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Home / Strategies for Reading Comprehension for the Lsat

Strategies for Reading Comprehension for the Lsat

The LSAT is 1 of the most challenging entrance exams to written report for because all vi of the sections crave disquisitional thinking and strategy rather than memorizing facts, formulas, and definitions. Due to its tight fourth dimension constraints and difficult texts, the reading comprehension section is just as tricky as the rest of the examination, and it can exist difficult to develop an effective study plan.

In this brusk guide, we'll requite you research-based strategies for studying effectively and some test day tips to help you ace the LSAT reading comprehension section.

What to Look on the LSAT Reading Comprehension Section

This department of the test volition be made up of four reading passages, each in a different subject surface area. The subject areas included are:

  • Humanities
  • Science
  • Police force
  • History

For each reading passage, you will have to answer 6-viii questions.

You will have a full of 35 minutes to read the four passages and answer the questions about them. That works nearly to near 8-9 minutes per passage, for both reading and answering the questions. The passages are usually between 400 and 500 words, although one of the iv subject areas will be equanimous of ii related passages of about 200 words.

How to Study for the LSAT Reading Comprehension Section

Studying for reading comprehension is not a straightforward process. You lot can't only memorize and restate your knowledge on test mean solar day. Your study sessions for this portion of the LSAT volition mostly be about developing the right background knowledge, skills, and strategies to practise well. Here'south a breakup of how you should spend your study time:

Train Your Reading Skills to the Test

LSAT passages are not random. They all follow a relatively fixed structure. Some key characteristics include:

  • 3-iv paragraphs in length
  • Each paragraph typically focuses on a single central thought
  • A cardinal idea that is expanded on with a couple of supporting claims, opinions, or facts

The Study Method

Knowing that all passages accept a similar structure, plot it out in the margins or on scrap paper as y'all read. For each paragraph, write down the primal idea. And then, add the supporting claims or other details. But jot down primal phrases and terms. You don't need to write out full sentences.

When yous've finished plotting out this outline of the passage, connect the dots.

  • What was the general argument the author was making with this collection of cardinal ideas?
  • What topic were they illuminating or what stance were they expressing?
  • What was the betoken of giving you those 3-iv fundamental ideas? How do they work together to create a larger, common theme?

Now, close the book or laptop and create a cohesive summary of your own based on the outline you lot've created, without referring to the text. This should non be detailed. Simply describe what the writer'south master signal was, what key ideas they used to brand that point, and how they supported those central ideas.

If you run out of exercise LSAT passages, y'all can do this same technique on anything. Do it with news manufactures, book excerpts, papers you're reading for grade, textbook passages, annihilation you tin. Understanding the mechanics of a text volition assist you automatically synthesize the main themes when the time comes.

Piece of work on Your Timing

As mentioned earlier, you lot have roughly viii-9 minutes to read a passage and answer 6-8 questions on each one. As with all LSAT sections, time management is cardinal to do well. The goal is to be able to read through and comprehend the full passage in under 4 minutes. The closer you tin get to 3 minutes, the ameliorate. This leaves you with 4-5 minutes for the questions and to refer back to the passage.

Later yous've gotten in the habit of parsing the passage to create an outline and summary as described in the training method above, it'due south fourth dimension to start working on speed. Here are some steps to practice that:

  1. Select a page or article of about 3-four solid paragraphs (around 300-400 words total).
  2. Fourth dimension yourself while reading and outlining it co-ordinate to the preparation method discussed before. Don't be concerned about how long it takes. You just want to get a base measure for at present to notice out where yous're at.
  3. Once y'all accept a base measure, you know how far you are from the target of 3-4 minutes per passage.
  4. Begin timing yourself each fourth dimension you study and work on reading and outlining faster. The more you lot practice, the easier information technology will exist to become faster without sacrificing comprehension.

Ideally, yous'll have your pacing down before you take the test, just if you lot're consistently closing in on the time limit, piece of work on reading the final section in under five minutes, answering the easiest questions (generally the 'detail' ones), so the larger 'theme' questions. This mode you'll be able to at least complete the section, as guesses aren't penalized. Fill out every last bubble, equally a judge still gives you a decent hazard of being correct.

Develop Background Knowledge

In a perfect world, you might not demand whatever background data on the passages. All of the questions you're going to be asked volition be based specifically on that atypical passage. Every bit long as you empathize the internal logic of that specific passage, you've got all the information yous need to answer every single question correctly.

Where this strategy goes slightly awry is in ignoring the benefit of already having some groundwork cognition of the subject. Multiple studies, including the famous baseball experiment, have shown that reading comprehension scores are heavily influenced by the amount of background noesis the test taker had on the subject of the reading passage.

If you know nada nearly physics, reading four paragraphs about the methods of gluon substitution between quarks is going to feel like reading an alien spaceship manual.

If, still, you lot have read a bit about physics, information technology'll be easier to detect your bearings. This means you'll more apace grasp the key arguments of the passage considering you lot won't waste fourth dimension just trying to familiarize yourself with the language and subject affair. It's also just a lot easier to retain data if your brain already has a foundation of noesis for understanding it.

And so no, y'all will not demand any exterior data to reply questions. Nonetheless, you do demand prior knowledge in society to more than effectively comprehend what yous're reading. Given that this is a reading comprehension test, that's useful.

The Written report Method

While you spend the next few months cramming for the LSAT, also have some time to read widely on a ton of dissimilar subjects. If at that place was ever a time to get lost in a Wikipedia wormhole, this is it.

If this sounds too open up-ended to be a study method, employ some structure to it.

A contempo study nigh the furnishings of background knowledge on reading comprehension identified a 59% threshold. If you know at least 59% of the terms in the text, y'all can effectively comprehend that text.

You will have four passages in the reading comprehension section, one in each of the following general subject field areas: constabulary, history, humanities, and scientific discipline.

Here's the method:

  • Rank those subjects in society of most knowledgeable to to the lowest degree knowledgeable.
  • If any of them are your expertise, skip them. For example, if you majored in history, information technology's safe to say you lot've already met the 59% threshold on that subject area.
  • Focus the bulk of your background knowledge evolution on the subjects you're least knowledgeable in.
  • Don't try to become an expert in everything. Instead, attempt to become familiar with the vocabulary, the fundamental concepts, and the unique writing conventions employed in each field. Practice tests are your friend here.
  • For added benefit, use the skills training technique described in the next section on the texts you read for background noesis.

Here's an example schedule:

Say you've budgeted 5 hours a calendar week to developing your background knowledge.

Devote 2.v of those hours to your least confident subject area area.

Split the remaining five between the residuum, skipping any that you feel confident you lot've met the threshold in already.

What Should You Read?

The all-time place to beginning is with full general Wikipedia articles and introductory textbooks near major fields of study. In science, for example, you might read introductory texts on physics, biology, and chemistry. For police, you lot might read introductory texts on corporate law, criminal law, and legal theory.

Test Day Tips

Student's hand holding pencil while taking an exam

Training and report are key, but you also need to have some test twenty-four hours strategies in place to brand sure you're managing your fourth dimension well and working through the reading comprehension section equally efficiently as possible. Here are some of the best strategies you can use to do that:

Do the Passages You Know First

Don't be agape to skip around the reading comprehension section. Quickly run through each of the four passages. Mentally rank them in social club of your personal confidence level. Go through the ones that seem easiest for you lot first, freeing upwardly enough of time for the trickier ones.

If possible, try to complete those in less than the 8-9 minutes y'all have so that you tin take a little actress fourth dimension for the harder ones.

Don't just base this decision on the discipline expanse, though. You might be a budding historian, but the history passage might exist written at a much more advanced level than the science passage. Accept a few seconds to skim the passages and gauge the complexity of writing. The ones that look similar they have the simplest writing mode should be near the top of your list.

Use Chip Paper

If you used the training method described in a higher place, you lot've built up a strong habit of jotting downwards a quick outline of the passage'south main ideas and supporting ideas. Do this on exam twenty-four hours.

Notation the paragraph number next to the central thought. This mode, if you do need to go back to the passage to reply a question, y'all immediately know which paragraph contains the relevant data.

In add-on to your outline, you might want to notation dates or specific percentages or quantities. These are just useful to accept every bit a reference, so yous don't have to go back to the passage to find the data.

This can cutting the search time down from 30 seconds to 4-v seconds. For some questions, it can even eliminate the need to get back to the passage at all.

Given that you lot but take about twoscore-50 seconds to spend on each question, you can't really afford to spend thirty of them simply trying to skim through the passage to find the data.

Use This Answering Process

Later on reading through the passage, this should be your full general approach to getting through the 6-eight questions most it:

  1. Answer questions that refer to a specific item first. These are questions that refer to specific lines of the passage. They tend to be easier to answer because y'all know exactly where to wait.
  2. Answer questions that don't refer to a specific detail next. To the all-time of your ability, answer these without going dorsum to the text.
  3. If you are able to answer with confidence without going back to the text, nifty. Heed to your gut and move on.
  4. If you don't experience confident about your answer, go dorsum to the appropriate department. If you've outlined the passage on fleck newspaper, this should be like shooting fish in a barrel to exercise.
  5. If, after referring dorsum to the relevant section, you still don't feel confident, make a guess using the guessing techniques below. Flag the question and move on.
  6. Use whatever leftover time to go dorsum over your flagged questions.

Respond the Questions You Know First

For each passage, reply the questions y'all know first. If you encounter a question where the correct reply isn't immediately clear to you after reading through the options, skip it and become to the next ane.

Once you've gotten the easy ones washed, employ the remainder of your eight-9 minutes to answer the tricky ones. Don't get over your time limit, though. If the time allotted is nearly upwardly, just guess using the guessing techniques below. Then, flag it and move on.

If yous still have time left subsequently finishing all four passages, y'all tin use information technology to get through some of your flagged questions to attempt and cull the right answer.

Don't Let Outside Information Sway You

Nosotros spent a lot of time talking about how valuable background knowledge is earlier. So, this tip might feel a little contradictory. Even so, that background knowledge is only meant to improve your reading comprehension.

Yous don't want it to influence your actual answer choices. Remember, these questions aren't testing how much you lot know about quarks and gluons. They're testing how effectively you interpreted what the passage you just read was proverb about them. This means 1 matter: use details provided on the test instead of your personal noesis.

This gets especially tricky with more open-ended subjects where differing opinions are possible or on inference questions. Brand certain that the answers you're choosing are based on specific parts of what you just read. If you can't pinpoint what part of the passage leads y'all to choose this reply, flag the question and make sure you're not beingness swayed by your personal biases.

Check the Specifics on Similar Answers

One common trap is to include ii options that sound nearly exactly the same. Only one of these can exist correct, but it's non immediately obvious what the difference betwixt them is.

If you lot run into a question where 2 or more answers sound plausibly correct, go back to the question and break information technology downwards. What is it asking specifically?

Is information technology asking what the actual cause of glaciers melting is, or is it request you what Mr. Johnson from the passage believes the cause of glaciers melting is? Is it asking which statement is correct or which one is incorrect?

If you even so observe yourself struggling between 2 answers, breakup the contrasts between the two like answers to effigy out what specifically differentiates them from each other. These subtle differences should give you clues as to which one actually answers what the question is asking.

If you're running out of time, just go with your gut. It's better to guess and move on than to accept away precious seconds from the adjacent set of questions.

Use These Last-Resort Guessing Techniques

If the clock is ticking and you just tin can't figure out a question, it's time to put in an answer, flag it, and movement on. Even if you're apparently guessing, you tin can use a little fleck of strategy to avoid just sheer random selection. Here are two techniques:

Eliminate the Obviously Wrong Answers

Even if you don't know the right answer, you might at to the lowest degree be able to tell that ane or 2 options are definitely wrong.

If y'all've got four options, the odds of guessing right are 25%. If yous can eliminate one for sure, you've lowered it to three options. The odds of guessing right are now 33%. If you can go it down to two, your odds are 50%.

Pick the Less Extreme Options

The correct answers for reading questions typically use 'centre-footing' language, not explicitly stating something. The answers with the near dash are typically the hardest to deduce, and thus are often the nearly likely to be right. Notice the most nuanced answer and guess that if you lot're butting up the time limit. Every bit a last resort after that, approximate randomly. There is no penalty for guessing or for wrong answers on the LSAT

Good Luck!

If you put in the piece of work, sympathize the test, and prepare sufficiently, y'all can raise your LSAT score past virtually 11 points by studying over a six month period. Just as with all things, the best bang for your buck comes from strategical thinking, persistence, and effort. LSAT prep isn't easy, merely at the end of the day, it can be rewarding by helping you get into the law school of your dreams.

Strategies for Reading Comprehension for the Lsat

Source: https://testmaxprep.com/blog/lsat/lsat-reading-comprehension