A couple days ago I posted some tips on how I went from 150 to 177, with a focus on LR (here it is: https://www.reddit.com/r/LSAT/s/MEvolUfYrY)
Today, I want to share the tips that helped me most with RC.
Before I do that, I want to make one thing clear: RC is learnable! It is not a test of raw comprehension ability, and your diagnostic score does not necessarily indicate your potential.
With that said, here are some of the changes I made that helped me get to -0/-1 on RC.
- ACTIVE READING (YES, AGAIN!)
Active reading is important for LR, but it's absolutely central to RC. 90% of the work is done in your reading of the passage. If you have a full understanding of the passage, you should be able to handle the questions much more easily.
What does active reading look like in RC?
a) Making predictions about the passage (e.g. “I think this is setting up a view the author will argue against. Let's see!”) or asking questions about the passage (e.g. “Why is the author suddenly talking about polymers?”). Making predictions keeps you actively involved in the text. It forces you to think about what you are reading instead of glazing over it.
b) Thinking about the relationship between sentences. Is this building? Pivoting? Challenging? Not only does having this mindset improve your memory and understanding, it helps you get a mental map of the passage.
c) Rephrasing things in your own words. You might be able to kind of understand the meaning of “multitudinous proletarians invocate abstention towards commodities contrived via prodigious establishments,” but you're more likely to retain and comprehend it if you rephrase it as “lots of workers don't want to buy stuff from greedy businesses.”
D) Watching out for referential language like “this,” “these,” “such,” etc. If you don't, you can get lost very easily. So in your head, connect that language back to its referent.
It's very common for students to think they're actively reading when, in reality, they are just passively reading. As a tutor, I do an RC exercise where I have students read out the passage AND verbalize their thoughts.
You would be surprised how few of them verbalize more than one or two thoughts!!!!!
Once I make them aware of this and train them to be constantly thinking about relationships and putting complex ideas into their own words, they comprehend the passage much better and much more efficiently.
Even if you don't have a tutor or any LSAT study buddies, I recommend reading passages out loud and verbalizing your thoughts so that you can see just how passive your reading may be.
- USE VIEWPOINT-FIRST LANGUAGE
RC is, ultimately, about tracking different people's opinions and arguments. However, in their focus on details and examples, students often lose sight of who a viewpoint belongs to.
Too often, when I'm tutoring RC, I will hear a student summarize a passage as “they are saying xyz” or “the argument is abc.”
The problem is, they're completely missing who that viewpoint belongs to! Is it the author? Critics? French biologists?
By the end of the passage, such students are often unable to say which view belongs to whom. Consequently, they are unable to understand the main point or author's tone and are destined to struggle with those kinds of questions.
The solution is viewpoint-first thinking.
That means instead of “they are saying” or “it's arguing,” we say “the author is saying” or “French biologists are arguing.”
Make a habit of this, whether you're just rephrasing things in your head, summarizing a paragraph, or speaking aloud.
Doing this prevents you from getting lost and keeps you locked in on what matters most.
- MAKE MINI SUMMARIES OF EACH PARAGRAPH
This is pretty standard advice, but what does that actually look like?
First, the mini summaries need to be mini — ideally under 20 words.
Second, if there is a viewpoint, the mini summary needs to refer to that viewpoint.
Third, the mini summary needs to refer to what the paragraph is doing, e.g. adding evidence, challenging, giving an example.
For example, a mini summary might look like:
“Author challenges Lamarck theory w/ example of puffin”
OR
“French biologist's view outlined: X disease is hereditary”
Mini summaries are important because they help us build a map of the passage, synthesize the most important information, and improve retention.
Everyone should be making passage summaries, either mentally or on paper.
- IF YOU GET LOST, EITHER ZOOM OUT OR SCROLL UP!
Let's say you have no idea what a specific sentence means. What do you do?
You probably try reading it again and again until you get it. But that doesn't always work, and it's not the most efficient.
Instead, what you should do is zoom out and think about the main point/idea of the passage. Since the sentence you're struggling with probably has to do with the main idea, let that guide you to an understanding of the sentence.
Let's use an example:
We know the passage is arguing that early environmental laws were actually designed to protect economic interests, not the environment itself.
So if I get stuck on a sentence about a particular law, I don't need to reread it five times. I can zoom out and ask: How does this fit into the author's argument?
If the author's point is that these laws served economic interests, then this sentence probably gives an example of that — or explains how the law did so.
And if that doesn't work, scroll up to the previous sentence or paragraph.
Oftentimes, RC passages will introduce an idea and then, in the next sentence or paragraph, explain it again in new words. Use that knowledge to help you recover when lost.
Let's use another example:
Suppose the previous sentence introduced the idea that Nolan films are blockbusters without an emotional core, and suppose the difficult sentence says:
“Nolan's commercialism, thus, offers plenty of fanfare but offers little depth in the way of interrogating the singular situation of his protagonist.”
What do we do?
Well, we scroll up to the previous sentence, realize that our difficult sentence is just fleshing that idea out, and read it in light of that.
Every passage, paragraph and sentence has a purpose. Use the purpose to guide you when lost!
OK, I FIGURE I HAVE GONE ON LONG ENOUGH.
I have also developed strategies for answering questions without returning to the passage every time and step-by-step processes for dealing with different kinds of answer choices. I also like to tackle comparative passages in a very particular way. I would like to make a post on this eventually but for now I don't want to swamp you with too much information.
LASTLY: If you're interested in tutoring, I have very limited availability remaining. Feel free to DM me.
If not, please try out this advice; I think it will serve you very well! If you could only use one strategy suggested here it would be the reading aloud exercise.
