RC Practice Material Forum

[Aurelius85]

Hey guys,

I've been practicing RC steadily for the last few months and I'd like to find more stuff to practice with.
I've read and gone through the Powerscore RC Bible and Mike Kim's LSAT Trainer. I also purchased the Cambridge RC Vol 2 bundle and I've been reading a passage and answering its corresponding questions under timed conditions for the last few months. The problem is that although I've seen my accuracy improve from an average of -4 or -5 to a solid -2 or -1 and my timing improve from an average of about 12:00 mins to an average of about 8:00 mins, I'm running out of problems. I've done almost all the problems in the Cambridge bundle 4 or 5 times and I feel that if I continue to work on the same problems, I'll be cheating myself because I will have already remembered the answers to some of the questions. So that's my question, what other materials can you guys recommend that I use to practice RC on a daily basis. I'm still working on LG and LR, so taking the exam at the moment is not an option for me and if I stop practicing RC altogether, I'll probably get rusty. Furthermore, I don't want to purchase the other Cambridge RC bundles because I wanna save those questions for the PTs. So is there anything else you guys can recommend? I already read the The Economist/Harper's/The New Yorker/Scientific American on a daily basis as well, so is there anything else I can do? It's a tough one I know. Thanks ahead of time.

[Clyde Frog]

Hey guys,

I've been practicing RC steadily for the last few months and I'd like to find more stuff to practice with.
I've read and gone through the Powerscore RC Bible and Mike Kim's LSAT Trainer. I also purchased the Cambridge RC Vol 2 bundle and I've been reading a passage and answering its corresponding questions under timed conditions for the last few months. The problem is that although I've seen my accuracy improve from an average of -4 or -5 to a solid -2 or -1 and my timing improve from an average of about 12:00 mins to an average of about 8:00 mins, I'm running out of problems. I've done almost all the problems in the Cambridge bundle 4 or 5 times and I feel that if I continue to work on the same problems, I'll be cheating myself because I will have already remembered the answers to some of the questions. So that's my question, what other materials can you guys recommend that I use to practice RC on a daily basis. I'm still working on LG and LR, so taking the exam at the moment is not an option for me and if I stop practicing RC altogether, I'll probably get rusty. Furthermore, I don't want to purchase the other Cambridge RC bundles because I wanna save those questions for the PTs. So is there anything else you guys can recommend? I already read the The Economist/Harper's/The New Yorker/Scientific American on a daily basis as well, so is there anything else I can do? It's a tough one I know. Thanks ahead of time.

Just slow down on the RC passages. Do one every other day and focus more on LR + LG. Get a solid understanding of everything and start PTing, hopefully from PT 41-74.

[Aurelius85]

Hey guys,

I've been practicing RC steadily for the last few months and I'd like to find more stuff to practice with.
I've read and gone through the Powerscore RC Bible and Mike Kim's LSAT Trainer. I also purchased the Cambridge RC Vol 2 bundle and I've been reading a passage and answering its corresponding questions under timed conditions for the last few months. The problem is that although I've seen my accuracy improve from an average of -4 or -5 to a solid -2 or -1 and my timing improve from an average of about 12:00 mins to an average of about 8:00 mins, I'm running out of problems. I've done almost all the problems in the Cambridge bundle 4 or 5 times and I feel that if I continue to work on the same problems, I'll be cheating myself because I will have already remembered the answers to some of the questions. So that's my question, what other materials can you guys recommend that I use to practice RC on a daily basis. I'm still working on LG and LR, so taking the exam at the moment is not an option for me and if I stop practicing RC altogether, I'll probably get rusty. Furthermore, I don't want to purchase the other Cambridge RC bundles because I wanna save those questions for the PTs. So is there anything else you guys can recommend? I already read the The Economist/Harper's/The New Yorker/Scientific American on a daily basis as well, so is there anything else I can do? It's a tough one I know. Thanks ahead of time.

Just slow down on the RC passages. Do one every other day and focus more on LR + LG. Get a solid understanding of everything and start PTing, hopefully from PT 41-74.

That makes sense...I could ease up on RC and that would give me more time to focus on the other sections. Thanks for chiming in.

[Blueprint Ben]

I'm not sure which passages are in Vol. 2 of the Cambridge packets, but when I was studying, I used PTs 1-38 for untimed drilling, 39-51 as timed sections, and 52+ for full timed PTs. 1-51 is a LOT of passages. It's enough that if you go all the way through from beginning to end, you probably won't remember any of the passages you did in the beginning, and you can start over and cycle through them until you're scoring where you need to be scoring on your PTs. And 52-74 is more than enough material for full timed PTs, and you can always retake those too if you run out. You don't need to save anything from the older tests for fresh PT material. Experimentals can be old sections if necessary--you won't run the risk of inflating your PT scores.

My point is that you should never be in a position where you've actually "run out" of RC drilling material--meaning that you've literally memorized all of the passages and all of the answer choices from 1-51--and you need to branch out to non-LSAT material for supplementary practice. Once you've cycled through 50+ PTs worth of material two or three times, you should be pretty solid at RC. If you haven't covered that much material yet, then you aren't at risk of running out.

e: Just looked it up, and apparently Vol. 2 is PTs 21-40. So I guess Vol. 1 is 1-20 and Vol. 3 is 41-60. I would suggest getting Vols. 1&3, doing all of Vol. 1 at least once, and just doing up to PT51 in Vol. 3 if you want to save all of the new (comparative) sections for fresh PTs.

[Deleterious]

Hey guys,

I've been practicing RC steadily for the last few months and I'd like to find more stuff to practice with.
I've read and gone through the Powerscore RC Bible and Mike Kim's LSAT Trainer. I also purchased the Cambridge RC Vol 2 bundle and I've been reading a passage and answering its corresponding questions under timed conditions for the last few months. The problem is that although I've seen my accuracy improve from an average of -4 or -5 to a solid -2 or -1 and my timing improve from an average of about 12:00 mins to an average of about 8:00 mins, I'm running out of problems. I've done almost all the problems in the Cambridge bundle 4 or 5 times and I feel that if I continue to work on the same problems, I'll be cheating myself because I will have already remembered the answers to some of the questions. So that's my question, what other materials can you guys recommend that I use to practice RC on a daily basis. I'm still working on LG and LR, so taking the exam at the moment is not an option for me and if I stop practicing RC altogether, I'll probably get rusty. Furthermore, I don't want to purchase the other Cambridge RC bundles because I wanna save those questions for the PTs. So is there anything else you guys can recommend? I already read the The Economist/Harper's/The New Yorker/Scientific American on a daily basis as well, so is there anything else I can do? It's a tough one I know. Thanks ahead of time.

Daily reading is a good idea but I think it's better to treat the articles and essays you read in periodicals as mini-RCs sections rather than as light reading. After you finish each one, write out the author's main point, opposing views, evidence, structure, possible objections, etc. Of course there are no questions to answer but the closer you can come to treating these resources like the real thing, the better. There are also books like LSAT Workout by Princeton Review or Kaplan's LSAT 180 that have unofficial sections. There are those who advise against using non-LSAC material but I think that's an over-reaction, especially for RC. They provide very good (and extremely difficult) RC practice.

[Aurelius85]

I'm not sure which passages are in Vol. 2 of the Cambridge packets, but when I was studying, I used PTs 1-38 for untimed drilling, 39-51 as timed sections, and 52+ for full timed PTs. 1-51 is a LOT of passages. It's enough that if you go all the way through from beginning to end, you probably won't remember any of the passages you did in the beginning, and you can start over and cycle through them until you're scoring where you need to be scoring on your PTs. And 52-74 is more than enough material for full timed PTs, and you can always retake those too if you run out. You don't need to save anything from the older tests for fresh PT material. Experimentals can be old sections if necessary--you won't run the risk of inflating your PT scores.

My point is that you should never be in a position where you've actually "run out" of RC drilling material--meaning that you've literally memorized all of the passages and all of the answer choices from 1-51--and you need to branch out to non-LSAT material for supplementary practice. Once you've cycled through 50+ PTs worth of material two or three times, you should be pretty solid at RC. If you haven't covered that much material yet, then you aren't at risk of running out.

e: Just looked it up, and apparently Vol. 2 is PTs 21-40. So I guess Vol. 1 is 1-20 and Vol. 3 is 41-60. I would suggest getting Vols. 1&3, doing all of Vol. 1 at least once, and just doing up to PT51 in Vol. 3 if you want to save all of the new (comparative) sections for fresh PTs.

Yeah, good idea, maybe I should do Vol 1 once or twice. After all, I would still have PTs 41-60 and 61-74, more than enough to practice with. In addition, after a few weeks I would probably forget everything from Vol 1. Thanks for the perspective.

[Aurelius85]

Hey guys,

I've been practicing RC steadily for the last few months and I'd like to find more stuff to practice with.
I've read and gone through the Powerscore RC Bible and Mike Kim's LSAT Trainer. I also purchased the Cambridge RC Vol 2 bundle and I've been reading a passage and answering its corresponding questions under timed conditions for the last few months. The problem is that although I've seen my accuracy improve from an average of -4 or -5 to a solid -2 or -1 and my timing improve from an average of about 12:00 mins to an average of about 8:00 mins, I'm running out of problems. I've done almost all the problems in the Cambridge bundle 4 or 5 times and I feel that if I continue to work on the same problems, I'll be cheating myself because I will have already remembered the answers to some of the questions. So that's my question, what other materials can you guys recommend that I use to practice RC on a daily basis. I'm still working on LG and LR, so taking the exam at the moment is not an option for me and if I stop practicing RC altogether, I'll probably get rusty. Furthermore, I don't want to purchase the other Cambridge RC bundles because I wanna save those questions for the PTs. So is there anything else you guys can recommend? I already read the The Economist/Harper's/The New Yorker/Scientific American on a daily basis as well, so is there anything else I can do? It's a tough one I know. Thanks ahead of time.

Daily reading is a good idea but I think it's better to treat the articles and essays you read in periodicals as mini-RCs sections rather than as light reading. After you finish each one, write out the author's main point, opposing views, evidence, structure, possible objections, etc. Of course there are no questions to answer but the closer you can come to treating these resources like the real thing, the better. There are also books like LSAT Workout by Princeton Review or Kaplan's LSAT 180 that have unofficial sections. There are those who advise against using non-LSAC material but I think that's an over-reaction, especially for RC. They provide very good (and extremely difficult) RC practice.

Since you bring it up...I was actually doing that at the beginning of my prep (reading two passages and then writing down the main point, view points, the structure, tone, and the arguments), but as you can imagine this took up some time, typically 30-45mins. Considering that I can only study about 3-4 hrs per day, this was taking more time than I wanted to, considering I was still doing an RC passage which took up an additional 30mins or so. It was really helpful but I also have to use my time wisely. So now, instead of writing down everything, after reading I usually go through a checklist of what I should know and have absorbed by reading the passage. Not only does it take up less time but I also get the practice of sifting through the passage and isolating only the most important info. I would like to do what you're suggesting but not at the moment due to my time limitations. Thanks for the other materials you referenced, I will be checking them out. Thanks for your help, I very much appreciated it.