Voyager's RC Strategy Forum

[Think_lax86]

Just tried this, I really like this strategy... I took kaplan and this tweeks it a bit and makes it more clearer for some reason... Thanks

[Voyager]

Heh. Glad it helped. Wrote this stuff years ago.

The approach requires a great deal of practice... once mastered it should be very fast and very accurate.

[Think_lax86]

Voyager

seeing how this was written "years ago" do you have any revisions or any further advice on how to take down the monster we call reading comprehension?

[hopscotch]

I tried writing stuff down on test day. It does not work. It just leaves less time to do the questions. I was trying to perfect my RC and made it worse by following the RC bibles advice. Before i use to just read the passage and answer the questions with no marks.

I would usually 25/28 or 24/27. The questions i would miss would usually be a detail question that i could not find in the passage.

I bought the RC bible. They basically tell you to mark everything. On test day i did. Did terrible on RC. I was not understanding the reading but more attacking. I do better when i just read. Writing things down takes away from my focus. I was the same way in school. When i was writing notes i would not understand what the teacher was saying until i got home and read the notes.

This is a ridiculous statement. Why on earth didn't you test to see how that method would work? Did you take PTs and try it?

[FutureApplicant]

You don't seem like a very likable person..

If you were in the brown reading group in 2nd grade, thought reading books and writing papers was for "dorks" in high school, graduated from some shit-hole college (anything with the word "state" in the title, for example) or any combination of the previous, you will have a difficult time with the LSAT.

This part kinda pissed me off. It's a weird combination of academic elitism and an utterly illogical, unsupportable and unintelligent statement.

+1

[FutureApplicant]

Agreeing further with some of the other comments on this thread:

although Voyager's RC strategy is probably perfectly effective if well practiced, the combination of insults,

"Most people have the attention span of 3rd graders. Yes, this includes you"..."graduated from some shit-hole college (anything with the word "state" in the title, for example)",

profanity,

"Do not f*** this up",

and unbridled arrogance,

"(and I got 100% on the games... why does that matter? It doesn't, I just like telling you)"

detract significantly from what could otherwise have been a high quality post.

[BigA]

Have many people that started using this method gotten worse before they got before they got better? I tried margin notations for the first time today, and I had almost no time left for the last section. Ended up with my worst RC performance yet.

I'm kind of like that too. Whenever I practice with a system like this, I fall behind and have to go quicker through the last 2 passages. So I've basically given up on this. Is it normal for it to hinder your speed for a while?

[Anaconda]

Trying this out. First time got a 20/27 in 41 minutes. I'd like to get RC down to -3 or -4.

EDIT: tried it again, and this time got 22/27 in 39 minutes, going -3, -2, -0, -0 on the four passages (in order). It certainly seems to help me understand the passages much better. 3 I got wrong were inference question. I'm going to continue using this method, maybe buy the RCB or other book, so I can understand the trick answers and question types.

[Audio Technica Guy]

this is 95% what Princeton Review has been teaching for nearly 7 years.

[Audio Technica Guy]

Have many people that started using this method gotten worse before they got before they got better? I tried margin notations for the first time today, and I had almost no time left for the last section. Ended up with my worst RC performance yet.

I'm kind of like that too. Whenever I practice with a system like this, I fall behind and have to go quicker through the last 2 passages. So I've basically given up on this. Is it normal for it to hinder your speed for a while?

yes, it is normal that when you try something new you aren't very good at it for a while. Especially with RC, where students are very attached to their "natural" method.

[Anaconda]

this is 95% what Princeton Review has been teaching for nearly 7 years.

Do you think this is a good strategy or do you think there are more effective methods?

[Audio Technica Guy]

this is 95% what Princeton Review has been teaching for nearly 7 years.

Do you think this is a good strategy or do you think there are more effective methods?

It's a good basic strategy, I tend to refine it a bit more. I probably skim more than he does. Like if a sentence says "the evidence shows.." and then goes on to list the evidence, I will mark what the evidence shows and then quickly skim what the actual evidence is (because it's usually just details, which I'll come back to if a question asks about them anyway). Whereas, as best I could tell he reads and underlines the evidence.

I also think over half of RC is proper process of elimination strategy. On most types of questions there are 3 different types of wrong answers: Out of left field, contradicts the passage/goes wrong direction and right direction but too strong. Really picking up on that, I think, makes a bigger difference than properly annotating the passage.

I also don't really like writing the main idea of each paragraph out if a sentence clearly sums it up. I just will put the main idea of that paragraph in brackets and maybe make an arrow pointing to it that says PI (for paragraph idea, as opposed to MI for main idea). I only write the paragraph's main idea out if no sentence adequately sums it up.

[Anaconda]

Just flat out bombed a RC section (prep test 10): 14/21 (only got to 3 passages) in 35 minutes. Got one reading passage entirely correct, but got -4, -3 on the other two. I've never done this poorly (or slowly) on RC before.

Edit: Did the last RC passage and got 3/6 - for a total of 17/27 in 45 min- not very good....

[bubc]

You don't seem like a very likable person..

If you were in the brown reading group in 2nd grade, thought reading books and writing papers was for "dorks" in high school, graduated from some shit-hole college (anything with the word "state" in the title, for example) or any combination of the previous, you will have a difficult time with the LSAT.

This part kinda pissed me off. It's a weird combination of academic elitism and an utterly illogical, unsupportable and unintelligent statement.

Overall Voyager seems okay though, just arrogant and elitist, like 90% of this board.

I think your method works once it becomes instinct. I mark up passages, but mostly so that I can absorb the content in the passage quicker. I will try your method of writing down the main point of each passage, because I definitely think that it will help on those questions that waste time due to referring back to the passage. Thanks for posting this, because I think it would save people a lot of time and money on unnecessarily buying "study" books for RC, which I feel is quite intuitive. However, I have to agree with pithypike, you do seem a bit elitist. But that is something definitely present on this board. If I listened to a quarter of what people on this forum said about my supposed lack of intellignece (based, of course, on assumptions they make about people they have never even met) I wouldn't have even attempted the LSAT. The 'undergrad' comment seems a bit...well, ignorant, actually...and kind of unexpected in a passage meant to help people excel on a test that to a few, can become quite demoralizing. Acerbic comments will not aid anyone. But thank you anyway for posting quite a brilliant guide to succeeding on the RC section of the LSAT.

[lindac]

Bump! great strategy!!

[Anaconda]

Bump! great strategy!!

I think this strategy works for certain kinds of people. If a consistent, thought-invoking notation system (like Voyager's) doesn't work for you and tends to distract you rather than help you, I strongly suggest simply reading for comprehension and only notating key things. It's made a noticeable difference for me in a) reducing my time b) getting more questions right and c) increasing overall understanding of the passage. I actually get enjoyment out of reading the passages now since I treat it more like an article in the Economist or Scientific American than I do a reading passage on a standardized test. You retain a lot more when you read to discover new information.

[northwood]

MARKING the passage doesnt let me get to the last passage. I am wondering is it better to get all 4 passages and miss 2-3 questions each, or just forget the last passage ( and 7 -8 questions) and aim for -1 or none ?

The math doesnt add up, but if i continue to mark, it will have to do, and that makes me uneasy

[Anaconda]

MARKING the passage doesnt let me get to the last passage. I am wondering is it better to get all 4 passages and miss 2-3 questions each, or just forget the last passage ( and 7 -8 questions) and aim for -1 or none ?

The math doesnt add up, but if i continue to mark, it will have to do, and that makes me uneasy

Try to not systematically mark for a couple RC sections and see how it goes. You should easily get to the fourth passage.

[BigA]

MARKING the passage doesnt let me get to the last passage. I am wondering is it better to get all 4 passages and miss 2-3 questions each, or just forget the last passage ( and 7 -8 questions) and aim for -1 or none ?

The math doesnt add up, but if i continue to mark, it will have to do, and that makes me uneasy

I would try it both ways and see what works better for you. But if you're routinely finishing with like 5 minutes left for the last one, you'd be better off spending more time on the other three.

[Calchexas]

Just tried this method for the first time. Even though I only got a 21/27, I still felt like it really did a good job of keeping me on point, and - yes - I could feel the seconds being shaved off of the clock.

Using the strategy, here's how PT 40's RC went for me:

Passage One: 4/5
Passage Two: 7/7
Passage Three: 6/7
Passage Four: 4/8

I felt like my miserable performance on passage four was due to either sloppy reading, rushing, or a bad setup. So my question is:

For all of you successfully using this method, how would you approach Passage Four of PT 40 ("Leading Questions")?

For reference, here were my notations verbatim:

1
LQs bad in 2ways;
could be tainted w/out lawyers

2
Studies confirm;
ex of stop sign

3

Hypothesis;
Tangentials.

I think the biggest thing I failed to do per Voyager's strategy was just not break para 2 into two smaller, more manageable chunks.

P.S. Thanks to all contributors on this site. Long time lurker; first-time poster.

[Calchexas]

Bump. Would like somebody's opinion on this, please. (Sorry for resurrecting an old topic.)

[lakers3peat]

i thought id bump this because it is of the more useful threads i've found on this forum and in the archive

[robotclubmember]

If you're really into the whole highlighter thing, but argue that it takes too much time to toggle between different colors, try one of these!

http://www.storepulls.com/products/Hann ... -7938.html

lol

[lakers3peat]

Just finished PT 41 RC and did decent. I got -5, which isn't fantastic, don't get me wrong but it is a SURE stepup from times when I get -10+.

I've tried strategies like this before but got lazy with it. When I realized I was improving on everything but RC I decided to come back to a RC strategy like this and it truly does work.

Sometimes it's because the passages are easier to comprehend/more interesting and other times it's because I am tuned in/in the zone but nevertheless, I think that this strategy is quite useful. I had a strategy that was taught to me but I did exactly what Voyager said and abandoned it for "photographic memorization of the passage" Needless to say, it was NOT working!!! Stopping to think about every paragraph/passage and taking brief notes has at least for the few times I've practiced it, improved my accuracy but slowed me down a little. Now its most important, in my opinion, to fortify the usage of this method and speed up my thought process.

Thanks !

[Voyager]

Glad this is still helping people. Good luck all.