Nicole Hopkins RC Webinar Notes

Shoutouts to @"Nicole Hopkins" for some incredible content here for RC. I know that I've never used an annotation system like this before and look forward to trying it out as I work through the curriculum and dive into RC passages. Highly recommend this webinar as well the one with @"Quick Silver and @DumbHollywoodActor for people who are struggling on RC or want to break through some plateaus. Both do an incredible job explaining RC in a way that really helps you learn the material and we're blessed to have them as resources! Again sorry about the length but I hope this can help some of you out there struggling with RC.

Nicole Hopkins RC Webinar

Contents:
1. Reading Comprehension Overview
2. Strategy: Helping your very-near future-self
3. How (and why to turn the passage into a toolbox
4. Notation Strategy
5. Doing your ONE JOB in Reading Comprehension
6. Implementation

Reading Comprehension Overview: Crash course of the basics of Reading Comprehension along with some timing strategies

What RC Consists of:
• 35 minute section
• 4 separate passages (Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Law, Humanities
• 5-8 Questions per passage
• Total of around 28 questions per section

Should I skip to Passage 3 or Passage 4 since these are more likely to have more questions?
• No you should start with passage 1 and attack accordingly, you want to pick the low hanging fruit, gain confidence/momentum so you can handle the “harder passages”
• You don’t get points for answering harder questions
o Answering only 21 questions and getting them all right scores higher then answering every question and getting 18 right

Should I spend longer on the “harder passages?
• RC is always the same process (process of elimination based on inferences you make while reading/analyzing the passage)
• Do not spend more time on the “harder passages” spend around the same time on all of them
o We don’t want to spend more time on a harder passage because we’d rather re-allocate that time to an easier passage and get more questions right
• In this way it is NOT like LG because the amount of time that you spend on each passage should be close to the same

Timing Breakdown:
• 3-4 minutes to read the passage (3:30 is our sweet spot)
o Remember you’re not trying to read for detail or to analyze, we want to focus on structure and a good annotation system where we know where things are if/when we need to come back to the passage
• 4:45-5:45 to answer 5-8 questions
o Leaves us a maximum of 1:15 per question if we only get 5 questions and around :35 - :45 seconds per question if we have 8 questions in a passage
How do we deal with the issue of time?
• We DO NOT just “read faster”
• We read smarter and we eliminate answers more efficiently with confidence
• We want to approach this like LG where we’re going to set up our “game board” so we can confidently move through the questions quickly

Helping your very near future self: This goes through the method we’re going to use to help efficiently eliminate answer choices

Combination of JY’s Memory Method and Mike Kim’s approach in the LSAT Trainer:
JY’s Memory Method:
• Read the passage
• Make main points for each paragraph and for the entire passage
• Take a few seconds to walk through the main points of the passage in your head
• Confidently eliminate the answer choices and refer to the passage when necessary

Mike Kim’s LSAT Trainer:
• When we read focus on the reasoning structure
• Our goals when we finish reading the passage should be to know the main points and the author’s purpose for writing the passage
• Ask yourself these questions
o What are the main points
o What are the big moving parts
o What are the viewpoints
• Who holds them
• How do they interact
• Why do care about these viewpoints

Broken down even further you should think of the JY’s method as the what we’re actually doing and Mike Kim’s approach as how we’re doing it. So as we read the passage we’re reading for structure very similar to how we’d look at argument forms. We want to know if we stripped away the subject matter what would it look like (introduce topic, offer view against topic, offer view in defense of topic, acknowledge that view for topic is clearly superior). Also while we’re reading we’re stopping at the end of each paragraph to get the main point of the paragraph, this helps the overall structure because we understand how the pieces fit in with each other. Then as we continue reading we look for the different viewpoints throughout the passage. Finally when we get to the end of the passage we should have a main point of the passage, along with ascertaining what the author’s purpose for writing this passage is. If we can do that we’re ready to attack the questions.

Note that having a good process to fix our RC problems are only half the battle, we now need the appropriate tools to be able to do that job and that’s why we have our RC toolbox annotation system

How and Why to turn your passage into a Toolbox:
• We understand that we will not remember all of the details that we’ll read and will most likely have to refer back to the passage
o We also know that we’re under immense time pressure and we want to maximize every second we have
• When we look back at the passage we want to have the passage work for us so we can be quick and efficient and so we have an annotation system

Notation System Overview:
• This is not a magic bullet meaning that doing this will simply put you in a better position to be able to attack the questions but you will still have to put the time and work into making this work
• It is perfectly okay to not use these exact symbols you want to make your notation system reflective of you and work for you
o Certain things people use as notation don’t work for others
o The important thing is what you annotate (main point, structure, etc.) not how the things are annotated
• Think about this: If this notation system saves you 2 seconds per question this could be the time it takes to allow you to answer 1- 2 more questions overall

Notation Strategy:
Keys: When doing this we’re looking for 5-6 distinct categories of details that we can easily distinguish immediately so that you can refer back to the passage without wasting precious seconds
• Who
• What
• When
• Where
• Pivots
• Questions Asked or Issues Raised

The Who: Proper nouns (Bill Smith)
• Mark with a BOX around the name, actor, agent, etc.
• Proper nouns (Bill Smith)
• Some scientists (Always Box the Quantifier!!!)
• Mainstream historians
• Grass Spiders (animals)
• Hydrogen/Oxygen (because they’re doing something to something else

Do not forget to box the quantifier because it allows you to eliminate so many answer choices is the passage says “some are” and answer choices says “most are”

The When: Certain Date or time that something occurred (1776)
• Mark with a Circle around the date, period or temporal term
• Until recently
o Unless you’re told that this is a recent thing or that something is currently going on, you can’t infer recently
• Since the 1950’s
• In the Middle Ages
• In recent decades

Sometimes helps where if it says before/after X and you can tie it in with exactly what X is being able to visually connect the two ideas could help save you some time. Whether it be a line or arrows being able to connect them so you don’t have to spend time finding the other could save you a few seconds

The What: Any term or phrase defined or used in a specified way, or any defined hypothesis/theory that is defined
• When something is defined, usually an embedded clause that we read without and then with afterwards
• We box the term and then underline the definition or pointing to an underlined definition if in another line
o “Box with a tail”

The Where: “In what context”
• Put brackets around it [ ]
• Geographic locations [Mali]
• Experimental context [a recent study]
• Works/Books/Symphonies [Homeward Bound]
• Other locations [in the arteries]

Context will vary subject matter to subject matter

The Pivots: Used when the author is switching between different viewpoints
• Marked with an arrow without a stem in the margin (>)
• “But”, “however”, “in spite of this”

Very helpful in figuring out argumentative structure and is very often tested on in questions
• Way to signify different views and helps you understand the flow of the passage, extremely helpful in seeing the MP of the passage

Issues & Questions:
• Any time an issue is raised or something is presented use a star
• Any time a question is posed use a “Q” margin
• You don’t have these in every passage but when you do have them it helps see the flow of the passage

Doing your ONE JOB: Your job in RC is NOT to “understand” the passage. It’s to comprehend the passage only enough to eliminate 4 wrong answer choice for each question
• This isn’t Reading Understanding this is Reading Comprehension
• You are going to be relying on process of elimination and you’ll get answer choices that you don’t like but you’ll have to circle
o This is why this is so important to be confident when eliminating answer choices

Read it, notate it, and attack the questions!

Implementation:
• Practice this notation strategy on a few RC sections you’ve taken before trying it out on a fresh PT/section
• Focus on eliminating answer choices with those hammers you pick up from the passage. If the AC says “most scientists” and you’ve only got two “some scientists” that AC is smashed
• The goal is for this to be muscle memory and make this automatic!

Random Q&A:
1. Should I rely on process of eliminate every question?
a. You are always using process of elimination on the LSAT, this is no different from LG or LR. When in doubt use process of elimination.
2. When you have the whole page marked for the Who/What/etc. with limited time how can you answer questions?
a. Use parts of answer choices that you know you annotated and can thereby confirm or eliminate answer choices
b. Even though you have lots of annotation symbols and potential for things to be marked each one is distinct so you can quickly find information you need
3. How do I BR a passage?
a. I always practice BR on a fresh sheet of it
b. Write why you have answer choices got wrong
c. Before you check your answer choice do a BR
d. Confirm the answer with line references because it will be supported by something in the passage
4. I’m missing more now on recent tests what I can I do to help?
a. You need to hone in on words that make the answer choices unsupported
i. Don’t want an answer choice to be so strong
ii. Rely on process of elimination and you see the tricks that the LSAT makers give
5. Do you make multiple reads through?
a. Read through once and notate and then you do your walkthrough in your brain of what everything is saying and how it fits and then attack the questions.
6. How do you attack the weird analogy questions?
a. Think about the analogy questions very similar to conform to the principle/parallel reasoning etc.
b. Looking for an answer choice that conforms to the same principle because you want to look at that part of the passage and say okay, what is the role/rule/function in this. What is the critical part that’s in play right now.
7. What would you advise for someone who has lots of fluctuation?
a. Are there outside factors that varied?
b. Look at the subject matter and not allow the subject matter to dictate how well you’re engaged.
8. Should you use the same thing for comparative passages
a. Yes, and the only other markings will be boxing something that both of them talk about and connecting it with a line throughout the passage
9. How do you drill RC?
a. Depends on where you are in your prep, how many are you missing, why are you missing questions?
i. If you’re RC performance is suffering from poor habits, spinning your wheels, over inferring, bringing in outside information, only focusing on part of the passage, then drilling a bunch actually will make it worse.
ii. An option to see how your habits are lining up, 7sage BR calls are incredible and talk to people on the call
b. Always do it timed to see how long it takes for you to read
10. How do you focus on the passage structure if you don’t understand what the passage is asking about?
a. Focus on the words that you do know, focus on the pivot points and proper nouns and inferences that you can make, this will help you be able to move forward
b. Just by notating effectively you’re giving yourself a chance to eliminate answers
c. Remember that you don’t need to understand the subject matter to get the question right, we’re training to be lawyers not subject matter experts