Improving RC score Forum

[MassiveSplit]

I've heard many say that Manhattan's RC book is among the best. I have gone through LSAT trainer and am still not completing sections fast enough. I am also still missing at least -6/-7.

Should I try reading dense material to improve reading skill? Or should I try another book?

I know this is the hardest aspect of the test to improve. Any thoughts are appreciated.

[jkhalfa]

One of the most common TLS answers to this is to read critically the British news magazine/website the Economist, since their articles tend to match the tone and structure of RC passages. The site uses a paywall but it only uses cookies so it's easy to bypass (use Chrome "incognito mode," set Firefox to reject cookies from http://www.economist.com, etc.).

[Jeffort]

How much detailed review/analysis do you do with the incorrect answers you picked to figure out the exact reasons they are wrong and the reasons you thought they were correct when you selected them/the exact reasons in your mind you used to decide to select them?

There are patterns to be found in your mistakes if you review every question you get wrong deeply and thoroughly enough to identify specific mistakes/weaknesses in your approach/thought processes. There are common types of incorrect trap answers with RC questions, you need to figure out which types of designed to be attractive but yet are wrong ACs you keep falling for in order to improve/alter your analysis and decision making processes in ways to stop falling for them.

Deep thorough review to figure out the specific reasons/mistakes you made that cause you to think wrong answers were right at the time you picked them is the first essential step to improvement. You have to figure out each and every specific mistake you've made in solving questions in order to figure out your weaknesses that need to be worked on. Speed/timing is rarely the main cause/weakness for lackluster section performance. Approach, analysis, processing, and decision making mistakes/weaknesses are the primary causes of getting questions wrong that you had time to attempt.

[paayter]

Hey,
I understand your pain...RC was really holding me back and I knew I had to improve...what was crazy was I used to dread the damn section..always missing 8-10 on average, so it hurt a lot. The key for me was definitely reading much faster, I got way too bogged down in the details, when really I would just concentrate on the overall theme of each paragraph and what it was in relation to the whole passage. I know thats incredibly vague, but seriously another thing that helped was I would literally take rc sections and drill just CONSTANTLY, i would do like a shit ton of passages in a sitting. and i would make sure i would work as fast as i could, but still understand, and then time myself, and just keep adjusting that way. really the key was, just kept doin reading comp over and over again..and it got me down to about minus 3-4 on average which i don't think is too bad for rc. good luck man.

[MassiveSplit]

Thanks all for your thoughts.

There are patterns to be found in your mistakes if you review every question you get wrong deeply and thoroughly enough to identify specific mistakes/weaknesses in your approach/thought processes. There are common types of incorrect trap answers with RC questions, you need to figure out which types of designed to be attractive but yet are wrong ACs you keep falling for in order to improve/alter your analysis and decision making processes in ways to stop falling for them.

How do you recommend I define each mistake (in order to properly group them to find weaknesses)? Not sure if my question is too vague.

Should I simply group by question type or by specific patterned thought processes?

I can imagine that after reviewing several that patterns will naturally emerge.

[Jeffort]

Thanks all for your thoughts.

There are patterns to be found in your mistakes if you review every question you get wrong deeply and thoroughly enough to identify specific mistakes/weaknesses in your approach/thought processes. There are common types of incorrect trap answers with RC questions, you need to figure out which types of designed to be attractive but yet are wrong ACs you keep falling for in order to improve/alter your analysis and decision making processes in ways to stop falling for them.

How do you recommend I define each mistake (in order to properly group them to find weaknesses)? Not sure if my question is too vague.

Should I simply group by question type or by specific patterned thought processes?

I can imagine that after reviewing several that patterns will naturally emerge.

Yeah, once you get into reviewing the patterns will emerge.

Don't try to 'define' or form generic labels for mistakes to slap onto answer choices, at least not at first before you've deeply analyzed all your weaknesses/mistakes that lead to wrong answers for a bunch of questions to get a good understanding of how many different types of forms of mistakes/weaknesses you're making. Also, don't try to simplify/boil down missed questions to one single/main mistake/cause or minimize them in simplistic superficial ways such as 'oh, that was just a dumb careless mistake'. There are always several/many mistakes involved in what ultimately caused you to get each incorrectly answered question wrong. The goal of deep review is to find and identify every weak link in your entire chain of thinking from beginning of starting a passage/question up to final answer choice decision, including careful inspection of every single step along the way, things you did do that were bad, things you didn't do that you should have, things you messed up, things that slowed you down/you had trouble with,etc.

Simple way to illustrate that idea is that with every question you get wrong you always have two false beliefs backed up by flawed sets of beliefs/reasons/decisions to start your deep review with. Why did you think the wrong answer you selected was correct/select it even if you weren't certain it was correct? What were your specific reasons/beliefs/decision making factors for selecting it that actually went through your head when you attempted the question? Same thing with the correct answer you didn't pick. Why did you think is was wrong/decide not to pick it? What reasons/beliefs/decision making factors was that incorrect decision based on?

Those are the two main starting points for deep review. Once you figure out your mistaken beliefs/decisions, then you should trace back your entire thought process from the beginning of the question/reading the passage that lead to you forming the ideas and making the decisions that led to picking a wrong answer and eliminating the correct one?

Start with looking at the logic/substance of the answer choices themselves and make sure you figure out and completely understand why the CR is actually correct and why the answer you chose is logically incorrect. Then you dig deep into your actual thought processes, what you believed/had in your head at the time/understanding of the passage, actual step by step analysis and decisions you made each step of the way all the way through from beginning to making final answer choice selection. You need to figure out why you ended up having false beliefs/ideas/reasons in your head that lead making bad final answer choice decision, meaning what steps and analysis and stuff you actually did somewhere in the course of solving the question that put you into the situation of not recognizing the correct answer as correct and instead picking one that is wrong.

There are many different types of mistakes that fall into different categories, the patterns of mistakes for each person will be different than those of others, and the types of errors/mistakes/weaknesses vary by skill level/score range of the test taker.

Try to be as detailed as possible in evaluating your entire step by step thought and decision making processes you actually used in your head to read and process the passage and attack the questions, and carefully examine how you could have approached and thought through the passage and questions better to avoid making the mistakes you did.

Errors can be based on process/procedural/skipping steps types of mistakes because of focusing too much on speed/trying to go faster, such as not being thorough enough by making sure to have solid reasons against contenders before deciding to go with an attractive really good sounding answer that really turns you on. They can also be fundamental foundational problems with ability to properly interpret and understand the substance and basic ideas of the passage itself or what certain cryptically phrased ACs actually mean.

Obviously start by looking for patterns in what question types you miss. Also look for patterns in types of trap answers you're picking regardless of question type, meaning what type of logical relationship the idea in the AC has to the substance of the passage and to the question stem and criteria the stem dictates. There is a fairly small set of common types of attractive trap answers the test writers use over and over that are easy to get suckered by if you aren't aware of their existence so you can make sure to be on the lookout for them. They're basically designed to sound good enough to be correct and pick in situations where the CR is 'stealthed' somehow that makes it difficult to easily recognize as even being a contender or of being able to fully understand is correct with confidence in the face of a super attractive trap begging you to pick it instead.

One common type are answers that explicitly mention details and ideas clearly discussed in the passage using very similar vocab so it catches your attention (I remember them talking about that stuff!) but mismatches an idea with details that were associated with a different idea in the passage or with a different source/point of view. I call these 'blenderized' answers since they basically take things from the passage that weren't directly related and blender them together as if they were. Another common type are ones that state an idea that is established via inference/implication with similar wording/vocab used in the passage but state it's opposite/reverse. One of the main types of common trap answer for high difficulty level questions is one that states something that IS supported by/can be inferred from/is implied by the passage and would be correct if the stem was the generic "Which is most strongly supported by the passage?", but the question stem is asking for something more specific and different than a generic inference, such as a meaning in context/purpose in context question type. There are actually many different RC question types that have much more specific narrow criteria for the CR than just basic generic inference/which can be reasonably inferred from the passage? type and most test takers treat most RC questions as generic most strongly supported type. LSAC test writers like to put 'right answer for a different question type' traps in some higher difficulty level RC questions.

Since you're missing around 6/7 per section according to your post, you're operating at a pretty high level and your mistakes are probably mostly with the high difficulty level questions, usually ones that require high level/big picture synthesis skills where the CR is something that there isn't any specific single sentence or few sentences you can point to that directly support it, but rather it is supported by the synthesis of several big inferences about one or more of the main ideas of the passage and/or by various scattered details and ideas.

For helping you figure out how to deeply review and evaluate the logical characteristics of each of the question stems, answer choices and important types of relationships between them and the passage, identify specific weaknesses/mistakes, and to learn more good stuff to improve your RC perspective/approach/skills/etc. that I think will turn on the light bulb moments of realization that'll help you get to near/hopefully perfect RC performance, I highly recommend to read and really study this article from LSAC about the design of RC question types. It's a goldmine of information for really understanding what is going on with tough RC questions and what actual reading analysis and comprehension skills the LSAT writers are specifically testing. It's a long academic article so it will take a bit of time just to read and much time to fully absorb and translate into your understanding and approaches for the various different RC question types but is well worth spending a lot of time reading and learning from to improve your approach and thought processes/strategies for attacking RC.

http://www.testpublishers.org/assets/do ... l%2013.pdf

High level synthesis questions other than MP are the ones that typically hold people at the -5-8 level. Understanding that they have ACs that there is zero specific small portions of text from the passage you can go back and find to directly confirm it's correct is part of the key to getting them right. With these super tough questions, most people usually immediately eliminate the CR first read since the idea stated is supported by and drawn from big and little things scattered all through the passage in many different places, and almost nothing stated in the explicit wording of the AC are things you remember the passage explicitly talking about, so it sounds totally out of scope on first superficial read. People typically read it, notice there aren't any or many key words about the main ideas of the passage or that were used in the passage, think 'the passage never SAID anything like that', and quickly eliminate it, only to then waste time boxed in debating a few wrong trap answers in frustration for a while before deciding which wrong answer to pick before giving up and moving on. Situations like that created by just a few tough questions effectively waste enough of many test takers time that get stuck on those few to rob them of the time to get to all the questions in the last passage, causing double harm on total minuses.

Anyway, hope this helps.

[dd235]

Jeffort,

That response was 180! Amazing insight.

I completely agree with everything you said. I’ve read that LSAC journal article about a year ago, but am definitely gonna give it another read. Also, like you said in a different thread, I would recommend reading the RC portion of the SuperPrep Book where LSAC gives their own insight into the section.

Personally, I have finally achieved a level of accuracy that I am happy with on RC (about -1 to -3 on my past 5 PTs) but am still struggling with timing. I think your advice about “causing double harm on total minuses” by spending too much time with the high level synthesis questions is spot on, and I will try to take that into account when drilling today.

[charlesriver]

Thanks all for your thoughts.

There are patterns to be found in your mistakes if you review every question you get wrong deeply and thoroughly enough to identify specific mistakes/weaknesses in your approach/thought processes. There are common types of incorrect trap answers with RC questions, you need to figure out which types of designed to be attractive but yet are wrong ACs you keep falling for in order to improve/alter your analysis and decision making processes in ways to stop falling for them.

How do you recommend I define each mistake (in order to properly group them to find weaknesses)? Not sure if my question is too vague.

Should I simply group by question type or by specific patterned thought processes?

I can imagine that after reviewing several that patterns will naturally emerge.

Yeah, once you get into reviewing the patterns will emerge.

Don't try to 'define' or form generic labels for mistakes to slap onto answer choices, at least not at first before you've deeply analyzed all your weaknesses/mistakes that lead to wrong answers for a bunch of questions to get a good understanding of how many different types of forms of mistakes/weaknesses you're making. Also, don't try to simplify/boil down missed questions to one single/main mistake/cause or minimize them in simplistic superficial ways such as 'oh, that was just a dumb careless mistake'. There are always several/many mistakes involved in what ultimately caused you to get each incorrectly answered question wrong. The goal of deep review is to find and identify every weak link in your entire chain of thinking from beginning of starting a passage/question up to final answer choice decision, including careful inspection of every single step along the way, things you did do that were bad, things you didn't do that you should have, things you messed up, things that slowed you down/you had trouble with,etc.

Simple way to illustrate that idea is that with every question you get wrong you always have two false beliefs backed up by flawed sets of beliefs/reasons/decisions to start your deep review with. Why did you think the wrong answer you selected was correct/select it even if you weren't certain it was correct? What were your specific reasons/beliefs/decision making factors for selecting it that actually went through your head when you attempted the question? Same thing with the correct answer you didn't pick. Why did you think is was wrong/decide not to pick it? What reasons/beliefs/decision making factors was that incorrect decision based on?

Those are the two main starting points for deep review. Once you figure out your mistaken beliefs/decisions, then you should trace back your entire thought process from the beginning of the question/reading the passage that lead to you forming the ideas and making the decisions that led to picking a wrong answer and eliminating the correct one?

Start with looking at the logic/substance of the answer choices themselves and make sure you figure out and completely understand why the CR is actually correct and why the answer you chose is logically incorrect. Then you dig deep into your actual thought processes, what you believed/had in your head at the time/understanding of the passage, actual step by step analysis and decisions you made each step of the way all the way through from beginning to making final answer choice selection. You need to figure out why you ended up having false beliefs/ideas/reasons in your head that lead making bad final answer choice decision, meaning what steps and analysis and stuff you actually did somewhere in the course of solving the question that put you into the situation of not recognizing the correct answer as correct and instead picking one that is wrong.

There are many different types of mistakes that fall into different categories, the patterns of mistakes for each person will be different than those of others, and the types of errors/mistakes/weaknesses vary by skill level/score range of the test taker.

Try to be as detailed as possible in evaluating your entire step by step thought and decision making processes you actually used in your head to read and process the passage and attack the questions, and carefully examine how you could have approached and thought through the passage and questions better to avoid making the mistakes you did.

Errors can be based on process/procedural/skipping steps types of mistakes because of focusing too much on speed/trying to go faster, such as not being thorough enough by making sure to have solid reasons against contenders before deciding to go with an attractive really good sounding answer that really turns you on. They can also be fundamental foundational problems with ability to properly interpret and understand the substance and basic ideas of the passage itself or what certain cryptically phrased ACs actually mean.

Obviously start by looking for patterns in what question types you miss. Also look for patterns in types of trap answers you're picking regardless of question type, meaning what type of logical relationship the idea in the AC has to the substance of the passage and to the question stem and criteria the stem dictates. There is a fairly small set of common types of attractive trap answers the test writers use over and over that are easy to get suckered by if you aren't aware of their existence so you can make sure to be on the lookout for them. They're basically designed to sound good enough to be correct and pick in situations where the CR is 'stealthed' somehow that makes it difficult to easily recognize as even being a contender or of being able to fully understand is correct with confidence in the face of a super attractive trap begging you to pick it instead.

One common type are answers that explicitly mention details and ideas clearly discussed in the passage using very similar vocab so it catches your attention (I remember them talking about that stuff!) but mismatches an idea with details that were associated with a different idea in the passage or with a different source/point of view. I call these 'blenderized' answers since they basically take things from the passage that weren't directly related and blender them together as if they were. Another common type are ones that state an idea that is established via inference/implication with similar wording/vocab used in the passage but state it's opposite/reverse. One of the main types of common trap answer for high difficulty level questions is one that states something that IS supported by/can be inferred from/is implied by the passage and would be correct if the stem was the generic "Which is most strongly supported by the passage?", but the question stem is asking for something more specific and different than a generic inference, such as a meaning in context/purpose in context question type. There are actually many different RC question types that have much more specific narrow criteria for the CR than just basic generic inference/which can be reasonably inferred from the passage? type and most test takers treat most RC questions as generic most strongly supported type. LSAC test writers like to put 'right answer for a different question type' traps in some higher difficulty level RC questions.

Since you're missing around 6/7 per section according to your post, you're operating at a pretty high level and your mistakes are probably mostly with the high difficulty level questions, usually ones that require high level/big picture synthesis skills where the CR is something that there isn't any specific single sentence or few sentences you can point to that directly support it, but rather it is supported by the synthesis of several big inferences about one or more of the main ideas of the passage and/or by various scattered details and ideas.

For helping you figure out how to deeply review and evaluate the logical characteristics of each of the question stems, answer choices and important types of relationships between them and the passage, identify specific weaknesses/mistakes, and to learn more good stuff to improve your RC perspective/approach/skills/etc. that I think will turn on the light bulb moments of realization that'll help you get to near/hopefully perfect RC performance, I highly recommend to read and really study this article from LSAC about the design of RC question types. It's a goldmine of information for really understanding what is going on with tough RC questions and what actual reading analysis and comprehension skills the LSAT writers are specifically testing. It's a long academic article so it will take a bit of time just to read and much time to fully absorb and translate into your understanding and approaches for the various different RC question types but is well worth spending a lot of time reading and learning from to improve your approach and thought processes/strategies for attacking RC.

http://www.testpublishers.org/assets/do ... l%2013.pdf

High level synthesis questions other than MP are the ones that typically hold people at the -5-8 level. Understanding that they have ACs that there is zero specific small portions of text from the passage you can go back and find to directly confirm it's correct is part of the key to getting them right. With these super tough questions, most people usually immediately eliminate the CR first read since the idea stated is supported by and drawn from big and little things scattered all through the passage in many different places, and almost nothing stated in the explicit wording of the AC are things you remember the passage explicitly talking about, so it sounds totally out of scope on first superficial read. People typically read it, notice there aren't any or many key words about the main ideas of the passage or that were used in the passage, think 'the passage never SAID anything like that', and quickly eliminate it, only to then waste time boxed in debating a few wrong trap answers in frustration for a while before deciding which wrong answer to pick before giving up and moving on. Situations like that created by just a few tough questions effectively waste enough of many test takers time that get stuck on those few to rob them of the time to get to all the questions in the last passage, causing double harm on total minuses.

Anyway, hope this helps.

amazing post!

[MassiveSplit]

Jeffort,

Thanks so much for the insight. I will sit down with that article tonight.

Are there any specific timing exercises you would recommend? I gather from your post that you would recommend strict analysis which would then lead to clarity when reading the question the first time, therefore helping with the time issue.

[Jeffort]

Jeffort,

Thanks so much for the insight. I will sit down with that article tonight.

Are there any specific timing exercises you would recommend? I gather from your post that you would recommend strict analysis which would then lead to clarity when reading the question the first time, therefore helping with the time issue.

Yeah, working on better analysis focus/priorities will help with the timing issue because you'll be learning how to use your time and attention/what you focus on more efficiently.

Report back with how things progress and any new questions that pop up, that article is pretty complex.

Also, as bb suggested, get a copy of the RC Guide written by the test writers LSAC has published. It's in the SuperPrep book, in the Official LSAT Guide and also part of what you get with the Itemwize $18 service. I recommend just getting a copy of the SuperPrep book if you don't have it. The explanations written by the test writers for the three included PTs are also very insightful about what the test writers are doing and looking for in terms of specific skills being tested and some of the deliberate tactics behind trap answers and other aspects of questions used to make them harder.

[MassiveSplit]

Report back with how things progress and any new questions that pop up, that article is pretty complex.

Will do Thanks again!