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Comments
No, you can't.
In my experience, the fact that English is not your native language has nothing to do with performance on RC. Most native speakers struggle with RC to a great degree.
@kseniia.melnikova Constantine is correct. Unfortunately, you are not allowed to speak out loud, mumble or mouth words to yourself as LSAC may flag this for cheating. See The LSAT Experience — What to Expect on Test Day. This issue is addressed at 51:25 -53:00.
Umm.
@"kseniia.melnikova" Constantine is correct about the test rule.
Constantine is very much mistaken, however, to suggest that the fact you are not a native speaker has no impact on your LSAT performance. I've worked with dozens of ESL students and hundreds of native speakers, and it absolutely has an impact. They are fully surmountable, but there are challenges ESL students face that most native speakers do not. To suggest otherwise is deeply misguided. So don't feel discouraged. You will have some additional challenges to face down, but treat them just like any of the others. Address the problem, workshop the solution, and practice the implementation. You got this.
Josh, thanks for the opportunity to elaborate and continue a discussion on the topic.
You are a legend (see AMA 7Sager Can't Get Right), but you can be wrong.
I got hurt by advice based on the intuitive assumption that "challenged ESL students face that most native speakers do not." The assumption can be right, but what it entails is a huge problem. That's why this is important to me.
What challenges can you elaborate on, please? But what about the advantages? I don't deny the challenges, but there are no consequences for how we should study as a group. Can you make a separate class for native speakers and ESL; no, you can't.
English is my third language, and I have perfected my RC with 1/10 of the time and effort I spent on LG (which is far from perfect). And I also helped a few dozen ESL and native students (see, for example, the last two comments here: https://7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/comment/163671
My point is, "forget that you are ESL; study like anyone else."
In my essentially logical reasoning argument, I deny that there is a direct cause-and-effect relationship between a person being ESL and performance on RC:
"The fact that English is not a student's native language has nothing to do with performance in a reading comprehension section." According to the second definition, "to do with" means .... especially to be (partly) responsible for.
According to you, If I have mistakes on RC, some were directly caused by me being a non-native speaker. No, they were caused by me not inferring the main point, on which side of the debate author, etc.
Here, I repeat my overall point in other words: Dear ESL, don't be discouraged, don't think that if you made a mistake and missed a must be true question on RC, it is because you are ESL; it is because you didn't see the author's assumption and/or didn't negate answer chose, etc. Forget that you are ESL; study like anyone else!
Thanks for clarifying, and I think we're mostly on the same page actually. What I was taking issue with was with was what I was interpreting as some really absolute language from the first comment: that it has "nothing" to do with it. It's just a lot more complicated than that. For some students, that is true, but it isn't for others, and that shouldn't be swept under the rug where it is relevant.
I can fully agree to the assertion that it doesn't matter at all whether someone is ESL or a native speaker. What matters is proficiency in Contemporary Standard American English. Anything I say about ESL students as a group is due to the inevitable correlation in lower proficiency. The average native speaker begins with a meaningful advantage over the average non-native speaker. That advantage is not universal and it can be, and routinely is, overcome. But the LSAT is even more a test of language than it is of logic, and there is just no working around that. So I can definitely concede to all of your points which hinge on that distinction. This will have a disproportionate impact on ESL students though. However, we should not mistake correlation for cause, so we should not presume to equate "ESL" with "low English proficiency." This distinction is really important, so your point on that is well taken.
In fact, I have found that ESL students with the highest levels of English language proficiency routinely outpace native speakers due to the benefit of having formally studied language. Native speakers may be naturally fluent, but most Americans never study language in any real, formal sense. For that reason, the most highly fluent ESL students typically have a decisive advantage over native speakers. Their high English proficiency is less arbitrary and better informed, and that translates to LSAT success. So with this group, especially, your point is particularly well made.
But not all ESL students are in this group. Many who are proficient still struggle on the cusp of achieving true fluency. We can't treat everyone like the highest performers. I have often gone outside of LSAT resources to assign much more robust grammar work to students with lower English proficiency when we diagnose that as a significant problem.
The one thing I take a bit of issue with are some of the implications of your point numbers 5 and 7. The LSAT just isn't as simple as how you're presenting it here, and some of the more complex things beyond these points are exactly the kinds of things that snag students with lower levels of English proficiency. Things like the main point, author's perspective or assumption, negation--these are important to be able to do and typically don't have much to do with language proficiency. But you're addressing the tip of the iceberg here. It's the stuff beneath the surface that holds most driven students back: compound subordinate clauses, noun phrases, modal auxiliaries, passive voice, references and referents, determiners. These are a few common language and grammatical problems the LSAT loves to exploit, and they very frequently underly the sorts of misunderstandings you are referencing. The students who perform the best are the ones who can best cope with these sorts of things, and language proficiency has a direct correlation to this ability.
So, TL;DR: I think we're mostly on the same page on all the most important points here, and I appreciate your clarification and elaboration. Language proficiency--not native/non-native speaker status--is what actually matters.
thank you all for your comments!
At the risk of getting undertow, let me jump in on this.
@Constantine I sympathize with, and find commendable, your "forget that you are ESL; study like anyone else" argument, but some of your points are invalidating and arrogant.
I was confused by your first point. You say:
I do not understand how an ESL student can be hurt by learning that they may face challenges that most native speakers do not. In fact, this is not only intuitively correct--this is a reality for ESL speakers in the US. It is beyond contestation that ESL speakers face a whole battery of challenges that native born speakers do not. If needed, I will provide examples of these challenges.
Do you take issue with this because you think that admitting that ESL speakers face challenges that most native born speakers do not make them somehow less than native born speakers? I encourage you to see how accepting this challenge and overcoming it highlights the resiliency of ESL speakers. There is a strawman here, and I apologize for it, but I seek to understand your desire to combat this point.
Also, you never specify how you were hurt by this assumption.
Can you elaborate on what advantages you are speaking about here? I'm curious about what advantages there are to being an ESL speaker taking an examination that very finely tests your understanding of Standard Written English.
In the US, we have a separate class for native speakers and ESL.
Do you mean that we do not have a separate LSAT class for native speakers and ESL? Surely, not here on 7Sage, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were classes or tutors that specialize in getting ESL students prepared for the LSAT. Overall, a very confusing statement.
I will stop here because @"Cant Get Right" does a better job than I can at addressing your later points.
In conclusion, as you said,
@LSAT_Athlete We kept this discussion civil btw. Why do you call me arrogant? I don't even know you. Why are you labeling me? Are you going to be a lawyer?
@Constantine No offence was meant, so if any was taken, I apologize.