This is my first and hopefully last time taking the LSAT. I'm waiting for more money to buy texts, so I'm starting off with working on reading comprehension. Today I did the first 15 pages of the Jan. 2016 Scientific American. I'm also going to use the Atlantic and American Rifleman. My goal is pretty simple: get 180/180 and go to YLS.
I'd appreciate if you all let me know how I'm doing so far with Reading Comprehension analysis. Thanks in advance.
PS: Is there a way to attach docs, like Word docs? I can do it on other forums, but I don't see a button for it here.
From the Editor: Finding Our Place, pg. 4
• Main points (conclusions): The editor is trying to push three articles to the reader’s attention. These articles are highlighted for the reader’s attention as a way to say basically “if you read anything, read these articles”, or to highlight certain things to either help drive up subscriptions or to increase reader awareness on certain issues. This may be the result of the staff of the magazine analyzing requests by readers or by looking at what interests readers the most.
• Underlying facts (evidence): The editor does not cite any specific facts with citations, but merely summarizes three articles that are to follow in the magazine. There are some statistics thrown out however: the rings of this new exoplanet are supposed to be 200 times larger than Saturn’s.
• Main players (supporters and critics): Supporters – the editor, Mariette DiChristina and authors May-Britt Moser, Edvard I. Moser, David Biello, Matthew Kenworthy. Critics – none.
• Players' motivations/interests (if any): The editor’s motivation is to get readers to look into these three specific articles. This is a highlight reel, almost stating “if you only read a few articles in this magazine, read these.” Highlighting the second article about the coal plant in Mississippi seems politically motivated due to putting “clean coal” in quotes, mentioning the “expense” of plants like Kemper (without listing an exact figure) and the phrasing of the sentence involving pumping out more oil with the captured carbon dioxide comes across as if the editor was against the extraction of more oil.
• Reading Comprehension Words: ruminate, existential, “clean coal”, “carbon capture”, exoplanet
Ruminate: think deeply about something or to “chew the cud”, i.e. to discuss or think out loud about something.
Existential: of or relating to existence, concerned with existence, especially human existence as viewed in the theories of existentialism or affirming or implying the existence of a thing.
“Clean coal”: a concept for processes or approaches that mitigate emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases that arise from the utilization of coal, mainly for electrical power generation, using clean coal technology.
Exoplanet: an exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet that orbits a star other than the Sun, i.e. a planet that doesn’t orbit the Sun.
I skipped the “Letters” section on pages 6 and 8.
A Campaign to Cut Drug Prices, pg. 10
• Main points (conclusions): The author, in this case the Board of Editors, is trying to convince the reader that drug prices are too high in America, that the Federal government “needs to do something” about this, and that politicians should force drug companies to have more transparency. The author also wants to impress upon the reader that foreign, cheaper drugs should be made available.
• Underlying facts (evidence): The author mentions that the price of Daraprim went up from $13.50 p/pill to $750 in 2015; “patients in the US often pay much more than Europeans for older drugs”, but this sentence has no supporting facts or citations; Hillary and Bernie have issued proposals to allow Medicare more purchasing power to negotiate prices with drug companies; Kaiser Family Foundation polls reveal that ¾ of GOP members surveyed (note: the number of Republicans was not mentioned – may be a small sample size) wanted Medicare to be more involved in pricing negotiations; a new cancer drug can cost $100,000 and $25,000 is paid by patients.
• Main players (supporters and critics): Supporters: Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton and Kaiser Family Foundation. Critics: Ben Carson/Republicans in general
• Players' motivations/interests (if any): Democrats in general prefer a less market-oriented approach to the pricing of goods. This will put more restrictions like price ceilings on private drug companies and more power in the hands of regulatory agencies like the FDA or FTC or agencies like Medicare. The Kaiser Family Foundation does seem to have an interest in this matter since they publish information, polls and journalism; making changes to the health care industry gives them more stories to write about or things to do. Republicans like Ben Carson prefer a more-market oriented approach to the pricing of goods. Putting a price-ceiling would not encourage a free market situation in the drug market.
• Reading Comprehension Words: co-payment, Daraprim, empower, Kaiser Family Foundation
Co-payment: A type of insurance policy where the insured pays a specified amount of out-of-pocket expenses for health-care services such as doctor visits and prescriptions drugs at the time the service is rendered, with the insurer paying the remaining costs.
Daraprim: a medication used for protozoal infections. It is commonly used as an antimalarial drug (for both treatment and prevention of malaria), and to treat Toxoplasma gondii infections, particularly when combined with the sulfonamide antibiotic sulfadiazine when treating HIV-positive individuals. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, the most important medications needed in a basic health system.
Empower: to give official authority or legal power to, to enable or to promote the self-actualization or influence of
Kaiser Family Foundation: a U.S.-based non-profit organization, headquartered in Menlo Park, California. It focuses on major health care issues facing the nation, as well as U.S. role in global health policy. The Foundation states that it is a non-partisan source of facts and analysis, polling and journalism for policymakers, the media, the health care community, and the general public and kff.org is known for having the “most up-to-date and accurate information on health policy” and as a "must-read for healthcare devotees."
Academia’s Gender Problem, pg. 11
• Main points (conclusions): The author is trying to convince the reader that there is a gender imbalance towards men in the academic medical world and that as a society, or at least as a clique in society, progress must be made to remove the imbalance.
• Underlying facts (evidence): The author gave a personal experience of being taken out for a date by a professor and then rejecting his extremely mild sexual advances; she later experienced a drop in her grade. The percentage of doctorates awarded to women in life sciences has increased from 15% to 52% from 1969 to 2009. 1/3 of assistant professors and 1/5 of full professors of biology-related fields in 2009 were women. Both male and female HR directors in medical academia rate male resumes and applicants as more competent than female (without naming names). The author finally gave another personal example of when she speaks to female scientists, they often let her know of situations where input from men is preferred, or at least more welcomed, than advice from women.
• Main players (supporters and critics): Supporters: the author herself and aspiring female scientists. Critics: “the male establishment.”
• Players' motivations/interests (if any): The author had a bad experience with a male professor during “school” (undergrad/grad/high school/middle school not specified) after being touched and then having her grade reduced. The author does not specify why she went on the date, how her grades were after the incident (did her homework scores go down? What was her final grade? Etc.). This experience and what she saw early in her career may have pushed her into a mildly misandrist position. As for “the male establishment”, most people will do whatever they can to advance themselves even if it comes at the expense of others.
• Reading Comprehension Words: “microassaults”
Microassault: a form of microaggression involving purposeful discriminatory action, such as a verbal attack or avoidant behavior.
Fear of the Unknown, pgs. 13 through 15
• Main points (conclusions): The author and the supporters of NEOCam are of the opinion that Congress is not funding NASA’s NEO hunting enough and that funding should not be an issue; they want NASA to be given carte blanche when it comes to funding, especially when it comes to hunting for NEOs.
• Underlying facts (evidence): The explosion of an 18-meter wide rock over Russia injured 1600 people and caused $30 billion in damages. NASA completed cataloging 90% of NEOs with a diameter of 1km or greater in 2010. NASA has until 2020 to catalog NEOs with a diameter of 140m, however there is no penalty if they do not meet their deadline (besides possibly missing out on finding “the big one” before it is too late). The spacecraft used to hunt for NEOs is predicted to cease functioning by 2017. Because of the limitations imposed on NASA, this smaller NEO hunting project is expected to be completed in 30 or 35 years. NASA expects that a space mission to hunt for midsized NEOs to cost half a billion dollars.
• Main players (supporters and critics): Supporters: NASA, Amy Mainzer. Critics: Congress
• Players' motivations/interests (if any): NASA and Ms. Mainzer want more money. Although there is the obvious need to track NEOs, NASA is currently underfunded by at least a factor of 12.5. NASA perceives this as part of a greater issue and so does academia. Congress has recently been cutting NASA’s budget in an attempt to bring the whole budget in more of a fiscal balance (along with other cuts).
• Reading Comprehension Words: saurian, planetary-scale disaster
Saurian: the clade Sauria was traditionally a suborder for lizards which originally (before 1800) comprised crocodilians too. It has been redefined as the group containing the most recent common ancestor of archosaurs and lepidosaurs and all its descendants; as such it was commonly thought that Sauria is a crowned-base grouping of diapsids. However recent genomic studies and comprehensive studies in the fossil record suggest that turtles are closely related to archosaurs, not to parareptiles as previously thought. As such Sauria can be seen as a crowned-group of all modern reptiles (including birds) within the larger total group Sauropsida, which also contains various stem-reptile groups.
Planetary-scale disaster: a hypothetical future event with the potential to seriously damage human well-being on a global scale.
