Serious RC Issues Forum

[All Star]

Hi Everyone,

I've been preparing for the LSAT for around 3-4 months now and am about to finish a prep course. The course was very good for Logic Games and Logical Reasoning, but it was severely lacking in Reading Comprehension preparation.

I am unable to finish the Reading Comprehension section in time, and as a result usually miss 10-12+ questions. I was advised to only complete 3 of the passages to mitigate this issue, but even doing this I am unable to get fewer than 6 wrong on the 3 passages that I do complete, and usually have to randomly guess on the rest.

I tried reading the Manhattan RC book, and it did help somewhat, especially with eliminating incorrect answers. However, I usually can narrow down the answers to the 2 most likely choices and then have extreme difficulty choosing the correct one, and often spend a considerable amount of time (that I don't have) contemplating which one is correct.

I am wondering if anyone has any suggestions or potential solutions for this issue. If I don't resolve this issue soon, chances are that I will be forced to postpone my LSAT registration until December and risk having to sit this cycle out.

Thanks everyone!

[Trajectory]

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 5#p3370904

Some valuable info there, this was posted in regards to another RC thread recently. I am going over all of the info on that link right now. Trying to get better at RC as well. There was one solid method (i dont know if its mentioned in the links within the thread I provided you with) but it involved reading the economist or just using RC passages (i used passages) reading 1 passage, opening up MS Word and typing up a short summary/main point, authors point and the argument structure. At first I struggled without looking at the passages but slowly I got better. Went through about 5 PT's worth of RC (I used PTs 1-10) then I moved to actually doing a section untimed and reminding myself of all of this info. Then I moved to timed. Then I started doing a full RC section per day, timed. I got it down from -7 or -8 to -3 or -4. Which I am very happy with!

[All Star]

Thanks for the suggestion! I will definitely check that out to see if it helps!!!

[10052014]

.

[bp shinners]

However, I usually can narrow down the answers to the 2 most likely choices and then have extreme difficulty choosing the correct one, and often spend a considerable amount of time (that I don't have) contemplating which one is correct.

That's why you're running into timing issues. Stop doing that - as soon as you feel yourself dragging between two ACs, pick the weaker answer choice and move on. It's much better, statistically, to get to the last passage with a bunch of questions you're 75/25 on (since you're 50/50, but picking the weaker answer gives you a boost towards being "randomly" correct) than be 90% on the questions for 3 passages (since you're not likely to get to 100% on a question you've been agonizing on for a long period of time).

[mandyjay11]

However, I usually can narrow down the answers to the 2 most likely choices and then have extreme difficulty choosing the correct one, and often spend a considerable amount of time (that I don't have) contemplating which one is correct.

That's why you're running into timing issues. Stop doing that - as soon as you feel yourself dragging between two ACs, pick the weaker answer choice and move on. It's much better, statistically, to get to the last passage with a bunch of questions you're 75/25 on (since you're 50/50, but picking the weaker answer gives you a boost towards being "randomly" correct) than be 90% on the questions for 3 passages (since you're not likely to get to 100% on a question you've been agonizing on for a long period of time).

and by weaker do you mean weaker wording (some vs any) or the one that you feel is less likely to be the answer but you have a hard time determining why it's wrong?

[crestor]

I enjoy reading the economist and annotating structure and multiple povs.

[bp shinners]

However, I usually can narrow down the answers to the 2 most likely choices and then have extreme difficulty choosing the correct one, and often spend a considerable amount of time (that I don't have) contemplating which one is correct.

That's why you're running into timing issues. Stop doing that - as soon as you feel yourself dragging between two ACs, pick the weaker answer choice and move on. It's much better, statistically, to get to the last passage with a bunch of questions you're 75/25 on (since you're 50/50, but picking the weaker answer gives you a boost towards being "randomly" correct) than be 90% on the questions for 3 passages (since you're not likely to get to 100% on a question you've been agonizing on for a long period of time).

and by weaker do you mean weaker wording (some vs any) or the one that you feel is less likely to be the answer but you have a hard time determining why it's wrong?

Weaker logical force (wording).