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Law passages in RC cause the most trouble. Any recommendation for how to strengthen comprehension of these passages besides persistent practice?

What about them do you find makes them more difficult?

dontsaywhatyoumean wrote:What about them do you find makes them more difficult?

The struggle is in part psychological, since the test is the first step into the legal world and the passage topic is about legal material.

There seem to be more relationships between concepts in law passages than for non-law passages.

The questions, rather than the passage, seem to be the source of the problem.

Hmm, that's still not specific enough for me, other than the psychological part.

I know personally that I used to HATE the arts passages. Not humanities like philosophy, etc, but arts as in having to do with sculptures, paintings, etc. Music was fine though, because I really like music, and spend some time examining it.


I've found that my largest improvement with RC was due to having a better understanding of the passage. Intimidation, or lack of interest with arts passages often caused me to score less there.

Maybe try thinking to yourself that the law passages are inherently interesting DUE to their relevance to what you want to do? Maybe you can learn something.

WeightliftingThinker wrote:

dontsaywhatyoumean wrote:What about them do you find makes them more difficult?

The struggle is in part psychological, since the test is the first step into the legal world and the passage topic is about legal material.

There seem to be more relationships between concepts in law passages than for non-law passages.

The questions, rather than the passage, seem to be the source of the problem.

I agree and I had the biggest struggle with science/econ passages when I first started doing RC. To get over this struggle, I first mastered the RC subjects that were easier to me like humanities/law. I did this by stripping the passage down to its bare components and looking actively for the author's voice, different opinions, main point, passage structure, examples, etc. Then I applied this to the subjectively harder topics since they're just different in subject matter, not passage structure. Doing so made me focus almost exclusively on passage organization and different viewpoints, instead of getting boggled down by the subject matter itself. Also, I think reading science magazines/articles/books helped me get over that intimidation, and I would read them as I would any other RC passage (by looking for author's opinion, main point, ways to strengthen or weaken the author's claim). So maybe it could also help you if you read law magazines until it feels like second nature!

WeightliftingThinker wrote:Law passages in RC cause the most trouble. Any recommendation for how to strengthen comprehension of these passages besides persistent practice?

I had a similar thing for Science passages. Practice showed me that the subject of a given passage is virtually irrelevant because what is being tested is a standard set of skills across all passages.

You should practice and review passages to figure out the skills that get tested. Once you get a fair idea of the broad skills being tested, you would become neutral to the subject. And the knowledge that you have the skills being tested will make you test ready. Hth.

Hmm.. I get where you're coming for with some of the questions being hard in law passages, but I think the key is to just have a big interest in what you're reading. Like me, I love law passages, I think they're all really interesting, but I'll daze out on a passage about some historical event.

Do you annotate or just read?

Mikey wrote:Hmm.. I get where you're coming for with some of the questions being hard in law passages, but I think the key is to just have a big interest in what you're reading. Like me, I love law passages, I think they're all really interesting, but I'll daze out on a passage about some historical event.

Do you annotate or just read?

I annotate, breaking down what each paragraph is mainly about, circling examples, and underlining main points.

WeightliftingThinker wrote:

Mikey wrote:Hmm.. I get where you're coming for with some of the questions being hard in law passages, but I think the key is to just have a big interest in what you're reading. Like me, I love law passages, I think they're all really interesting, but I'll daze out on a passage about some historical event.

Do you annotate or just read?

I annotate, breaking down what each paragraph is mainly about, circling examples, and underlining main points.

I see. I think it's pretty normal for people on here to say that if you have a set system of annotating (e.g. voyager's method), then subject matter really shouldn't matter. I know how you feel with these passages though, but really all you can do is practice and try your best to either don't let the subject matter makes or break you, or make yourself be extremely interested in it.

Mikey wrote:

WeightliftingThinker wrote:

Mikey wrote:Hmm.. I get where you're coming for with some of the questions being hard in law passages, but I think the key is to just have a big interest in what you're reading. Like me, I love law passages, I think they're all really interesting, but I'll daze out on a passage about some historical event.

Do you annotate or just read?

I annotate, breaking down what each paragraph is mainly about, circling examples, and underlining main points.

I see. I think it's pretty normal for people on here to say that if you have a set system of annotating (e.g. voyager's method), then subject matter really shouldn't matter. I know how you feel with these passages though, but really all you can do is practice and try your best to either don't let the subject matter makes or break you, or make yourself be extremely interested in it.

I agree. I find it interesting, I'm just inexperienced with it since undergraduate hardly touches on law. Any legal sources you suggest?

WeightliftingThinker wrote:

Mikey wrote:

WeightliftingThinker wrote:

Mikey wrote:Hmm.. I get where you're coming for with some of the questions being hard in law passages, but I think the key is to just have a big interest in what you're reading. Like me, I love law passages, I think they're all really interesting, but I'll daze out on a passage about some historical event.

Do you annotate or just read?

I annotate, breaking down what each paragraph is mainly about, circling examples, and underlining main points.

I see. I think it's pretty normal for people on here to say that if you have a set system of annotating (e.g. voyager's method), then subject matter really shouldn't matter. I know how you feel with these passages though, but really all you can do is practice and try your best to either don't let the subject matter makes or break you, or make yourself be extremely interested in it.

I agree. I find it interesting, I'm just inexperienced with it since undergraduate hardly touches on law. Any legal sources you suggest?

no sources, sorry. just put together as many legal rc passages as you can (use 7sage's question bank) and practice them. that's gonna be your best bet at getting better at them since the lsat has a specific structure to its passages as opposed to some other reading source.

Mikey wrote:

WeightliftingThinker wrote:

Mikey wrote:

WeightliftingThinker wrote:

Mikey wrote:Hmm.. I get where you're coming for with some of the questions being hard in law passages, but I think the key is to just have a big interest in what you're reading. Like me, I love law passages, I think they're all really interesting, but I'll daze out on a passage about some historical event.

Do you annotate or just read?

I annotate, breaking down what each paragraph is mainly about, circling examples, and underlining main points.

I see. I think it's pretty normal for people on here to say that if you have a set system of annotating (e.g. voyager's method), then subject matter really shouldn't matter. I know how you feel with these passages though, but really all you can do is practice and try your best to either don't let the subject matter makes or break you, or make yourself be extremely interested in it.

I agree. I find it interesting, I'm just inexperienced with it since undergraduate hardly touches on law. Any legal sources you suggest?

no sources, sorry. just put together as many legal rc passages as you can (use 7sage's question bank) and practice them. that's gonna be your best bet at getting better at them since the lsat has a specific structure to its passages as opposed to some other reading source.

Thank you.

WeightliftingThinker wrote:

Mikey wrote:Hmm.. I get where you're coming for with some of the questions being hard in law passages, but I think the key is to just have a big interest in what you're reading. Like me, I love law passages, I think they're all really interesting, but I'll daze out on a passage about some historical event.

Do you annotate or just read?

I annotate, breaking down what each paragraph is mainly about, circling examples, and underlining main points.

I'm not a big fan of annotating. It's a great learning tool on passage structure and seeing which parts are relevant towards answering the questions, but I advise weening yourself off of it. Lots of high scorers advocate for "mentally annotating" the passages.

I indicate where the main point is/are, author opinion (b/c there are ALWAYS questions about this), and if there are any specific terms that aren't in quotes to differentiate them from the rest of the test. Otherwise, annotating takes up a lot of time.

law passages, to me, are a lot like principle questions in lr. both doften eal with sets of rules and how/when to apply them.

gwillygecko wrote:law passages, to me, are a lot like principle questions in lr. both doften eal with sets of rules and how/when to apply them.

that's exactly how I view both principle questions and law passages. I just think of principle questions as "applying a law to a scenario" type of thing, haha, makes it slightly more interesting.. I think..