HELP, keeping on getting -14 for reading comprehension

Comments

• 2 Likes

  snowcap007 Member

  October 2022 180 karma

  You should give RC Hero a chance if you haven’t. It’s really helped me so far
• 3 Likes

  ---Sol--- Member

  October 2022 52 karma

  Of course there are no magic recipes, and I am by no means saying that this is an absolute, but the following has helped me:
  1) Ditch social media. It trains you to un focus.
  2) Ditch series. They foster passiveness on your brain.
  3) All that extra time you now have? Read a novel and practice not turning your attention off each time for a little longer.
  Improving your focus should help you a lot. Once you have achieved this, you can start polishing your abilities based on the types of question you are prone to miss.
• gurpreetk35 Alum Member

  October 2022 196 karma

  @snowcap007 said:
  You should give RC Hero a chance if you haven’t. It’s really helped me so far

  hey how long did you use the service for? Im taking the november lsat
• 1 Like

  u______u Alum Member

  October 2022 233 karma

  Based on what I've learned tutoring SAT Reading, I've found that people who struggle with RC typically fall into two camps: you have poor comprehension, or you have poor test taking skills. "Oh, but that's the SATs and that's way easier than the LSAT," you might think. I disagree. You can apply the exact same skills to approach any reading comprehension test.

  Let me preface this by saying that the camps operate on a spectrum. That means it's more like "how poor is your comprehension" or "how poor are your test taking skills" rather than a flat "yes" or "no." The higher you are on each respective spectrum, the worse off you're likely to be. Ideally, you want to be low in both areas to really do well on RC. So think of the camps mentioned above as two factors that are both required to do well on RC, and diagnose which camp you fall into by identifying which of the two you are weaker at.

  I'll also say that I believe comprehension are less important than test-taking skills are. But first, what are test taking skills? Skills in this category include but aren't limited to: elimination--the most important of all skills-- skipping questions that waste time, and not forcing answers that aren't supported by the passage, i.e. making assumptions. The reason why this is the case is due to the nature of the what a "standardized test" is. Simply, tests of this nature need to have only one clearly correct answer lest people riot and complain about unfairness on the part of the testmakers. That means, you always have 4 answer choices that are wrong in one way or another. Even with a limited understanding of the passage, you can fairly reliably eliminate your way to the correct answer. So how do you even begin to eliminate answers when you don't really understand the passage? The worst thing you can do at this point is to start making wild assumptions to justify answer choices. Never force your justification upon the answer. What you're essentially doing then is changing what the passage says. The correct answer will always be fully supported by the passage alone and will never require you to make some extraneous inference. When you're analyzing answer choices to eliminate them, always refer back to what you know about the passage, even if your understanding of the passage is wrong. Consistency in your process is much better than having no basis for why you do things. You must be very critical with answer choices: even one word can make it incorrect.

  The reason why comprehension matters less than test taking skills hinges on my assumption that everyone taking this test has the ability to at least identify the main ideas and the overall structure of the passage. If you can't, then I don't really know what else to prescribe than to go learn how to read. Go learn about how paragraphs are structured, what topic sentences are, how key words like "however" and "but" indicate a shift in idea, etc. Some might even suggest familiarizing yourself with various "frameworks" that certain passages in certain categories most frequently utilize. For instance, the humanities love to have passages that talk highly about how great this person is or how great their achievements are, etc. Knowing what kind of passage you're dealing with can provide you with a list of expectations that should arise within the passage. Anyways, the reason why comprehension actually matters less is that once you begin answering the questions, holes in your comprehension should slowly be filled. Maybe you were confused about the author's stance on a matter. A "what would the author most likely agree with" question might help you get a firmer grasp of what that stance could be. Anyways, unless you have supreme comprehension, you're always going to leave the passage feeling slightly confused. That's why test taking skills are more important.

  -14 is a lot of questions to get wrong. I suggest you take a minute to diagnose your actual weaknesses before applying a bandaid solution to your problems. Also, have you tried solving the passages with unlimited time? See how you fare then. Ideally, you want to be able to get everything correct with unlimited time. If you can't, you definitely have holes somewhere.
• 1 Like

  legalhottie Live Member

  October 2022 11 karma

  a big mistake I made was writing notes. it eats time, and it doesn't really provide you real understanding of the passage. this is a section you're going to have to learn to strengthen your reading muscle, no matter if u currently struggle with that. have faith that you'll get better with practice.

  each passage, engage with it. make predictions, even if they're random or u find out later its wrong. building engagement with the passage and use ur imagination! that gives u a mental note of the structure. it also makes it less boring.

  I like to ask myself each passage what the author's views are. authors VP are really common questions. I also take a quick glance at the questions before I start reading and highlight any lines that the questions want me to pay special attention to.

  I do like to make quick notes of the structure of each paragraph. example: P1: background info. P2: problem presented. P3: counterargument. P4: problem resolution, conclusion. this is key when a question asks u to refer to a line or a word. thats what helps u define them in accordance to the issue of each paragraph.

  I recommend practice a section a day and blind review. this is how u figure out what problems ur struggling with and how to better fix that. the more practice u get, the more u recognize patterns and build strategy. hope this helps
• snowcap007 Member

  October 2022 edited October 2022 180 karma

  @gurpreets35 said:

  @snowcap007 said:
  You should give RC Hero a chance if you haven’t. It’s really helped me so far

  hey how long did you use the service for? Im taking the november lsat

  I’m not through the entire curriculum yet, but I’ve had the prerecorded bootcamp for around two weeks! I think you could benefit from it substantially for November if you’re able to dedicate a good portion of time to it. In any case, it is a great service and if you need more time to get RC down (many do!) there is no harm or shame in postponing or retaking the exam. A few point difference could mean the difference between an A or R come law school apps! It could also mean the difference between getting $$ or not.