Cannot understand what they are talking about on the 1st round (RC/LR) Forum

[1sataker]

Hi,
For some hard LR questions and most RC passages...I have to read twice or more to understand what they are talking about in the questions or passages
And because of this it takes much time to finish reading and understanding...how can I overcome this? Do you have any advice?
Thank you,

[BlueprintJason]

Hi,
For some hard LR questions and most RC passages...I have to read twice or more to understand what they are talking about in the questions or passages
And because of this it takes much time to finish reading and understanding...how can I overcome this? Do you have any advice?
Thank you,

The thing most readers do wrong on the LSAT is try to read too fast. It's a reading style that is a bit different because you have to focus on 1) thinking about the structure of the argument or fact pattern and 2) prioritize and memorize salient details.

If you know you've started reading a hard passage or STIM, slow down, pause after each sentence or so and summarize to yourself what is going on here. It's ok that this takes a while, because the majority of passages and STIMs are easy to get through on a first read. Some of them are weird, and so warrant a little more time up front making sure you really get it the first time and don't have to keep re-reading things.

HTH!

[1sataker]

Hi,
For some hard LR questions and most RC passages...I have to read twice or more to understand what they are talking about in the questions or passages
And because of this it takes much time to finish reading and understanding...how can I overcome this? Do you have any advice?
Thank you,

The thing most readers do wrong on the LSAT is try to read too fast. It's a reading style that is a bit different because you have to focus on 1) thinking about the structure of the argument or fact pattern and 2) prioritize and memorize salient details.

If you know you've started reading a hard passage or STIM, slow down, pause after each sentence or so and summarize to yourself what is going on here. It's ok that this takes a while, because the majority of passages and STIMs are easy to get through on a first read. Some of them are weird, and so warrant a little more time up front making sure you really get it the first time and don't have to keep re-reading things.

HTH!

Thanks for the reply!
How long do you suggest to spend on a passage?
And when you say structure or fact pattern, does that mean such as background information, critics argument etc? (organization?)
Or do you mean other things?

[redfred22]

Another thing I would add here is to not worry about spending so much time on a passage or stimulus, as long as that time translates into doing questions a little bit faster.

Once I started to spend more time up front on the passage or stimulus, and once I used that extra time to really get to know it and break it down, I realized that I answered questions so much faster. Take your time, slow down, and really digest what you're reading. Sometimes we feel like time that is not spent on answer choices is time wasted, but a majority of the work has to go into the stimulus and passage. If you're putting in more time on the passage and stimulus, then good! But don't fret about it, and use that time to really discern what you're reading, then prephrase an answer and go into the answer choices with a clear understanding in mind. Wrong answers will pop out and right answers should, hopefully, being to match your prephrase with more practice and identification of the patterns that the test writers like to throw out there.

[1sataker]

Another thing I would add here is to not worry about spending so much time on a passage or stimulus, as long as that time translates into doing questions a little bit faster.

Once I started to spend more time up front on the passage or stimulus, and once I used that extra time to really get to know it and break it down, I realized that I answered questions so much faster. Take your time, slow down, and really digest what you're reading. Sometimes we feel like time that is not spent on answer choices is time wasted, but a majority of the work has to go into the stimulus and passage. If you're putting in more time on the passage and stimulus, then good! But don't fret about it, and use that time to really discern what you're reading, then prephrase an answer and go into the answer choices with a clear understanding in mind. Wrong answers will pop out and right answers should, hopefully, being to match your prephrase with more practice and identification of the patterns that the test writers like to throw out there.

Thanks!

[BlueprintJason]

Hi,
For some hard LR questions and most RC passages...I have to read twice or more to understand what they are talking about in the questions or passages
And because of this it takes much time to finish reading and understanding...how can I overcome this? Do you have any advice?
Thank you,

The thing most readers do wrong on the LSAT is try to read too fast. It's a reading style that is a bit different because you have to focus on 1) thinking about the structure of the argument or fact pattern and 2) prioritize and memorize salient details.

If you know you've started reading a hard passage or STIM, slow down, pause after each sentence or so and summarize to yourself what is going on here. It's ok that this takes a while, because the majority of passages and STIMs are easy to get through on a first read. Some of them are weird, and so warrant a little more time up front making sure you really get it the first time and don't have to keep re-reading things.

HTH!

Thanks for the reply!
How long do you suggest to spend on a passage?
And when you say structure or fact pattern, does that mean such as background information, critics argument etc? (organization?)
Or do you mean other things?

Happy to help!

For reading RC, it kind of depends. I think 3-4 minutes is probably good. Fast enough to where you have time for the questions and not so quick to where you have to waste time looking back for easy questions when you shouldn't have to. If it's a fluffy first passage, then maybe 2:30, if it's dense and scientific plus not that many questions, then maybe 4:30. Those are just benchmarks though. The thing I see a lot is people blasting through a passage in 1:30 and then having to look back for every question and taking 10 minutes to answer 5 questions in an easy passage. That's just not a good use of your time.

As to 1) in my post above, I mean as you are reading you are either trying to understand the logical structure if it is an argument based stimulus like Flaw or Necessary, or if it is just a bunch of facts in a MBT question then you are just trying to remember the key facts. As to 2), you don't have to memorize every detail, just enough nuance to where you get the structure or you notice the key distinctions in the information (was the evidence about a specific type of illness but the conclusion was more general to all illnesses, etc. That's more important to notice than even remembering what illness you are talking about, for example, because there is an equivocation flaw between the premise and the conclusion--or a part to whole fallacy depending on the context).

Does that clear it up? Let me know if I'm not making sense and I'll try to clarify.

HTH

Jason

[BlueprintJason]

Another thing I would add here is to not worry about spending so much time on a passage or stimulus, as long as that time translates into doing questions a little bit faster.

Once I started to spend more time up front on the passage or stimulus, and once I used that extra time to really get to know it and break it down, I realized that I answered questions so much faster. Take your time, slow down, and really digest what you're reading. Sometimes we feel like time that is not spent on answer choices is time wasted, but a majority of the work has to go into the stimulus and passage. If you're putting in more time on the passage and stimulus, then good! But don't fret about it, and use that time to really discern what you're reading, then prephrase an answer and go into the answer choices with a clear understanding in mind. Wrong answers will pop out and right answers should, hopefully, being to match your prephrase with more practice and identification of the patterns that the test writers like to throw out there.

This is really good advice.

[1sataker]

Hi,
For some hard LR questions and most RC passages...I have to read twice or more to understand what they are talking about in the questions or passages
And because of this it takes much time to finish reading and understanding...how can I overcome this? Do you have any advice?
Thank you,

The thing most readers do wrong on the LSAT is try to read too fast. It's a reading style that is a bit different because you have to focus on 1) thinking about the structure of the argument or fact pattern and 2) prioritize and memorize salient details.

If you know you've started reading a hard passage or STIM, slow down, pause after each sentence or so and summarize to yourself what is going on here. It's ok that this takes a while, because the majority of passages and STIMs are easy to get through on a first read. Some of them are weird, and so warrant a little more time up front making sure you really get it the first time and don't have to keep re-reading things.

HTH!

Thanks for the reply!
How long do you suggest to spend on a passage?
And when you say structure or fact pattern, does that mean such as background information, critics argument etc? (organization?)
Or do you mean other things?

Happy to help!

For reading RC, it kind of depends. I think 3-4 minutes is probably good. Fast enough to where you have time for the questions and not so quick to where you have to waste time looking back for easy questions when you shouldn't have to. If it's a fluffy first passage, then maybe 2:30, if it's dense and scientific plus not that many questions, then maybe 4:30. Those are just benchmarks though. The thing I see a lot is people blasting through a passage in 1:30 and then having to look back for every question and taking 10 minutes to answer 5 questions in an easy passage. That's just not a good use of your time.

As to 1) in my post above, I mean as you are reading you are either trying to understand the logical structure if it is an argument based stimulus like Flaw or Necessary, or if it is just a bunch of facts in a MBT question then you are just trying to remember the key facts. As to 2), you don't have to memorize every detail, just enough nuance to where you get the structure or you notice the key distinctions in the information (was the evidence about a specific type of illness but the conclusion was more general to all illnesses, etc. That's more important to notice than even remembering what illness you are talking about, for example, because there is an equivocation flaw between the premise and the conclusion--or a part to whole fallacy depending on the context).

Does that clear it up? Let me know if I'm not making sense and I'll try to clarify.

HTH

Jason

Thank you so much for the help, Jason
As redfred22 also said...I'll try to spend time on a passage to understand it better instead of rushing.
This forum is full of nice ppl&advice!