suggest sources for RC practice materials in humanities Forum

[chewdak]

other than Economist, NYT, Atlantic, WSJ, and New Yorker.
I would like more practice reading about humanities, social sciences, and law written from various critical or ideological positions, similar in style and length to LSAT passages.

[VasaVasori]

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[chewdak]

I have particular trouble with art, literature, and history passages, so I went through my university's databases of primary literature in these fields and started reading. The passages are remarkably similar to those on the LSAT. I know everyone recommends all those journals and what not, but I like this better. I went and printed off 500 pages of material in these fields, so there's little chance of me ever running out, and you know it's all going to be at least as dense as LSAT material will be.

The disadvantage, of course, is that all of these articles are substantially longer than LSAT passages. One thing I found very useful is searching for these fields, with the word "response" added. You get passages that are approximately the length of an LSAT passage, are condensed like an LSAT passage, and are arguments, like LSAT passages. (Such a search will bring up articles featuring people in the field submitting response articles to one another, so it's essentially just an argument. I've been printing out several of these responses and reading them in sequence, then summarizing them in my head and comparing my summary to their abstracts (for those that have abstracts... humanities writing seems to have substantially less abstracts that scientific writing).

Thanks.
I went searching online for something like an academic database you suggested which led to online cultural criticism journals such as http://www.othervoices.org/ and http://logosjournal.com/
The book reviews are especially a good fit lengthwise.

[PigBodine]

I don't have much of a philosophy background, so working through some of the complicated arguments in some of the articles on http://plato.stanford.edu/ helped me a lot, I think. I ended up with a -0 on the real deal, though that was after a lot of practice with various approaches to the section. gl!~

[bruss]

If you want a challenge read some of Hegel's work. Gl

[banjo]

The book reviews are especially a good fit lengthwise.

Book reviews are the best for RC practice. If you google BMCR you can pretty much read thousands of them (most about the ancient world in some fashion) without logging into a database.

[chewdak]

Book reviews are the best for RC practice. If you google BMCR you can pretty much read thousands of them (most about the ancient world in some fashion) without logging into a database.

This is a find. Thank you.

[LexLeon]

I think it's best not for you to find reading material most similar in structure and content to that of the LSAT, but that which is of the densest possible nature while still being of interest to you.

One might encounter Cartesian philosophies on the LSAT, but never Cartesian philosophy. I feel, however, that reading for fun and with the intent to understand such philosophy will increase your reading comprehension skills, notwithstanding that its form differs greatly from that of any passage.

My advice: Read for its own sake, not for the goal of increasing your reading comprehension score. You should (?) feel the desire to read something as awesome as the Euthyphro, anyway.

[chewdak]

I think it's best not for you to find reading material most similar in structure and content to that of the LSAT, but that which is of the densest possible nature while still being of interest to you.

One might encounter Cartesian philosophies on the LSAT, but never Cartesian philosophy. I feel, however, that reading for fun and with the intent to understand such philosophy will increase your reading comprehension skills, notwithstanding that its form differs greatly from that of any passage.

My advice: Read for its own sake, not for the goal of increasing your reading comprehension score. You should (?) feel the desire to read something as awesome as the Euthyphro, anyway.

I find certain LSAT passage topics not very interesting, and maybe even questionable. My hope is to develop more of a taste and tolerance through exposure to various subjects.

[PigBodine]

No encyclopedia article about phenomenology could ever possibly be worse than exposing yourself to free market think tank bilgewater like the economist, honestly.

[chewdak]

No encyclopedia article about phenomenology could ever possibly be worse than exposing yourself to free market think tank bilgewater like the economist, honestly.

I've enjoyed the economist technology and science columns. Even when I disagree with some of the political reviews I find them clearly written, often with a sort of impish charm. To make my way through a phenomenology article I would need to learn to analytically digest it, rather than enjoy the familiarity of economist style.

[MLBrandow]

The book reviews are especially a good fit lengthwise.

Book reviews are the best for RC practice. If you google BMCR you can pretty much read thousands of them (most about the ancient world in some fashion) without logging into a database.

banjo,

I just want to also thank you for this recommendation. These reviews are great and many are actually quite interesting. Further (and perhaps most importantly) they do have a similar feel to RC passages.

Thanks again!

[chewdak]

Found some quality online reading links in this HH thread comments: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3604907

[AEIOU]

The Road to Serfdom by Hayek is a good book to read to prep. Anything economic or philosophical is usually good for prepping for RC because the content is complex and often similar in style to passages on the LSAT. There is also the additional benefit of learning about these subjects.