more efficient to keep everything in my head!
@austinfauni Thank you so much! Happy to help!
@jmarmaduke96 Awesome, thanks for the help. Btw I also found those summaries to compare with mine and its definitely helpful. Thanks a lot for all your help!
@jmarmaduke96 curious if you are planning to do a part 2 of this guide? Every so often, I still revisit this post and the discussions under it; would love to see any followups.
What would you write down for low/high resolution for each paragraph? and thank you for sharing!
Could you elaborate how you found that ~19 qs are low-res, and the next 3-5 are "high-res but not challenging"? did you go thorough a few new RC sections doing this tally?
what qualifies as low-res 19qs, high-res 3-5 qs, and the remaining highest-res? could you give some examples?
I go -5/-7 in the new RC mainly due to timing issues.
what does "editorializing" mean here, could you elaborate? what did you score in official RC if you can share?
@lsat2016 Hi there! Sorry about the long reply, I haven't been able to be as active on the forum as I would like lately. When I spoke of the author editorializing, I meant when they insert their own opinions in an aside or something. For example, a sentence like this: "The scientist's conclusion - if it could be called such - was immediately challenged in the media and forced the research to go on the defensive and come out with a press release." In that example, the bit in between the dashes would be the author editorializing!
As far as how I found out the rough proportion of low res questions etc, I didn't undertake any scientific study. I've done pretty much all the RC sections and in general that seems to be the approximate ratio that I kept running into. The main takeaway for me seemed to be how incredibly few questions were both very high res and very difficult. It was a comforting realization though!
Some examples of general low res questions would be just about any main point, purpose, organization, or tone question
An example of a high res question that is on the easier end would be PT82 Question 12
An example of a harder high res question would be PT82 Question 7
I hope this helps, let me know if I can clarify!
@alexkoo095 Hi there!
So I like to keep my low-res summaries brief. I typically try to make them 1 word, two at the most generally, that I can "unpack" by asking "why" or "what" to get to my high-res summary. The "low-res" summary should also be very focused on the content/subject matter of the paragraph and fairly passage-specific. For example, a good low-res for a paragraph might be "abalone experiment." That gives me an idea of what the paragraph is about. Here is how I might use that to get to the high-res.
Low-res = "abalone experiment" okay, why? The abalone experiment was conducted to see if a certain mineral could be extracted from their shells. Okay, why? The mineral is important to use in manufacturing a new type of medicine. Now I have something closer to a high-res, going from my low-res "abalone experiment," all the way to "the abalone experiment was conducted to see if a certain mineral could be extracted from their shells because we need that mineral to create a special type of medicine."
I hope this helps, let me know if I can clarify!
How long did you spend on Blind Review?