tips to reading stimulus in LR Forum

[jubilee777]

a lot of times i find myself lost in the middle of reading the stimulus because i forget what i just read. so i tried different methods to remember the important points as much as possible from the stimulus (i.e. underline, jotting down notes in the margin). any tips as to not forget what you just read and remember as much as possible after reading once?

thanks a bunch!

[Louis1127]

Interesting question. One thing that has helped me is actually to NOT underline, bracket, circle, and mark up the stimulus.

I find when I just read it like I'm reading a book that I get the big picture of the argument better. I'm not saying you need to do this, but maybe give it a try on one PT or something. Who knows it might help.

[sfoglia]

I underline as I read. I find it helps.

Your problem is that you aren't paying attention. Whatever it is that is distracting you, push it away. When I find my thoughts are wandering, I take a deep breath and tell myself, "Okay, you are going to focus on reading this right now." Literally, take a big, deep breath and begin the passage over again.

Are you using your pencil to direct your eyes from one word to the next? You should be sliding your pencil at the bottom of every line, from left to right.

Also, you read the question stem first, yes?

[ilikebaseball]

I have the attention span of a 2 year old, and I find that mouthing the words helps me retain the information better

[jubilee777]

Thanks for all your tips! I shall put all these into practice.

I underline as I read. I find it helps.

Your problem is that you aren't paying attention. Whatever it is that is distracting you, push it away. When I find my thoughts are wandering, I take a deep breath and tell myself, "Okay, you are going to focus on reading this right now." Literally, take a big, deep breath and begin the passage over again.

Are you using your pencil to direct your eyes from one word to the next? You should be sliding your pencil at the bottom of every line, from left to right.

Also, you read the question stem first, yes?

Yes, I do glance at the prompt first. And yes, you are right about not focusing the entire time I am reading. I tend to get questions in the beginning correct and my accuracy decreases as I progress towards the end. That proves that I am losing focus.

[Jeffort]

Thanks for all your tips! I shall put all these into practice.

I underline as I read. I find it helps.

Your problem is that you aren't paying attention. Whatever it is that is distracting you, push it away. When I find my thoughts are wandering, I take a deep breath and tell myself, "Okay, you are going to focus on reading this right now." Literally, take a big, deep breath and begin the passage over again.

Are you using your pencil to direct your eyes from one word to the next? You should be sliding your pencil at the bottom of every line, from left to right.

Also, you read the question stem first, yes?

Yes, I do glance at the prompt first. And yes, you are right about not focusing the entire time I am reading. I tend to get questions in the beginning correct and my accuracy decreases as I progress towards the end. That proves that I am losing focus.

Not necessarily. The questions/arguments from the middle and towards the end of LR sections are harder and more complex compared to most of the ones early in the section (within the first 10 or so), so it might not be a focus/attention issue and more likely a difficulty level/complexity of the questions issue.

The more complex/higher difficulty level questions require more, sharper and deeper analysis to understand properly/to figure out the argument core and flawed assumption(s) before diving into the answer choices in order to answer them with a high accuracy level.

It sounds more like the issue is that you need to focus on getting better at analyzing the more complex/difficult arguments/questions better, deeper and more thoroughly to make sure you properly identify the argument core and what's flawed about it before heading into the answer choices. The more complex/harder arguments are more difficult to understand properly sometimes because there is more information presented and more work involved in figuring out which parts are more important to focus on critically (the core) vs. background information.

Carefully review the questions you find yourself having trouble with to get a better more detailed understanding of exactly which aspects of the question and your analysis process contributed to you selecting a wrong answer instead of the correct one. As I described in another thread last night, deep thorough review is the best path to figuring out your weaknesses/issues and figuring out what to do to keep improving your skills and accuracy level more and more.

[sfoglia]

Thanks for all your tips! I shall put all these into practice.

I underline as I read. I find it helps.

Your problem is that you aren't paying attention. Whatever it is that is distracting you, push it away. When I find my thoughts are wandering, I take a deep breath and tell myself, "Okay, you are going to focus on reading this right now." Literally, take a big, deep breath and begin the passage over again.

Are you using your pencil to direct your eyes from one word to the next? You should be sliding your pencil at the bottom of every line, from left to right.

Also, you read the question stem first, yes?

Yes, I do glance at the prompt first. And yes, you are right about not focusing the entire time I am reading. I tend to get questions in the beginning correct and my accuracy decreases as I progress towards the end. That proves that I am losing focus.

Agree with the below. If it's that your accuracy decreases and the questions are relatively simple (LSATQA.com is great for that), then, yes, it's an issue of stamina, and practice makes perfect.

[BP Robert]

I'd recommend that you continue to underline the argument's conclusion (mark up the passage in general), but also that you diagram as you go.
In your diagramming, do not hesitate to use longer abbreviations. For example, some would diagram "without an increase in investment, the firm will not see profits in the next quarter" as:

not I --> not P (not increase investment, then not see profits)

but for you, it may be advisable to diagram more like:

not II --> not PNQ (not increase investment, then not see profits next quarter)

That way referring back will be a little bit easier, as you're responsible for less recalling/filling in abbreviations.



Also, practice. That's the most important element, but the advice is remarkably less sexy. Your big gains will come when you've done a few hundred LR questions.

[w0w]

Interesting question. One thing that has helped me is actually to NOT underline, bracket, circle, and mark up the stimulus.

I find when I just read it like I'm reading a book that I get the big picture of the argument better. I'm not saying you need to do this, but maybe give it a try on one PT or something. Who knows it might help.

+1

I read it as if i'm reading a book too. Works best for me to get all the information bc I have the same problem as you where I'm just not focused on the content and forget what I just read.

[KDLMaj]

Pause and Paraphrase.

You can't read these stims like a cereal box. The LSAT is great at writing things that make you think "God I know all of these words, but I have no idea what this is saying!"

After every chunk of info (end of any sentence- less if it's a big one) stop and paraphrase back to yourself what you just read. If it's an argument based question, when you're done repeat the entire argument back (in paraphrased form) to yourself as <conclusion> because of <evidence>. It's going to feel like you don't have time for it, at first. But believe me when I say: You have to SLOW DOWN to speed up. Spend more time on the stim, and you'll spend WAY less time on the rest. Promise.

Rushing through stims is the #1 cause of crap LR scores. You can't answer questions about a stim you don't understand. And most LSAT stims- even the lengthiest ones- can be paraphrased down to one or two basic ideas. The concepts are rarely hard on the LSAT, it's the wording that's rough. A good way to test if this is really your issue is if you find that upon reviewing LR questions (post test) you got wrong you *immediately* figure out the right answer. When you go back over an LR question and feel like smacking yourself because the answer is so obvious- your primary issue is probably rushing through stims.

[jubilee777]

Thanks all for the awesome tips! I will definitely integrate all these into my reading technique!