Top Law Schools

Got a hold of the LSAT review DVD by video aided instruction from my campus library. I was a bit skeptic about the content, but so far it has potential.

Some notes I took:

to prepare for the reading comprehension, dedicate at least 30 minutes a day on reading intellectual magazines or journals. The most common topics in the LSAT RC are:
- Humanities (art, painting, writer reviews)
-Social sciences
-Natural sciences
- Law

Recommended reading material
Humanities: The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The New Yorker Book Reviews.
Social Sciences: Foreign Affairs, Smithsonian, Psychology today. (I'll personally recommend The Economist too)
Natural sciences: Scientific American, Natural something (didn't write the whole name)
Law:ABA Journal, Law Practice, Criminal Justice

Although the material is dense(high ratio of facts to words), the complex vocabulary usually has clues around the passage to suggest their meaning, so concentrate on your reading comprehension instead of learning new words.

It is suggested you take 8-9 minutes per passage,
easy ones might be possible in 7 minutes
harder ones, 10 minutes at most

While reading and after reading, stay alert to what is the author trying to convey?;
what facts, examples, statistics, illustrations, or other information did the author use;
how did he organized the material? It organizational structure.

They introduce the 3 step method for RC:
previewing, active reading, and reviewing.

previewing: 30 seconds! skim through the text or read the first sentence of every paragraph and the last one of every paragraph.

Why read the first and last sentence of every paragraph,
the instructor quoted a psychological study: "when students know something about a topic before they study it, they understand and retain more."

active reading, very intesively and dig out all the information efficiently.
-main idea of passage
-main idea paragraph. An idea that helps build the main idea. topic sentences should be marked.

structure of the passage. first, middle, last. what makes it flow?

Here's a list of the usual structures of the passage:

-main idea of the passage plus examples
-comparison/contrast: two things, events, people, or ideas will be discussed and their similarities and differences will be highlighted
- chronological order: events in sequence. cause and effect sequence.
-pro/con: two or more points of views. advantages/disadvantages.