Increasing RC speed Forum

[ChiefMango]

Hey guys,

I am sure there have been countless topics on the same subject, but heres a description of my situation.

On two prep tests I have finished RC in the allotted time. On the other 5 I have taken thus far, I generally begin the last passage at the 5-minute mark and am able to complete 2 questions before time.

On average, I am leaving 3 questions unanswered for RC, and I miss 2 questions from the ones that I answer.

During blind review, I consistently get everything right.

I make brief markings, bracketing the main points of paragraphs and circling the important players (critics, authors, studies, etc).

I generally don't read the answers or questions more than once, and do not annotate them.

I am an avid reader, and when I read I read for full comprehension and retention.

Should I try to speed up my reading at the expense of accuracy? If so, how should I go about practicing quicker reading / retention?


All thoughts and ideas are welcome and appreciated. Please let me know if there is anything else you would need to help answer my question!

[Cradle6]

How much time do you spend on the passage?

[Oskosh]

I hate reading comprehension so much because of time distribution. I find it easier to determine the amount of time I will allot to a given logic game/LR question than I would RC, because I literally have to read through all of it before determining how difficult it is. Ugh. Does anybody have any strategies for time distribution??

[Single-Malt-Liquor]

You're not going to like this answer but improving on RC is a lot like any other section. It takes practice. You'll know you're peaking when as you read the passage you underline things because you know they're going to come up in a question (doesnt count if you underline everything). E.g. "Oh that's a counter argument, I think I'll underline that", "Hey, a list of reasons, lets number them", "My the author used a strong adjective there".

Basically, the things you mark up are the things that are important to you, the key is to make those things the same things that are important to the test writers.

[blueberrycrumble]

You're not going to like this answer but improving on RC is a lot like any other section. It takes practice. You'll know you're peaking when as you read the passage you underline things because you know they're going to come up in a question (doesnt count if you underline everything). E.g. "Oh that's a counter argument, I think I'll underline that", "Hey, a list of reasons, lets number them", "My the author used a strong adjective there".

Basically, the things you mark up are the things that are important to you, the key is to make those things the same things that are important to the test writers.

Would agree with this. Honestly, by the time I was doing my last PT the day before the actual LSAT, I could almost predict which parts of the passage would show up in one of the following questions. Practice a lot!

As for time distribution, even if a passage is difficult, I still sorta aim for 1/4 of the total time (8 min). I just tell myself its okay if I go over but I'm always checking to see if I need to "make back" some time later.

[Tiago Splitter]

Try ripping through a couple of passages very quickly. Give yourself five minutes to do the whole thing. You might be surprised at how well you do.

[Single-Malt-Liquor]

Also, in a clutch, save the comparative RC for last. They can really only ask two type of questions: how are they similar and how are they different. You can read those things in 4 minutes and go 4/5 on it if you're locked in.

[lsatkillah]

.

[TrunksFan1]

My friends swear by the app "acceleread."

[ChiefMango]

I haven't been keeping strict track of time for how long it takes me to read the passage, but what's frustrating is that whether or not I finish depends on the test. Sometimes I will go -3 and get every question, other times I will miss the last three or so, and go -1 on the ones I answered.

For now, my plan is to reduce my notations to virtually zero. (I currently bracket main ideas of each paragraph, and underline what I think to be key concepts / phrases. Many of my notations, however, have nothing to do with the questions asked. So I need to get better at predicting, or just stop wasting time predicting)

Any other suggestions would be much appreciated!

[KDLMaj]

1) If you want to get better at timing, you have to start tracking it. Otherwise you're using guesswork to try to get to a state of precision. From now on, when you do an RC passage and Qs under timed conditions, mark the following:
-Time when you start reading the passage
-Time when you finish reading the passage
-Time when you leave the question set

2) There's nothing wrong with skipping questions- as long as you're doing it strategically. If you want a good perspective on this, run a little exercise:
Next time you do a timed RC section, record time as mentioned above BUT also record start and stop time for each question (use a digital timer for this one). Then go back and find the 3 questions you spent the most time on. Add it up. Odds are you're going to find that you spent an insane amount of time on them. It's not uncommon for people to realize they're spending 6-10 minutes on 3 questions. (And they probably missed them all). So people are spending 20-30% of their entire section on a couple of questions and have little or nothing to show for it. Basically what I'm getting at is it's definitely true most people spend too much time on a passage, but very few people realize they're also spending WAAAY too much time on a handful of questions. (And to be blunt- if you're spending 2+ min on a question, you're probably going to get it wrong) Learn to skip time consuming questions to buy you time for the stuff you might actually get right. If you skip four 2 minute questions (one per passage)- that's 8 minutes you just bought yourself. Imagine what you could do with 8 extra minutes (probably get more than 4 more questions right)

In other words, think of it this way: In a passage with 28 questions, if you did:

The 2 easiest and fastest Qs per passage: 2 points x 4 passages +4 guess points (20% of 20 questions): 12 points total
The 3 easiest and fastest Qs per passage: 3 points x 4 passages +3 guess points (20% of 16 questions): 15 points total
The 4 easiest and fastest Qs per passage: 4 points x 4 passages +2 guess points (20% of 12 questions): 18 points total
The 5 easiest and fastest Qs per passage: 5 points x 4 passages +1-2 guess points (20% of 8 questions) 21-22 points total
etc etc

Notice how you can fairly easily pull 22 points even if you're skipped 8 questions in the section? (1-3/passage) Move fast, skip what isn't paying off immediately, and focus on what's actually going to reward you. That's almost always better than trudging through and trying to do every question.

3) Try running practices where you read the first paragraph of a passage and then the first sentence of every other paragraph. Then try to predict what it's about and what each paragraph is there for. Remember these passages are edited versions of real works. They generally follow 6th grade writing rules: Intro Paragraph generally (though not always) has the scope of the passage, the first sentence of a paragraph is usually the topic sentence, the rest of the paragraph usually just spends a lot of time rephrasing that topic sentence, and the last sentence will either sum up the whole paragraph and/or transition into the next. Once you get good at predicting the flow of a passage based on those pieces, you can zip through RC passages in no time. Remember: 90% of a passage is filler that won't be tested.

4) Pay attention to the order you do questions in. Never leave a passage without knowing what the main idea is. That's almost always worth a few points. (Don't be fooled- there may only be one "main idea" question, but usually 2-3 Qs/passage test it directly or indirectly) Focus on questions that test the "Big Picture" first. Then go do questions that are very specific about which part of the passage they're testing. Worry about vague questions with little or no references after the others are done "The passage suggests which of the following?" if at all.

5) There are passage types- just like game types:

Topics: (Utterly useless distinctions that distract from the real focus)
Social Sci
Nat Sci
Humanities
Law

Scopes: Every LSAT passage is fundamentally about one of these things:
Theory/Perspective (single most common)
Phenomenon/Problem (mostly the latter)
Debate (almost unheard of these days)
Biography (something significant someone has done)

Main Idea: The author's opinion on the above scope
Pro: (Rare- usually just restates the scope)
Con: (be on the lookout for an alternative esp. if it's a theory/perspective passage)
Neutral: Just restates the scope

G'luck!