RC - what am i not seeing? Forum

[trqdor]

Hi,

RC has always been a struggle... my range is between -4 to -9 on any given timed PT, and even when I blind review the entire section/passage, i STILL manage to get at least -3. during these reviews, i re-read the passage to refresh my memory, go through the questions slowly, and scribble out answer choices I deem incorrect - trying to be 100% certain in my scribbling. if there's even a semblance of doubt, i always try to look to the relevant lines and go from there. surely, this method should work and I'll be consistent at some point, i thought.

i'm convinced by everyone's argument that reading for structure and understanding the passage in reference to the main point/author's opinion is the best way to approach the passage. to this end, i try to categorize sentences/phrases - background, point A, point B, support for A, support for B, main point, etc. this helps me see the overarching structure of the passage and mark when important shifts happen, but something must not be clicking. how am i still getting main point questions wrong? why am i not able to synthesize when it comes to 'synthesis' question types? why do i consistently have to battle between two or three answer choices?

what are some triggers for you guys that allow you to eliminate answer choices WITH CONFIDENCE? how are you able to recognize these triggers? i find that some of the triggers are so so so subtle (ex: an answer choice saying 'most scientists think this' when in fact the passage only supports that 'some scientists think this') that it's really hard for me to recognize that without spending an unreasonable amount of time. when did you go from being an RC scrub to an RC star?

i'm frustrated.. but willing to grind my gears to be more confident in RC.

[teacups]

I have the same question, and my main issue is never finishing the passages on time. I find that I've had to essentially "re-learn" to read for RC, and that is difficult because it's hard for me to read for structure, especially so quickly. English has always been my strongest subject, but it does not look that way when I do RC. LR and LG are pretty learnable sections, but with RC, it's different. I would love advice as well.

[WhyYaCryin]

x3

I took the June test and went -2 LG. -3 LR. -2 LR. And -14 RC. Sometimes I'd miss 4 or 5 on RC but other times it would be pretty bad. From what I've gathered, it's the toughest section to improve on. I've used the Lsat superprep and Manhattan RC and neither helped at all in my case.

[Op_Diom]

Hi,

RC has always been a struggle... my range is between -4 to -9 on any given timed PT, and even when I blind review the entire section/passage, i STILL manage to get at least -3. during these reviews, i re-read the passage to refresh my memory, go through the questions slowly, and scribble out answer choices I deem incorrect - trying to be 100% certain in my scribbling. if there's even a semblance of doubt, i always try to look to the relevant lines and go from there. surely, this method should work and I'll be consistent at some point, i thought.

i'm convinced by everyone's argument that reading for structure and understanding the passage in reference to the main point/author's opinion is the best way to approach the passage. to this end, i try to categorize sentences/phrases - background, point A, point B, support for A, support for B, main point, etc. this helps me see the overarching structure of the passage and mark when important shifts happen, but something must not be clicking. how am i still getting main point questions wrong? why am i not able to synthesize when it comes to 'synthesis' question types? why do i consistently have to battle between two or three answer choices?

what are some triggers for you guys that allow you to eliminate answer choices WITH CONFIDENCE? how are you able to recognize these triggers? i find that some of the triggers are so so so subtle (ex: an answer choice saying 'most scientists think this' when in fact the passage only supports that 'some scientists think this') that it's really hard for me to recognize that without spending an unreasonable amount of time. when did you go from being an RC scrub to an RC star?

i'm frustrated.. but willing to grind my gears to be more confident in RC.

I have the same question, and my main issue is never finishing the passages on time. I find that I've had to essentially "re-learn" to read for RC, and that is difficult because it's hard for me to read for structure, especially so quickly. English has always been my strongest subject, but it does not look that way when I do RC. LR and LG are pretty learnable sections, but with RC, it's different. I would love advice as well.

Think of RC as an extended version of inference/MBT questions. If you review the MBT/Inference sections of LR it could be of some help, along with the flaw sections, because generally the wrong answers implement one of these flaw types. If you can anticipate these flaws when reading through the passage, (such as when something is a necessary condition, I automatically make a mental note that if I see where this is treated as a sufficient condition, to not be fooled) then you can increase speed and accuracy.

A lot of RC questions are extremely ambiguous and therefore the right AC cannot easily be chosen when first running through answers. Thus, eliminating incorrect answer choices is the most important means for getting RC moderate to hard questions right. The most difficult questions will be the ones where you have to eliminate four answers to get the right one. So I would say that if you are getting down to two or three answers in some questions, then you are overlooking a subtle part of one answer the invalidates it. Watch for modifiers and be suspicious of information that you cannot directly relate back to the passage. If you keep a coherent understanding of how the rationale in the passage all relates together in deriving the conclusion, then this will become much easier.

For MP questions, make sure you understand the scope of the passage, because not only are answers that deal with just a part of the passage wrong, but so are the ones that get the general idea of the passage but add in something 'extra' that is irrelevant. A lot of the time, difficult answers to eliminate will be the ones that seem spot on to a point made in the passage, but they slyly flip a term or concept on its head just enough to make it incorrect. Thus, you have to be militant about staying within the confines of the passage.

If you can find an explanation guide for whichever pt you are reviewing then I am sure that would help also. Learning the correct mindset for approaching each RC question really helped me improve my RC ability. I admittedly neglected RC until late in my prep, and found it was the most difficult to improve upon but it is not impossible. I went from 4-7 misses, to 1-2 and sometimes 0 (however, sometimes my only miss will still be on a damn main point question). I hope this helps some and if you have any specific questions shoot me a pm. Also, if you have the time and patience, some heavy philosophical texts based in logical rationale and conditionality could be of use. After reading some Donald Davidson or Quine, RC passages seemed like cake.

[libertttarian]

I really struggled with RC, but went -2 on RC on the June LSAT. There were two points for me when I was practicing:

1) More than any other section, I found that it's important to drill question types and actively determine what type question is being asked on PTs/the real test.

2) I found success when I stopped tryin to find the right answer (when it wasn't IMMEDIATELY apparent), and instead started crossing out answers that I knew COULDN'T be true.

Point number 2 is harder to get down on the margins. There are plenty of questions where an argument could be made for two answer choices. In retrospect, it would have helped to get a PT book with explanations of the answers, but I didn't want to spend the money.

What I did was underline any answer choice that I wasn't absolutely sure was incorrect (in addition to circling my answer). Then I'd go back and reread every passage after I finished the section. I looked for the sentence or sentences that made whatever incorrect answer choice I thought looked appealing wrong. I did this whether I had gotten the question wrong or right.
In the end, when I was faced with two appealing answer choices on test day, I found it easier to disprove one of them than to argue for one of them over the other.

Edit: Op_Diom covers all of my points and then some

[appind]

in a similar situation as op and others with -6 to -10 in the new rc.
when you eliminate four choices based on something that invalidates them, after that do you check and confirm the right choice based on the passage or simply circle the remaining one and move on? that extra step alone can take a lot of time which builds up over 27 questions. one of the main issues in rc is timing and all of this can be done well given enough time, but with the time constraint i find myself rushing. eliminating all wrong choices or picking the right one both seem to take a lot of time during a timed section.

I really struggled with RC, but went -2 on RC on the June LSAT. There were two points for me when I was practicing:

1) More than any other section, I found that it's important to drill question types and actively determine what type question is being asked on PTs/the real test.

2) I found success when I stopped tryin to find the right answer (when it wasn't IMMEDIATELY apparent), and instead started crossing out answers that I knew COULDN'T be true.

Point number 2 is harder to get down on the margins. There are plenty of questions where an argument could be made for two answer choices. In retrospect, it would have helped to get a PT book with explanations of the answers, but I didn't want to spend the money.

What I did was underline any answer choice that I wasn't absolutely sure was incorrect (in addition to circling my answer). Then I'd go back and reread every passage after I finished the section. I looked for the sentence or sentences that made whatever incorrect answer choice I thought looked appealing wrong. I did this whether I had gotten the question wrong or right.
In the end, when I was faced with two appealing answer choices on test day, I found it easier to disprove one of them than to argue for one of them over the other.

Edit: Op_Diom covers all of my points and then some

how many were you missing in rc of newer PTs? it seems you were able to finish all the passages and then review all the choices that you had underlined, which could be many in a section.
how much time did you typically take to read a passage, do the questions per passage, and finish the section in PTs and on the game day?

[libertttarian]

in a similar situation as op and others with -6 to -10 in the new rc.
when you eliminate four choices based on something that invalidates them, after that do you check and confirm the right choice based on the passage or simply circle the remaining one and move on? that extra step alone can take a lot of time which builds up over 27 questions. one of the main issues in rc is timing and all of this can be done well given enough time, but with the time constraint i find myself rushing. eliminating all wrong choices or picking the right one both seem to take a lot of time during a timed section.

I really struggled with RC, but went -2 on RC on the June LSAT. There were two points for me when I was practicing:

1) More than any other section, I found that it's important to drill question types and actively determine what type question is being asked on PTs/the real test.

2) I found success when I stopped tryin to find the right answer (when it wasn't IMMEDIATELY apparent), and instead started crossing out answers that I knew COULDN'T be true.

Point number 2 is harder to get down on the margins. There are plenty of questions where an argument could be made for two answer choices. In retrospect, it would have helped to get a PT book with explanations of the answers, but I didn't want to spend the money.

What I did was underline any answer choice that I wasn't absolutely sure was incorrect (in addition to circling my answer). Then I'd go back and reread every passage after I finished the section. I looked for the sentence or sentences that made whatever incorrect answer choice I thought looked appealing wrong. I did this whether I had gotten the question wrong or right.
In the end, when I was faced with two appealing answer choices on test day, I found it easier to disprove one of them than to argue for one of them over the other.

Edit: Op_Diom covers all of my points and then some

how many were you missing in rc of newer PTs? it seems you were able to finish all the passages and then review all the choices that you had underlined, which could be many in a section.
how much time did you typically take to read a passage, do the questions per passage, and finish the section in PTs and on the game day?

I typically went -4 on RC towards the end. Sometimes more sometimes less. My bad days had me going -10 at first.

As far as reading, I read at a pretty fast pace but I actively underlined facts, marked view points, scratched a note or two, etc. I invested a lot of time in marking up the passage, so I took more time to get through the passage than others. The key was to mentally map the structure of the passage so that you could go back and look for whatever tidbit you needed for the question you were on. I answered questions very quickly, and when I had to go back to disprove one answer over the other, I was able to identify the relevant parts of the passage very, very quickly.


To clarify my post, I only made it a point to invalidate 4 out of the 5 answer choices when the CR wasn't immediately clear. There were many questions where the CR was clear to me, and in those cases I would circle the CR off the bat. Half of the battle was learning to spot when I really knew the CR, and when I was stuck between two answers that both sounded good. This took some time to get down, often I would get a question wrong that I thought I KNEW, but in retrospect I was letting my pride get in the way and had just gone with my gut in picking one answer over the other.

Also, when I said I would underline answer choices I wasn't sure on and then review them after I finished the section, what I mean is that AFTER I was done with the section AND TIME HAD BEEN CALLED, I would THEN review the passages and look for the sentences that disproved the underlined answers that I had been unsure of.
So it would be a scenario where two answer choices sounded good to me and, since time was running out, I would choose the one that sounded the most right without disproving the other. But I would underline both answers and then, after time had been called, go back and review both questions.

What happened then is I got good at spotting the type of information that the LSAT guys like to test. For instance, in recent RC passages the testmakers include information in two or three different places that, when taken together, lead to a new inference. I got good at spotting that type of information, and I got good at creating a mental map of the passages structure so that i could go back and find that kind of info when I needed it for a question.

The things that I practiced the most and found the most helpful:
Know what kind of information the testers like to use
Retain the structure of the passage, be able to quickly go back to find a fact, sentence, opinion, etc.
Identify correct answer choices quickly when faced with some of the easier question types
When in doubt and faced with two good answers, identify the one you can PROVE is incorrect

[appind]

To clarify my post, I only made it a point to invalidate 4 out of the 5 answer choices when the CR wasn't immediately clear. There were many questions where the CR was clear to me, and in those cases I would circle the CR off the bat. Half of the battle was learning to spot when I really knew the CR, and when I was stuck between two answers that both sounded good. This took some time to get down, often I would get a question wrong that I thought I KNEW, but in retrospect I was letting my pride get in the way and had just gone with my gut in picking one answer over the other.

Also, when I said I would underline answer choices I wasn't sure on and then review them after I finished the section, what I mean is that AFTER I was done with the section AND TIME HAD BEEN CALLED, I would THEN review the passages and look for the sentences that disproved the underlined answers that I had been unsure of.
So it would be a scenario where two answer choices sounded good to me and, since time was running out, I would choose the one that sounded the most right without disproving the other. But I would underline both answers and then, after time had been called, go back and review both questions.

What happened then is I got good at spotting the type of information that the LSAT guys like to test. For instance, in recent RC passages the testmakers include information in two or three different places that, when taken together, lead to a new inference. I got good at spotting that type of information, and I got good at creating a mental map of the passages structure so that i could go back and find that kind of info when I needed it for a question.

The things that I practiced the most and found the most helpful:
Know what kind of information the testers like to use
Retain the structure of the passage, be able to quickly go back to find a fact, sentence, opinion, etc.
Identify correct answer choices quickly when faced with some of the easier question types
When in doubt and faced with two good answers, identify the one you can PROVE is incorrect

very useful info, i'll try these the next time. to comprehend the passage well it takes me about 4:30+ min so i always end up running into timing issues.
do you have an estimate of how long do you spend on reading the passage and on the questions? how many CR are clear to you so you pick right off the bat and how many questions where you underline for review? how fast do you finish the section before reviewing the underlined questions?

Thus, eliminating incorrect answer choices is the most important means for getting RC moderate to hard questions right. The most difficult questions will be the ones where you have to eliminate four answers to get the right one. So I would say that if you are getting down to two or three answers in some questions, then you are overlooking a subtle part of one answer the invalidates it.

this q was meant to you: when you eliminate four choices based on something that invalidates them, after that do you check and confirm the right choice based on the passage or simply circle the remaining one and move on? that extra step alone can take a lot of time which builds up.

[trqdor]

in a similar situation as op and others with -6 to -10 in the new rc.
when you eliminate four choices based on something that invalidates them, after that do you check and confirm the right choice based on the passage or simply circle the remaining one and move on? that extra step alone can take a lot of time which builds up over 27 questions. one of the main issues in rc is timing and all of this can be done well given enough time, but with the time constraint i find myself rushing. eliminating all wrong choices or picking the right one both seem to take a lot of time during a timed section.

I really struggled with RC, but went -2 on RC on the June LSAT. There were two points for me when I was practicing:

1) More than any other section, I found that it's important to drill question types and actively determine what type question is being asked on PTs/the real test.

2) I found success when I stopped tryin to find the right answer (when it wasn't IMMEDIATELY apparent), and instead started crossing out answers that I knew COULDN'T be true.

Point number 2 is harder to get down on the margins. There are plenty of questions where an argument could be made for two answer choices. In retrospect, it would have helped to get a PT book with explanations of the answers, but I didn't want to spend the money.

What I did was underline any answer choice that I wasn't absolutely sure was incorrect (in addition to circling my answer). Then I'd go back and reread every passage after I finished the section. I looked for the sentence or sentences that made whatever incorrect answer choice I thought looked appealing wrong. I did this whether I had gotten the question wrong or right.
In the end, when I was faced with two appealing answer choices on test day, I found it easier to disprove one of them than to argue for one of them over the other.

Edit: Op_Diom covers all of my points and then some

how many were you missing in rc of newer PTs? it seems you were able to finish all the passages and then review all the choices that you had underlined, which could be many in a section.
how much time did you typically take to read a passage, do the questions per passage, and finish the section in PTs and on the game day?

I typically went -4 on RC towards the end. Sometimes more sometimes less. My bad days had me going -10 at first.

As far as reading, I read at a pretty fast pace but I actively underlined facts, marked view points, scratched a note or two, etc. I invested a lot of time in marking up the passage, so I took more time to get through the passage than others. The key was to mentally map the structure of the passage so that you could go back and look for whatever tidbit you needed for the question you were on. I answered questions very quickly, and when I had to go back to disprove one answer over the other, I was able to identify the relevant parts of the passage very, very quickly.


To clarify my post, I only made it a point to invalidate 4 out of the 5 answer choices when the CR wasn't immediately clear. There were many questions where the CR was clear to me, and in those cases I would circle the CR off the bat. Half of the battle was learning to spot when I really knew the CR, and when I was stuck between two answers that both sounded good. This took some time to get down, often I would get a question wrong that I thought I KNEW, but in retrospect I was letting my pride get in the way and had just gone with my gut in picking one answer over the other.

Also, when I said I would underline answer choices I wasn't sure on and then review them after I finished the section, what I mean is that AFTER I was done with the section AND TIME HAD BEEN CALLED, I would THEN review the passages and look for the sentences that disproved the underlined answers that I had been unsure of.
So it would be a scenario where two answer choices sounded good to me and, since time was running out, I would choose the one that sounded the most right without disproving the other. But I would underline both answers and then, after time had been called, go back and review both questions.

What happened then is I got good at spotting the type of information that the LSAT guys like to test. For instance, in recent RC passages the testmakers include information in two or three different places that, when taken together, lead to a new inference. I got good at spotting that type of information, and I got good at creating a mental map of the passages structure so that i could go back and find that kind of info when I needed it for a question.

The things that I practiced the most and found the most helpful:
Know what kind of information the testers like to use
Retain the structure of the passage, be able to quickly go back to find a fact, sentence, opinion, etc.
Identify correct answer choices quickly when faced with some of the easier question types
When in doubt and faced with two good answers, identify the one you can PROVE is incorrect

the tips at the end are super helpful. thanks! i think i need to practice a lot more on really understanding the passages to be able to retain the whole argument and anticipate what types of information will be useful. if im being honest with myself, i probably rate my understanding of the text as a 6/10 after reading the passage and moving onto the questions, but it seems like you're advocating that being 9.5/10 is the way to go.

but similar to other posters in this thread, i foresee timing to be a real issue. im already cutting it close/running a little over with my imperfect reading of the text. hopefully investing more time upfront will help me go through the questions with greater precision.

i noticed 7sage has a few RC videos on youtube where JY goes through his thought process as he solves the questions (similar to how he does his LG videos). im not sure how helpful the general public finds these videos especially.. but i think if there's one thing i learned from the one video i watched is that many ACs contain various elements (ex: explanation of a theory; description of an obstacle to the theory's general acceptance; presentation of an explanatio nthat helps the theory overcome the obstacle; discussion of the implications of rejecting the theory) - and each element must be true in order for the AC to be right. if there's even one detail about the AC that is wrong (ex from before: if there is no 'description' of the obstacle), the entire AC is wrong.

[Op_Diom]

To clarify my post, I only made it a point to invalidate 4 out of the 5 answer choices when the CR wasn't immediately clear. There were many questions where the CR was clear to me, and in those cases I would circle the CR off the bat. Half of the battle was learning to spot when I really knew the CR, and when I was stuck between two answers that both sounded good. This took some time to get down, often I would get a question wrong that I thought I KNEW, but in retrospect I was letting my pride get in the way and had just gone with my gut in picking one answer over the other.

Also, when I said I would underline answer choices I wasn't sure on and then review them after I finished the section, what I mean is that AFTER I was done with the section AND TIME HAD BEEN CALLED, I would THEN review the passages and look for the sentences that disproved the underlined answers that I had been unsure of.
So it would be a scenario where two answer choices sounded good to me and, since time was running out, I would choose the one that sounded the most right without disproving the other. But I would underline both answers and then, after time had been called, go back and review both questions.

What happened then is I got good at spotting the type of information that the LSAT guys like to test. For instance, in recent RC passages the testmakers include information in two or three different places that, when taken together, lead to a new inference. I got good at spotting that type of information, and I got good at creating a mental map of the passages structure so that i could go back and find that kind of info when I needed it for a question.

The things that I practiced the most and found the most helpful:
Know what kind of information the testers like to use
Retain the structure of the passage, be able to quickly go back to find a fact, sentence, opinion, etc.
Identify correct answer choices quickly when faced with some of the easier question types
When in doubt and faced with two good answers, identify the one you can PROVE is incorrect

very useful info, i'll try these the next time. to comprehend the passage well it takes me about 4:30+ min so i always end up running into timing issues.
do you have an estimate of how long do you spend on reading the passage and on the questions? how many CR are clear to you so you pick right off the bat and how many questions where you underline for review? how fast do you finish the section before reviewing the underlined questions?

Thus, eliminating incorrect answer choices is the most important means for getting RC moderate to hard questions right. The most difficult questions will be the ones where you have to eliminate four answers to get the right one. So I would say that if you are getting down to two or three answers in some questions, then you are overlooking a subtle part of one answer the invalidates it.

this q was meant to you: when you eliminate four choices based on something that invalidates them, after that do you check and confirm the right choice based on the passage or simply circle the remaining one and move on? that extra step alone can take a lot of time which builds up.

Yeah, it is kind of intuition, depending on how confident I feel in my eliminations. If I can visualize the precise rationale and coherence of the argument really clearly, then the scope is usually defined well enough to eliminate with confidence. If you also make a mental note of the function of each paragraph in arriving at the conclusion as a whole, then you don't have to make too many notes and can look back fairly quickly into the passage to find the relevant texts. Also, there are like a dozen general purposes/functions of paragraphs that continually reappear, and the scale and direction of the passage as a whole is usually one of about a half dozen common themes/scales. So, if you get comfortable with these general schemes and how they work in their basic elements, then for each new passage, despite the changing specifics, the structure is more or less familiar to you.

Furthermore, I try to be through the passage at 3 min flat (maybe 330 at most), then go through and pick up the questions which I don't have to look back at the passage for. Then I go through the difficult ones with the process of elimination or looking back for texts. But I'll tell you the key for speed is anticipation and anticipation comes with experience. If you complete enough passages, and analyze them in enough detail, then when you start to read through another fresh passage, you will start to have intuitional moments where you expect a certain bit of information will be important, or likely to be asked about. Like, any conditional reasoning or causation used in the passage that directly impact the conclusion, you can guarantee will show up in the questions. Its not about looking at or understanding more information, but its about looking at and understanding the right information.

[libertttarian]

in a similar situation as op and others with -6 to -10 in the new rc.
when you eliminate four choices based on something that invalidates them, after that do you check and confirm the right choice based on the passage or simply circle the remaining one and move on? that extra step alone can take a lot of time which builds up over 27 questions. one of the main issues in rc is timing and all of this can be done well given enough time, but with the time constraint i find myself rushing. eliminating all wrong choices or picking the right one both seem to take a lot of time during a timed section.

I really struggled with RC, but went -2 on RC on the June LSAT. There were two points for me when I was practicing:

1) More than any other section, I found that it's important to drill question types and actively determine what type question is being asked on PTs/the real test.

2) I found success when I stopped tryin to find the right answer (when it wasn't IMMEDIATELY apparent), and instead started crossing out answers that I knew COULDN'T be true.

Point number 2 is harder to get down on the margins. There are plenty of questions where an argument could be made for two answer choices. In retrospect, it would have helped to get a PT book with explanations of the answers, but I didn't want to spend the money.

What I did was underline any answer choice that I wasn't absolutely sure was incorrect (in addition to circling my answer). Then I'd go back and reread every passage after I finished the section. I looked for the sentence or sentences that made whatever incorrect answer choice I thought looked appealing wrong. I did this whether I had gotten the question wrong or right.
In the end, when I was faced with two appealing answer choices on test day, I found it easier to disprove one of them than to argue for one of them over the other.

Edit: Op_Diom covers all of my points and then some

how many were you missing in rc of newer PTs? it seems you were able to finish all the passages and then review all the choices that you had underlined, which could be many in a section.
how much time did you typically take to read a passage, do the questions per passage, and finish the section in PTs and on the game day?

I typically went -4 on RC towards the end. Sometimes more sometimes less. My bad days had me going -10 at first.

As far as reading, I read at a pretty fast pace but I actively underlined facts, marked view points, scratched a note or two, etc. I invested a lot of time in marking up the passage, so I took more time to get through the passage than others. The key was to mentally map the structure of the passage so that you could go back and look for whatever tidbit you needed for the question you were on. I answered questions very quickly, and when I had to go back to disprove one answer over the other, I was able to identify the relevant parts of the passage very, very quickly.


To clarify my post, I only made it a point to invalidate 4 out of the 5 answer choices when the CR wasn't immediately clear. There were many questions where the CR was clear to me, and in those cases I would circle the CR off the bat. Half of the battle was learning to spot when I really knew the CR, and when I was stuck between two answers that both sounded good. This took some time to get down, often I would get a question wrong that I thought I KNEW, but in retrospect I was letting my pride get in the way and had just gone with my gut in picking one answer over the other.

Also, when I said I would underline answer choices I wasn't sure on and then review them after I finished the section, what I mean is that AFTER I was done with the section AND TIME HAD BEEN CALLED, I would THEN review the passages and look for the sentences that disproved the underlined answers that I had been unsure of.
So it would be a scenario where two answer choices sounded good to me and, since time was running out, I would choose the one that sounded the most right without disproving the other. But I would underline both answers and then, after time had been called, go back and review both questions.

What happened then is I got good at spotting the type of information that the LSAT guys like to test. For instance, in recent RC passages the testmakers include information in two or three different places that, when taken together, lead to a new inference. I got good at spotting that type of information, and I got good at creating a mental map of the passages structure so that i could go back and find that kind of info when I needed it for a question.

The things that I practiced the most and found the most helpful:
Know what kind of information the testers like to use
Retain the structure of the passage, be able to quickly go back to find a fact, sentence, opinion, etc.
Identify correct answer choices quickly when faced with some of the easier question types
When in doubt and faced with two good answers, identify the one you can PROVE is incorrect

the tips at the end are super helpful. thanks! i think i need to practice a lot more on really understanding the passages to be able to retain the whole argument and anticipate what types of information will be useful. if im being honest with myself, i probably rate my understanding of the text as a 6/10 after reading the passage and moving onto the questions, but it seems like you're advocating that being 9.5/10 is the way to go.

but similar to other posters in this thread, i foresee timing to be a real issue. im already cutting it close/running a little over with my imperfect reading of the text. hopefully investing more time upfront will help me go through the questions with greater precision.

i noticed 7sage has a few RC videos on youtube where JY goes through his thought process as he solves the questions (similar to how he does his LG videos). im not sure how helpful the general public finds these videos especially.. but i think if there's one thing i learned from the one video i watched is that many ACs contain various elements (ex: explanation of a theory; description of an obstacle to the theory's general acceptance; presentation of an explanatio nthat helps the theory overcome the obstacle; discussion of the implications of rejecting the theory) - and each element must be true in order for the AC to be right. if there's even one detail about the AC that is wrong (ex from before: if there is no 'description' of the obstacle), the entire AC is wrong.

You're right timing is brutal, which is why practice is so crucial. You really need to be able to read and annotate at a pretty fast clip. I did a lot more annotating than most people but I had gotten very good at reading and annotating quickly, so that the time it took me to get through a passage was not that much more.

And yeah, sometimes an answer choice is very appealing, but there's one tiny thing not supported in the passage. At first I found it very difficult to go against my gut, but that's the way the LSAT gets you.

All I can say is practice practice practice, and if you notice weaknesses in your game take the time to analyze where those weaknesses are coming from. Create a system that works for you, in that it allows you to address your weaknesses and make use of your strengths.