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I'm just having some difficulty with my RC speed. I can get the questions correct, but it takes me longer than it should to get through the dense material well enough that I understand the questions. What can I do to work on the my reading speed while maintaining the high level of retention needed? I've heard reading and writing summaries of texts such as The Economist, but am looking for other suggestions as well.

What works for me is to read through the passage at just the right speed.
No annotations; just develop a sense of where the important information, like the main idea and author's opinion(s), are.

hinton2014 wrote:I'm just having some difficulty with my RC speed. I can get the questions correct, but it takes me longer than it should to get through the dense material well enough that I understand the questions. What can I do to work on the my reading speed while maintaining the high level of retention needed? I've heard reading and writing summaries of texts such as The Economist, but am looking for other suggestions as well.

The best advice is just to put in extra time practicing RC specifically. If you're completing sections with high accuracy, that's a really good sign. It's just a matter of becoming more comfortable with your approach, to the point where you're naturally able to move through sections faster.

I was taught to read and annotate for main point, theme, and other views, but honestly, I have greatly improved by simply reading fairly quickly with no annotations. I noticed that I was already making these types of deductions as I read, and reading to find these aspects made me read slower and rushed me for the questions. I know its unconventional advice considering what the "experts" tell you, but I have seen success with it. I'd say it wouldn't hurt to try

I have to agree with the others that annotations have proven for me the opposite of helpful. They are time-consuming and distracting. Reading the information slowly (I sort of naturally read over what I see as "fluff", but I did that before the LSAT) is far more comprehensive then annotating, takign notes etc. which actually distracts me from the text.

I read then immediately go to the question. I always finish with like 6 minutes to spare giving me enough time to go over it, which is better than wasting that time previously on something where a question might not be asked.

earldasquirel wrote:I was taught to read and annotate for main point, theme, and other views, but honestly, I have greatly improved by simply reading fairly quickly with no annotations. I noticed that I was already making these types of deductions as I read, and reading to find these aspects made me read slower and rushed me for the questions. I know its unconventional advice considering what the "experts" tell you, but I have seen success with it. I'd say it wouldn't hurt to try

This is only taught so that you understand what to look for when you're reading. The idea is that with enough practice you will look for all these things instinctively without having to annotate.

As for the OP's question, you have to find the perfect speed where you are reading as fast as you can with maximum retention. This only really comes with practice, so just keep it up and you should start to see improvement.

Zoidberg747 wrote:

earldasquirel wrote:I was taught to read and annotate for main point, theme, and other views, but honestly, I have greatly improved by simply reading fairly quickly with no annotations. I noticed that I was already making these types of deductions as I read, and reading to find these aspects made me read slower and rushed me for the questions. I know its unconventional advice considering what the "experts" tell you, but I have seen success with it. I'd say it wouldn't hurt to try

This is only taught so that you understand what to look for when you're reading. The idea is that with enough practice you will look for all these things instinctively without having to annotate.

As for the OP's question, you have to find the perfect speed where you are reading as fast as you can with maximum retention. This only really comes with practice, so just keep it up and you should start to see improvement.

Not sure what test prep you took but mine clearly tells students to underline main point, mark where the passage switches perspectives, make notes where examples or definitions come into play, etc. It does not give the impression that annotations will be unnecessary as the student becomes more practiced

earldasquirel wrote:

Zoidberg747 wrote:

earldasquirel wrote:I was taught to read and annotate for main point, theme, and other views, but honestly, I have greatly improved by simply reading fairly quickly with no annotations. I noticed that I was already making these types of deductions as I read, and reading to find these aspects made me read slower and rushed me for the questions. I know its unconventional advice considering what the "experts" tell you, but I have seen success with it. I'd say it wouldn't hurt to try

This is only taught so that you understand what to look for when you're reading. The idea is that with enough practice you will look for all these things instinctively without having to annotate.

As for the OP's question, you have to find the perfect speed where you are reading as fast as you can with maximum retention. This only really comes with practice, so just keep it up and you should start to see improvement.

Not sure what test prep you took but mine clearly tells students to underline main point, mark where the passage switches perspectives, make notes where examples or definitions come into play, etc. It does not give the impression that annotations will be unnecessary as the student becomes more practiced

Annotations definitely become less necessary as you become more practiced. Blueprint's RC book is actually pretty good. It teaches you how to annotate and goes through detailed drills of annotating (and explains everything) but also emphasizes that as you grow more comfortable/get better, you'll probably end up annotating far less. I never ditched annotating completely, but I also didn't just mark within the passage, instead I would summarize a paragraph in as few of my own words as possible so that it would be easy to locate if I needed a particular passage. I think the less you annotate, the faster you can complete question sets (as long as you still understand the passage of course).

Deardevil wrote:What works for me is to read through the passage at just the right speed.
No annotations; just develop a sense of where the important information, like the main idea and author's opinion(s), are.

This^ is what I tend to do, and then develop a map in my head of the passage lay out before hitting the question. Another benefit is that the passage is clean when you review, so when I review the passage untimed I like to underline the portion of the text that I am getting my answers from for each question. Reviewing in fashion I described helps you to recognize patterns, and where the test makers often places answers to questions.

earldasquirel wrote:I was taught to read and annotate for main point, theme, and other views, but honestly, I have greatly improved by simply reading fairly quickly with no annotations. I noticed that I was already making these types of deductions as I read, and reading to find these aspects made me read slower and rushed me for the questions. I know its unconventional advice considering what the "experts" tell you, but I have seen success with it. I'd say it wouldn't hurt to try

Strangely enough this is exactly what happened with me. I learned to annotate and there's a wide array of different techniques; BP actually had a huge thing about drawing the author and argument and arrow pointing whether the author had any inclination. I actually just start each passage drawing lines to separate each paragraph and then make loose annotations and underlines or brackets. As long as I'm able to read through the entire passage carefully, I'm pretty confident in tackling the questions.

But it also goes into getting enough prep and getting comfortable with each type of question and anticipation.