Those who scored above 170's, are you all avid readers? Forum

[basilseal]

This thread is depressing as hell.

Credited.

This whole discussion nicely typifies one of my biggest problems with TLS. So once you study yourself into the ground for the LSAT, get into a T14 and make LR, and then go through miserable OCI interviews and callbacks and finally make BigLaw and with it a six-figure salary: congratulations, you have money, but you're also an utterly uninteresting person with a flat soul. Why have money without the ability to appreciate the Good Life?

It's hard for me to imagine a life without letters, although I get that apparently most people don't feel that way. But I think it's mendacious to claim that books can simply be replaced by movies (or vice versa, for that matter) and one's experience, and mind, are the same whether stimulated by either. I highly, highly recommend folks read Nicholas Carr's The Shallows or, if you are one of these people who can't be bothered to read books, his article in the Atlantic (I think it's called something like "Google Is Making Us Stupid"- and, please, read it before commenting).

Deep reading is not merely one mode of entertainment among others- it has been western civilization's dominant mode of self-understanding for millennia. I suppose this is why I get so upset when I see flip remarks about not reading; if you don't read books, at least understand that you're giving up the patrimony of a highly unusual and developed human activity which has sustained the human spirit for ages.

[LexLeon]

Regardless of the responses to this post, why wouldn't one read if it could and probably will help?

[LexLeon]

This thread is depressing as hell.

Credited.

This whole discussion nicely typifies one of my biggest problems with TLS. So once you study yourself into the ground for the LSAT, get into a T14 and make LR, and then go through miserable OCI interviews and callbacks and finally make BigLaw and with it a six-figure salary: congratulations, you have money, but you're also an utterly uninteresting person with a flat soul. Why have money without the ability to appreciate the Good Life?

It's hard for me to imagine a life without letters, although I get that apparently most people don't feel that way. But I think it's mendacious to claim that books can simply be replaced by movies (or vice versa, for that matter) and one's experience, and mind, are the same whether stimulated by either. I highly, highly recommend folks read Nicholas Carr's The Shallows or, if you are one of these people who can't be bothered to read books, his article in the Atlantic (I think it's called something like "Google Is Making Us Stupid"- and, please, read it before commenting).

Deep reading is not merely one mode of entertainment among others- it has been western civilization's dominant mode of self-understanding for millennia. I suppose this is why I get so upset when I see flip remarks about not reading; if you don't read books, at least understand that you're giving up the patrimony of a highly unusual and developed human activity which has sustained the human spirit for ages.

+1

[roranoa]

This thread is depressing as hell.

Why? What do you mean?

[guinness1547]

This thread is depressing as hell.

Credited.

This whole discussion nicely typifies one of my biggest problems with TLS. So once you study yourself into the ground for the LSAT, get into a T14 and make LR, and then go through miserable OCI interviews and callbacks and finally make BigLaw and with it a six-figure salary: congratulations, you have money, but you're also an utterly uninteresting person with a flat soul. Why have money without the ability to appreciate the Good Life?

It's hard for me to imagine a life without letters, although I get that apparently most people don't feel that way. But I think it's mendacious to claim that books can simply be replaced by movies (or vice versa, for that matter) and one's experience, and mind, are the same whether stimulated by either. I highly, highly recommend folks read Nicholas Carr's The Shallows or, if you are one of these people who can't be bothered to read books, his article in the Atlantic (I think it's called something like "Google Is Making Us Stupid"- and, please, read it before commenting).

Deep reading is not merely one mode of entertainment among others- it has been western civilization's dominant mode of self-understanding for millennia. I suppose this is why I get so upset when I see flip remarks about not reading; if you don't read books, at least understand that you're giving up the patrimony of a highly unusual and developed human activity which has sustained the human spirit for ages.

Man get a load of this nerd! Amiright??

But in all seriousness I agree with the general tone and position of the post.

[roranoa]

I got a -1 on RC, a 176 total and before my LSAT I read literally one novel since high school. I am Legend, it's like 200 pages and about vampires.

+1
173

You're proud of this? How sad.

I don't think he means to say he's proud. And I think it's very conceited to think less of people just because they don't read as much as you do. If you think you're better than others because you read more I'm sure it didn't help you to be a good person.

[Ernert]

-2 on RC, not an avid reader if you exclude forums, youtube comments, and fantasy sports news.

[roranoa]

This is an interesting topic. I don't think there's a high correlation between LSAT score & reading. I read a LOT of nonfiction books, at least a couple per month, and I read a ton of substantive news articles, blogs, etc on a daily basis. But my reading comprehension score was the part of the test I struggled with the most, and which I simply could not improve. I got a 173, but -4 on reading comp I would regularly go -0 or -1 on all the other sections, but between -2 and -5 on RC.

So yeah, I read a ton, but I don't think it helped me.

I'd say -4 is not so bad.

[roranoa]

Reading is one of the most overrated activities, especially reading novels. It doesn't make you smart. Reading an average NYT bestseller isn't much different, intellectually than watching an average/slightly highbrow hollywood movie. This might not be true for kids and teenagers who actually need to learn how to read and process ideas, but once you're in your late teens, reading novels is mostly entertainment.

Not that there's anything wrong with entertainment, or just art appreciation.

177, read about 3-4 books per year since college, a lot more before that.

Yeah, that's why I asked whether those who scored above 170's read a lot when they were young. Because that's when your brain really develops the neurons and synapse that boosts your comprehension skills. I guess it would also help if you read a lot in your 20's but more so when you're a teenager IMO.

[kaiser]

I read for entertainment. I feel like my writing improved by virtue of having been exposed to so many styles, structures, and so much vocabulary. But I don't think it really has much effect on LSAT performance. I get the feeling that smarter kids just tend to read more often in general, so that it would merely be correlation, and not causation.

[gavinstevens]

This thread is depressing as hell.

Credited.

This whole discussion nicely typifies one of my biggest problems with TLS. So once you study yourself into the ground for the LSAT, get into a T14 and make LR, and then go through miserable OCI interviews and callbacks and finally make BigLaw and with it a six-figure salary: congratulations, you have money, but you're also an utterly uninteresting person with a flat soul. Why have money without the ability to appreciate the Good Life?

It's hard for me to imagine a life without letters, although I get that apparently most people don't feel that way. But I think it's mendacious to claim that books can simply be replaced by movies (or vice versa, for that matter) and one's experience, and mind, are the same whether stimulated by either. I highly, highly recommend folks read Nicholas Carr's The Shallows or, if you are one of these people who can't be bothered to read books, his article in the Atlantic (I think it's called something like "Google Is Making Us Stupid"- and, please, read it before commenting).

Deep reading is not merely one mode of entertainment among others- it has been western civilization's dominant mode of self-understanding for millennia. I suppose this is why I get so upset when I see flip remarks about not reading; if you don't read books, at least understand that you're giving up the patrimony of a highly unusual and developed human activity which has sustained the human spirit for ages.

I agree with most of this. Thanks for the article.

I don't know many lawyers, law students, or watch legal dramas, so I lived with the fiction that this was the legal profession's general attitude towards reading... until I found TLS.

[Tom Joad]

Reading is one of the most overrated activities, especially reading novels. It doesn't make you smart. Reading an average NYT bestseller isn't much different, intellectually than watching an average/slightly highbrow hollywood movie. This might not be true for kids and teenagers who actually need to learn how to read and process ideas, but once you're in your late teens, reading novels is mostly entertainment.

Not that there's anything wrong with entertainment, or just art appreciation.

177, read about 3-4 books per year since college, a lot more before that.

Yeah, that's why I asked whether those who scored above 170's read a lot when they were young. Because that's when your brain really develops the neurons and synapse that boosts your comprehension skills. I guess it would also help if you read a lot in your 20's but more so when you're a teenager IMO.

Oh I read tons in elementary school and Jr. High but now that I am busier I do other things more and read less, but I still broke the 170 mark.

[suspicious android]

It's hard for me to imagine a life without letters, although I get that apparently most people don't feel that way. . .

Deep reading is not merely one mode of entertainment among others- it has been western civilization's dominant mode of self-understanding for millennia. I suppose this is why I get so upset when I see flip remarks about not reading; if you don't read books, at least understand that you're giving up the patrimony of a highly unusual and developed human activity which has sustained the human spirit for ages.

Built anything with your hands lately?
Composed any songs and played them on an instrument you're proficient on?
Grown your own food?
Sewn or knitted your own clothes?

These are intellectually engaging activities that are just as much if not more a part of our patrimony as literacy, which up until a couple hundred years ago was basically inaccessible to everyone except the clergy and the rich. To top it off, all the above activities are inherently creative, whereas reading is a passive activity. Reading and writing together is a lot different than just reading, which is what most people restrict themselves to. I think someone who paints, dances, cooks, sculpts, etc. is leading a richer intellectual life than someone who just reads. There's nothing wrong with reading, or with someone who prefers reading to woodworking or whatever, but acting like it's an essential component to a rich life is just pedantic, pretentious bullshit.

[basilseal]

Built anything with your hands lately?
Composed any songs and played them on an instrument you're proficient on?
Grown your own food?
Sewn or knitted your own clothes?

These are intellectually engaging activities that are just as much if not more a part of our patrimony as literacy, which up until a couple hundred years ago was basically inaccessible to everyone except the clergy and the rich. To top it off, all the above activities are inherently creative, whereas reading is a passive activity. Reading and writing together is a lot different than just reading, which is what most people restrict themselves to. I think someone who paints, dances, cooks, sculpts, etc. is leading a richer intellectual life than someone who just reads. There's nothing wrong with reading, or with someone who prefers reading to woodworking or whatever, but acting like it's an essential component to a rich life is just pedantic, pretentious bullshit.

Yes, yes, yes (if you count raising chickens and CSA stuff) and no. I wouldn't at all disagree with most of your points, and certainly wouldn't look down on anyone who found fulfillment in working with their hands. As long as I'm tossing around book suggestions, Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew Crawford is a pretty awesome defense of the dignity and value of working with one's hands, especially as an intellectual endeavor. A lot more of this sort of thing (tied in with a localist/agrarian political streak) can be found at http://www.frontporchrepublic.com.

But color me skeptical that most people today aren't reading books because they're just too busy homebrewing beer or canning their own vegetables or doing any of the worthwhile activities you describe. I think it has a lot more to do with the universe of immediately accessible distractions at hand, few of which are as edifying as reading. And the fact that reading used to be far more restricted than it is today should, I think, be cause to more carefully cultivate it. Mass literacy is a pretty amazing phenomenon and thus it's saddening to hear people say that they haven't read a book for pleasure since high school. But maybe we are then just regressing toward a historical norm: a small caste of readers and the masses of functional illiterates. I'm not sure this is something about which we can be sanguine.

[suspicious android]

But color me skeptical that most people today aren't reading books because they're just too busy homebrewing beer or canning their own vegetables or doing any of the worthwhile activities you describe. I think it has a lot more to do with the universe of immediately accessible distractions at hand, few of which are as edifying as reading. And the fact that reading used to be far more restricted than it is today should, I think, be cause to more carefully cultivate it. Mass literacy is a pretty amazing phenomenon and thus it's saddening to hear people say that they haven't read a book for pleasure since high school. But maybe we are then just regressing toward a historical norm: a small caste of readers and the masses of functional illiterates. I'm not sure this is something about which we can be sanguine.

Yeah, I just think you're romanticizing reading a lot. You're 100% right that non-readers are probably playing video games and watching lolcat videos, not doing vineculture or whatever. But I just don't see how you feel that you can privilege reading above any of the other creative skills mentioned. The point isn't that most people don't do them, it's just that, to a carpenter who can build his own house, I bet that someone who's read The Great Gatsby three times but doesn't know the first step to hang a door is slightly pathetic. And I think that carpenter has a point, but I'm not gonna listen to him go on about how carpentry is a five thousand year old craft that allows man to master his environment, blah, blah.

[American_in_China]

I read a lot and collect books (not first editions or anything, but that is my plan if I become successful). I think my library is over the 600 mark, but I'm not particularly sure anymore.

Does it give you an advantage? Yes and no. Reading comprehension comes from reading dense, intellectual materials. I think my four years in college studying economics and psychology, and reading lots of research and theories, did far more for me than my library, since 2/3rds of it is enjoyment fiction, with the other 1/3rd being biographies, pop-science literature, books on chess, and "high fiction". Very little fiction will adequately prepare you for the LSAT, and most of the fiction that will isn't particularly enjoyable (unless you enjoy pseudointellectual masturbation, no offense to those that read "high fiction" on a regular basis). Basically only like 1/5th of the books I own actually parallel the type of material on the LSAT.

Stuff like research and textbooks will prepare. Reading the Economist will help prepare you. Reading philosophy (although I hate philosophy) will prepare you.

I think the only advantage that an avid fiction reader has is reading speed. I used a heavy diagramming strategy precisely because my reading speed is so high that I had time to do so, but I don't advocate that particular strategy for anyone who isn't in the top 5% of reading speed.

Basically I wouldn't worry about it. If you're still in college, find a social science that interests you and read some of the top journals on a regular basis, and read the Economist.

[barneytrouble]

Reading is one of the most overrated activities, especially reading novels. It doesn't make you smart. Reading an average NYT bestseller isn't much different, intellectually than watching an average/slightly highbrow hollywood movie. This might not be true for kids and teenagers who actually need to learn how to read and process ideas, but once you're in your late teens, reading novels is mostly entertainment.

Not that there's anything wrong with entertainment, or just art appreciation.

177, read about 3-4 books per year since college, a lot more before that.

Yeah, that's why I asked whether those who scored above 170's read a lot when they were young. Because that's when your brain really develops the neurons and synapse that boosts your comprehension skills. I guess it would also help if you read a lot in your 20's but more so when you're a teenager IMO.

Oh I guess a read a LOT in my younger years so yeah that is a bit different. There are only so many books actually worth reading though which is why the more of them I read, the less time I subsequently need to spend reading. Similar to how more and more hollywood movies are becoming remakes just with slightly different details - I watch fewer movies nowadays as well.

[kwais]

This thread is depressing as hell.

Credited.

This whole discussion nicely typifies one of my biggest problems with TLS. So once you study yourself into the ground for the LSAT, get into a T14 and make LR, and then go through miserable OCI interviews and callbacks and finally make BigLaw and with it a six-figure salary: congratulations, you have money, but you're also an utterly uninteresting person with a flat soul. Why have money without the ability to appreciate the Good Life?

It's hard for me to imagine a life without letters, although I get that apparently most people don't feel that way. But I think it's mendacious to claim that books can simply be replaced by movies (or vice versa, for that matter) and one's experience, and mind, are the same whether stimulated by either. I highly, highly recommend folks read Nicholas Carr's The Shallows or, if you are one of these people who can't be bothered to read books, his article in the Atlantic (I think it's called something like "Google Is Making Us Stupid"- and, please, read it before commenting).

Deep reading is not merely one mode of entertainment among others- it has been western civilization's dominant mode of self-understanding for millennia. I suppose this is why I get so upset when I see flip remarks about not reading; if you don't read books, at least understand that you're giving up the patrimony of a highly unusual and developed human activity which has sustained the human spirit for ages.

tremendously condescending, incorrect, narrow-minded and self-satisfied.

[roranoa]

This topic turned out to be more fun than I thought it would.

[splitmuch]

178, I hadn't read any sort of novel since high school (and no, its not sad or pathetic, I simply have no need for escape) but I read a lot of substantive analysis (Economist primarily but also others) and technical reports (scientific and econ studies).

[D. H2Oman]

Allow me to edit the douche out of this post.

This whole discussion nicely typifies one of my biggest problems with TLS. So once you study yourself into the ground for the LSAT, get into a T14 and make LR, and then go through miserable OCI interviews and callbacks and finally make BigLaw and with it a six-figure salary: congratulations, you have money, but you're also an utterly uninteresting person with a flat soul. Why have money without the ability to appreciate the Good Life?

It's hard for me to imagine a life without letters, although I get that apparently most people don't feel that way. But I think it's mendacious to claim that books can simply be replaced by movies (or vice versa, for that matter) and one's experience, and mind, are the same whether stimulated by either. I highly, highly recommend folks read Nicholas Carr's The Shallows or, if you are one of these people who can't be bothered to read books, his article in the Atlantic (I think it's called something like "Google Is Making Us Stupid"- and, please, read it before commenting).

Deep reading is not merely one mode of entertainment among others- it has been western civilization's dominant mode of self-understanding for millennia. I suppose this is why I get so upset when I see flip remarks about not reading; if you don't read books, at least understand that you're giving up the patrimony of a highly unusual and developed human activity which has sustained the human spirit for ages.

[RareBreed]

This thread is depressing as hell.

Credited.

This whole discussion nicely typifies one of my biggest problems with TLS. So once you study yourself into the ground for the LSAT, get into a T14 and make LR, and then go through miserable OCI interviews and callbacks and finally make BigLaw and with it a six-figure salary: congratulations, you have money, but you're also an utterly uninteresting person with a flat soul. Why have money without the ability to appreciate the Good Life?

It's hard for me to imagine a life without letters, although I get that apparently most people don't feel that way. But I think it's mendacious to claim that books can simply be replaced by movies (or vice versa, for that matter) and one's experience, and mind, are the same whether stimulated by either. I highly, highly recommend folks read Nicholas Carr's The Shallows or, if you are one of these people who can't be bothered to read books, his article in the Atlantic (I think it's called something like "Google Is Making Us Stupid"- and, please, read it before commenting).

Deep reading is not merely one mode of entertainment among others- it has been western civilization's dominant mode of self-understanding for millennia. I suppose this is why I get so upset when I see flip remarks about not reading; if you don't read books, at least understand that you're giving up the patrimony of a highly unusual and developed human activity which has sustained the human spirit for ages.

You need to get laid.

[20130312]

This thread is depressing as hell.

Credited.

This whole discussion nicely typifies one of my biggest problems with TLS. So once you study yourself into the ground for the LSAT, get into a T14 and make LR, and then go through miserable OCI interviews and callbacks and finally make BigLaw and with it a six-figure salary: congratulations, you have money, but you're also an utterly uninteresting person with a flat soul. Why have money without the ability to appreciate the Good Life?

It's hard for me to imagine a life without letters, although I get that apparently most people don't feel that way. But I think it's mendacious to claim that books can simply be replaced by movies (or vice versa, for that matter) and one's experience, and mind, are the same whether stimulated by either. I highly, highly recommend folks read Nicholas Carr's The Shallows or, if you are one of these people who can't be bothered to read books, his article in the Atlantic (I think it's called something like "Google Is Making Us Stupid"- and, please, read it before commenting).

Deep reading is not merely one mode of entertainment among others- it has been western civilization's dominant mode of self-understanding for millennia. I suppose this is why I get so upset when I see flip remarks about not reading; if you don't read books, at least understand that you're giving up the patrimony of a highly unusual and developed human activity which has sustained the human spirit for ages.

Would it be too ironic to say tl;dr ITT?

[ladybug89]

Allow me to edit the douche out of this post.

This whole discussion nicely typifies one of my biggest problems with TLS. So once you study yourself into the ground for the LSAT, get into a T14 and make LR, and then go through miserable OCI interviews and callbacks and finally make BigLaw and with it a six-figure salary: congratulations, you have money, but you're also an utterly uninteresting person with a flat soul. Why have money without the ability to appreciate the Good Life?

It's hard for me to imagine a life without letters, although I get that apparently most people don't feel that way. But I think it's mendacious to claim that books can simply be replaced by movies (or vice versa, for that matter) and one's experience, and mind, are the same whether stimulated by either. I highly, highly recommend folks read Nicholas Carr's The Shallows or, if you are one of these people who can't be bothered to read books, his article in the Atlantic (I think it's called something like "Google Is Making Us Stupid"- and, please, read it before commenting).

Deep reading is not merely one mode of entertainment among others- it has been western civilization's dominant mode of self-understanding for millennia. I suppose this is why I get so upset when I see flip remarks about not reading; if you don't read books, at least understand that you're giving up the patrimony of a highly unusual and developed human activity which has sustained the human spirit for ages.

Seriously. You can love reading and still manage to not be condescending about it.

[ladybug89]

But, this thread did motivate me to get off tls and finish the book I was reading earlier!