Reading Comprehension improvement through Washington Post Forum

[06132010]

I honestly think that if you have not done a lot of reading in your life, you're not going to do well on RC. I don't think you can fix it in a few weeks, or even a few months, reading a newspaper.

I never read for leisure when I was younger and I did pretty sexily.

[h4rryp0tter]

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[MentalGopher]

I can tell you right now that the Post does not write stories at a college level. Not that the editorial team couldn't write at that level, but the vast majority of Americans do not read at that level. When I was taking journalism classes we were taught to write at about an 8th to 10th grade level. We were not supposed to use complex sentence structre, and even compound sentences are generally avoided. To think that the Post, or any other newspaper, is written at a level even comparable to what you will find on the LSAT reading comprehension secion is laughable.

Which J-school did you go to? I went to one for three years before getting the hell out for a degree that didn't make me want to kick small children and puppies. They made us write at around the sixth grade reading level.

Agreed on the Post not being comparable to the LSAT reading comp, though. I'd say the New York Times is maybe at the ninth grade reading level at best and The Economist approximates a post-high school reading level.

[LateNight]

Maybe he is reviewing for the 6th grade achievement test and ended up at the wrong forum. It would explain a lot.