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I just did about 100 Must Be True questions for drilling, and even when I take as long as I want, I'm still not understanding SCIENCE questions. For whatever reason, I'm getting them all wrong. I just cannot grasp science related material. When I encounter a science stimulus, it takes me twice as long to read and solve than any other topic.

Has anyone else had trouble with this? What can I do to improve?

One thing that can help is to train yourself to read science lingo with an abbreviated letter. For example, if you read a sentence in an LR question stem that says "antihistamines produce increased vascular permeability" just say in your head "A produces IVP".

Focus on the structure of the argument/factual statement rather than the topic.

tyro wrote:One thing that can help is to train yourself to read science lingo with an abbreviated letter. For example, if you read a sentence in an LR question stem that says "antihistamines produce increased vascular permeability" just say in your head "A produces IVP".

Focus on the structure of the argument/factual statement rather than the topic.

This.

The logic behind the question has nothing to do with your comprehension of science. Don't even read the word, just remember that there's a big jumble of letters starting with Q and that big jumble is used to create some kind of reaction or something. It's not like you're gonna write a paper on it.

This is true for the whole test. A game about electrical switches has nothing to do with your understanding of electricity. A reading comp passage about Native American seamstresses has nothing to do with your knowledge of sewing. The topics are just window dressing so that you don't have to spend three hours reading formulas involving X and Y.

There's some argument out there — could look it up if I felt like it, I guess — about pyrrole turning into polypyrrole in certain circumstances, blah blah blah. My favorite response that any of my students has ever had to this was one that came from a chemical engineer-turned-LSAT student. As soon as he read it, he announced loudly, "That's impossible! That's a violation of the Heins-Ganz Rule!" I look at him rather quizzically, and he burst out laughing. He then said, "Sorry. I just made that up." Evidently what had gone through his head was that these are organic chemistry terms — pyrrole is an actual thing — but their use in this argument was so completely a decoy that he felt the urge to insert more o-chem nonsense jargon. The question was just a straight conditional-statement question.

I think this is about the right attitude to have in science questions, which puts me in full agreement with the two previous posters.

I get that way about economics arguments.

tomwatts wrote:There's some argument out there — could look it up if I felt like it, I guess — about pyrrole turning into polypyrrole in certain circumstances, blah blah blah. My favorite response that any of my students has ever had to this was one that came from a chemical engineer-turned-LSAT student. As soon as he read it, he announced loudly, "That's impossible! That's a violation of the Heins-Ganz Rule!" I look at him rather quizzically, and he burst out laughing. He then said, "Sorry. I just made that up." Evidently what had gone through his head was that these are organic chemistry terms — pyrrole is an actual thing — but their use in this argument was so completely a decoy that he felt the urge to insert more o-chem nonsense jargon. The question was just a straight conditional-statement question.

I think this is about the right attitude to have in science questions, which puts me in full agreement with the two previous posters.

Having a BS in chem, I remember this question well, as I stared at it for two minutes and think I ended up randomly bubbling C.

LR requires a certain amount of abstraction/distance from the questions themselves, since they have to make it so that no outside technical knowledge will help you answer a question.

I would recommend picking up a graduate degree in a hard science such as physics or chemistry (the latter is preferable since there tends to be more chem related questions than physics). Don't worry about a PhD, a terminal MA should be fine for LSAT prep.

suspicious android wrote:I would recommend picking up a graduate degree in a hard science such as physics or chemistry (the latter is preferable since there tends to be more chem related questions than physics). Don't worry about a PhD, a terminal MA should be fine for LSAT prep.

Well played SA

However I might lean towards the physics degree cuz you get to learn the theory of everything and about string theory and all that. It's fun stuff!

Jeffort wrote:

suspicious android wrote:I would recommend picking up a graduate degree in a hard science such as physics or chemistry (the latter is preferable since there tends to be more chem related questions than physics). Don't worry about a PhD, a terminal MA should be fine for LSAT prep.

Well played SA

However I might lean towards the physics degree cuz you get to learn the theory of everything and about string theory and all that. It's fun stuff!

And you can call people P-brane!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn7-fVtT16k