Studying for RC Forum

[Ragged]

Hemmingway, Wells, Machiavelli...

Maybe try magazines to help with technical jargon - i.e. Pop. Sci., or anything by JAMA or APA...

As far as I know Hemmingway has a very journalistic approach to writing. Which means simple sentences and simple words. (I only read that one book about some old dude in high school) As to Machiavelli I only read his most famous work (dont remember the name now) and wording there is also pretty simple. Thats like anti-LSAT. And the same things goes for Wells.

I feel like novels isn't the way to go here. Something academic or scientific is required.

I believe you're referencing "The Prince".

Both Henningway and Machiavelli are deceptivly simplistic. The number of words per sentence structure has no bearing on content, both explicit and implicit.

Want something strictly scientific/academic? Real any of the magazines I suggested.

Yea The Prince, I remember.

Thx for advice, I will look into it.

[Hey-O]

I would read Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda by George Eliot. On top of being great books they are dense and contain complex arguments.

[BarnabeSpooge]

In my opinion, half the reading comprehension questions are really just logical reasoning questions with a more-dense question stem. If you want to get better at RC, just study LR and add in some more dense reading material to your every day life.

[Ragged]

In my opinion, half the reading comprehension questions are really just logical reasoning questions with a more-dense question stem. If you want to get better at RC, just study LR and add in some more dense reading material to your every day life.

Yea, I'm in the process of reading Chomsky and Foucault. Then I have Homo Sacer coming in mail (thanks Kobe_teeth). And then I might buy Meditations of Marcus Aurilius, not sure if thats the density that I need buy it sounds interesting.

[IBThatGuy]

I read the Foucault reader which is a general overview of his writings...
http://www.amazon.com/Foucault-Reader-M ... 234&sr=8-1

After reading Foucault I read on his successors books that was rather interesting:
http://www.amazon.com/Homo-Sacer-Sovere ... 274&sr=1-1
(this book is far from light-reading)

And I have always wanted to read something by Sartre but never got the chance (read: time). He's the dude that created existentialism, if my memory serves.

If you want interesting reading, this might be worth looking into. Sartre, without a doubt (I realize you're not recommending him, but lobbing out an option), is interesting. I love Sartre. Largely off-topic for a moment: He didn't 'invent' existentialism, which I would actually credit to people who are unofficially referred to as protoexistentialists: Heidegger, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard. Another funny thing is that a lot of thinkers that contemporary philosophers consider existentialists did not consider themselves existentalists (or wouldn't have or might not have).

However, as RC prep goes, those guys will not help you at all. For that purpose, don't touch anyone with a French or German name. This isn't nationalism, but a general trend in philosophy. Without going into details, the best bet in philosophy is American philosophers. In fact, I really don't think philosophy is good practice at all. Reading comprehension as it concerns philosophy is an entirely different animal from anything on the LSAT, including passages that deal with philosophy of law. They're dense, but still very different. To follow a philosophical argument at all, you're going for deep comprehension, and none of the passages on the LSAT even make room for anything like that. You can go through a philosophical argument at different speeds, but you can't go through it quickly.

The magazines recommended seem like good calls.

[Chimica]

So Heidegger and a hippo stroll up to the Pearly Gates and Saint Peter says, "Listen, we've only got room for one more today. So whoever of the two of you gives me the best answer to the question 'What is the meaning of life?' gets to come in."

And Heidegger says, "To think Being itself explicitly requires disregarding Being to the extent that it is only grounded and interpreted in terms of beings and for beings as their ground, as in all metaphysics."

But before the hippo can grunt one word, Saint Peter says to him, "Today's your lucky day, Hippy!"

[justinmcl]

In my opinion, half the reading comprehension questions are really just logical reasoning questions with a more-dense question stem. If you want to get better at RC, just study LR and add in some more dense reading material to your every day life.

Yea, I'm in the process of reading Chomsky and Foucault. Then I have Homo Sacer coming in mail (thanks Kobe_teeth). And then I might buy Meditations of Marcus Aurilius, not sure if thats the density that I need buy it sounds interesting.

If you get a good enough translation it will be, unfortunately some translators try to dumb down from the original.

And there are American philosophers besides Chomsky worth reading?

[Hey-O]

In my opinion, half the reading comprehension questions are really just logical reasoning questions with a more-dense question stem. If you want to get better at RC, just study LR and add in some more dense reading material to your every day life.

Yea, I'm in the process of reading Chomsky and Foucault. Then I have Homo Sacer coming in mail (thanks Kobe_teeth). And then I might buy Meditations of Marcus Aurilius, not sure if thats the density that I need buy it sounds interesting.

If you get a good enough translation it will be, unfortunately some translators try to dumb down from the original.

And there are American philosophers besides Chomsky worth reading?

Don't read Chomsky or Foucault.

[Ragged]

In my opinion, half the reading comprehension questions are really just logical reasoning questions with a more-dense question stem. If you want to get better at RC, just study LR and add in some more dense reading material to your every day life.

Yea, I'm in the process of reading Chomsky and Foucault. Then I have Homo Sacer coming in mail (thanks Kobe_teeth). And then I might buy Meditations of Marcus Aurilius, not sure if thats the density that I need buy it sounds interesting.

If you get a good enough translation it will be, unfortunately some translators try to dumb down from the original.

And there are American philosophers besides Chomsky worth reading?

Not sure. I don't generally read, so my goal is just to read preferably something dense to get my reading up to speed. Some of the stuff that Chomsky says in his interviews is kinda interesting espessially about politics.

[dominkay]

I recommend econ stuff (for laymen, of course). Economics texts tend to be really dry and rational. Milton Friedman is my personal favorite, but pick whoever.

[3|ink]

I recommend econ stuff (for laymen, of course). Economics texts tend to be really dry and rational. Milton Friedman is my personal favorite, but pick whoever.

Economics is basically a study of causal relationships. There's no better LSAT prep material out there. However, I read Adam smith and john Maynard Keynes. My LR score skyrocketed.

[InsertCleverName]

I recommend econ stuff (for laymen, of course). Economics texts tend to be really dry and rational. Milton Friedman is my personal favorite, but pick whoever.

Economics is basically a study of causal relationships. There's no better LSAT prep material out there. However, I read Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes. My LR score skyrocketed.

Causal relationships... I wish. Economists have never shown causation for anything, just correlation... And Friedman: To paraphrase Robert Solow, "that man thinks of the money supply the way I think of sex, but I'm at least smart enough to keep my fantasies out my research papers."

Anyway, I agree that econ is a ton of help for this; it's my major and I think it's one of the biggest reasons I'm already PTing in the mid-160s. Also, I'd recommend Thorstein Veblen's "Theory of the Leisure Class". Dense, circular prose, semi-philosophical and slightly Marxist institutional economic theory. Might make you look at your law school aspirations a little differently too.

[EzraStiles]

I'd recommend Kant, if for no other reason than I've found his theories to be much more accumulative than other philosophers, to the extent that you will suffer on one page if you didn't fully comprehend the passage on an antecedent page. Depending on the translation, it can also be an incredibly dense prose style. If you get through his first critique, I felt my reading speed and effectiveness improved by reading the second and third critique.

I've noticed this thread has become a soap box for people to praise their favorite philosophers, but I really hate Kant and I'd still recommend his works to increase reading comprehension and speed.

[Jack Smirks]

These are all great suggestions for philsophers and reads but why not just stick to actual RC Passages? Go back and read the passages from the PT's you already took. I'm studying for the October and that's what I'm doing. I'm also reading some lighter material right before bedtime, something that interests me but can be read a bit more lazily.

[Ragged]

Thanks for ya'll's contributions.



So I started reading Homo Sacer by Georgio Agamben yesterday and I gotta tell you, I feel like a complete idiot. Shit is so dense I can't comprehend anything. I reread some of the passages 4+ times and still did not understand what the guy was trying to tell me. Its like I understand every word of a sentence but the point still escapes me. Is this normal? Maybe its going so badly because its my first really abstract political work, I dunno, but I will keep trying.