For many LSAT students, the Logic Games section is the first obsession, and the Reading Comprehension section is the last. It makes sense—for Logic Games, there are many specific and tangible things for you to learn, and as you learn these things and as you develop your strategies, it’s relatively easy to start picking up some more points. For Reading Comprehension, the task is much more vague, and therefore the road to improvement is much less certain. How, exactly, do you get better at reading? Hopefully this article can help you get on the path to Reading Comp success.
Here’s what we’ll be covering:
- Reading Comprehension Basics
- What Makes LSAT Reading Comprehension Challenging
- Keys to Reading Comp Mastery
- Tips on Review
1. Reading Comprehension Basics
Here are some basic and essential details to know about the Reading Comprehension section of the LSAT:
Details About How The Reading Comprehension Section is Designed
- Exactly one of your three scored sections will be a Reading Comprehension section.
- Each Reading Comprehension section contains four passages, along with six to eight questions per passage, and your Reading Comprehension section will most likely contain 27 questions.
- Each section contains one passage on each of the following subjects: law, science, history, and the humanities.
- Questions will be asked about the passage as a whole or about individual paragraphs, sentences, phrases, or words.
- Questions will test your understanding of why the author wrote the passage, and they will test your ability to recognize and understand the correct meaning and purpose of specific components.
- Information about how to read passages and solve problems
- As we read the passage, we want to focus on trying to correctly recognize what the author’s purpose was in writing the passage, and how the author structured the passage in order to serve that purpose.
- Questions will ask about the passage as a whole or about specific components, about the author’s opinion or third-party opinions, about what must be true based on the text or what is most supported by the text, and so on. High-level success requires that we recognize the nuances present in each question and react appropriately.
- Ideally, for almost all questions, you want to only select an answer after you have verified it against specific and relevant text from the passage. The flip side of that is that you want to avoid simply answering questions off the memories you have from your initial read.
Information About How to Read Passages and Solve Problems
- As we read the passage, we want to focus on trying to correctly recognize what the author’s purpose was in writing the passage, and how the author structured the passage in order to serve that purpose.
- Questions will ask about the passage as a whole or about specific components, about the author’s opinion or third-party opinions, about what must be true based on the text or what is most supported by the text, and so on. High-level success requires that we recognize the nuances present in each question and react appropriately.
- Ideally, for almost all questions, you want to only select an answer after you have verified it against specific and relevant text from the passage. The flip side of that is that you want to avoid simply answering questions off the memories you have from your initial read.
Sample Reading Comprehension section
LSAC, the company that produces the LSAT, offers one sample test for free to the general public: the June ‘07 LSAT. You can find the full Reading Comprehension section from that test here.
To see a sample passage along with a step-by-step solution, please check out the video tutorial at the top of this article.
2. What Makes LSAT Reading Comp Challenging
Now that we've laid out those basic details, let's discuss some of the key characteristics that make LSAT Reading Comp passages and questions so challenging.
1. Passages can be dense and full of complex or subtle details.
Furthermore, the most difficult questions tend to be associated with those passages that have the most complex or nuanced content. Not only are these complex details necessary for answering certain questions, they impact our ability to read for reasoning structure. Most of us are not as good at using our reading ability when we are faced with unfamiliar subject matter.
2. Central issues or passage structure can be complex or subtle.
When you think about a great piece of clothing, it can be great because of the materials (the substance of it) or the design (the use of that substance). Reading Comprehension passages can be difficult because of the content (the details involved) or because of the reasoning structure (the relationship between those details).
Most reading passages will present two opposing viewpoints on some sort of issue (one opinion versus another on how a certain law should be interpreted, or an old scientific theory versus the one that replaced it). However, the relationship between these two sides is not always clear cut—in fact, it can be extremely subtle. Furthermore, most passages will inform us of the author’s opinion of the content, but often this opinion will be given to us in vague ways, and the opinion itself can also be somewhat complex. Perhaps a passage will present two sides of an argument, and the author will hint that she somewhat agrees with one side, and feels uncertain about the other.
3. Questions require us to see the forest and the trees.
That is, in order to answer questions successfully, we need to have a strong sense of the general structure of the passage, and, at the same time, we need to have a very clear sense of the details that are directly relevant to specific questions.
Many test takers end up trying to focus on both the big picture and the details as they read. In fact, most other preparation books, by giving you a laundry list of thirty specific and general things to notice as you read, indirectly point you toward just that tactic. But here’s the thing—we can’t do both well at the same time. Trying to see both the forest and the trees turns us into schizophrenic readers, and we end up reading poorly. I believe that a key to success is to focus on the big picture as you initially read the passage, and to utilize specific details during the problem-solving process.
3. The Keys to Reading Comp Mastery
Now let's discuss some basic reading strategies and practice tips that can help ensure that you get the most from your own Reading Comp abilities:
1. Use your practice to develop the correct LSAT reading habits.
We naturally and intuitively adapt how we read to different situations. For example, you won’t read a novel in the same way you read a recipe. Reading is something we do by instinct and habit, rather than some conscious decree—that is, we don’t typically tell ourselves how to read something. And, we can’t suddenly change how we read LSAT passages just by wanting to. In order to get better, we have to do it “the right way” enough times to develop the right reading habits and instincts.
Different prep companies endorse different types of reading strategies—per the methods discussed in The LSAT Trainer, I suggest you work on developing three key habits:
(A) You focus on reasoning structure. You can think of reasoning structure as the relationship between the various parts of a passage. You can also think of it in terms of “why” each part of the passage exists. Your ability to correctly recognize reasoning structure is the key skill rewarded by Reading Comprehension questions.
(B) You focus on the forest, rather than the trees. Questions will often require that you understand the passage in terms of the big picture, and also in terms of specific details mentioned. The trouble is, when we try to read for the forest and the trees, we tend to be terrible readers. Focus on the forest as you read—do your best to understand the passage as a whole, and the role parts play in relation to that whole. You can focus on the details if and when you need to later on in the questions.
(C) You focus on reading the passage as the author intended, rather than critiquing the passage. The author meant for certain parts to serve as main points, or support, or background, and so on. As I mentioned above, your main job is to recognize these roles correctly. During the read, your job is not to find fault with the reasoning or evaluate it in any other way (though there may be a couple of questions per section that will specifically ask that you use your judgment). The reason I mention this is because for part of the test—the Logical Reasoning section—your job is to be critical—if you aren’t careful, your instincts and habits for one section will creep into the other.
2. In answering questions, think of both text and task.
The right answer to a Reading Comprehension question will be consistent with the theme of the passage, and with the details mentioned in the passage—we can think of this as the text. Right answers will also match up with exactly what it is the question stem is asking us for—we can think of this as the task. The right answer is the only answer in the group that will match both text and task.
More importantly, wrong answers will give themselves away because they all have issues with text or task. They either misrepresent the passage as a whole, or the details of the passage, or they don’t match up with what is asked for in the question stem. If you are focused on text and task, these “markers” of incorrectness become far more obvious.
3. Practice as if it’s test day.
The first time looking at a passage and solving questions, always try and do so just as you would on the real exam. Again, the point of your practice is to develop correct skills and habits. Practicing realistically will help you do that.
One more thing: as you practice passages and full sections, please get in the habit of circling the questions for which you don’t feel 100% certain that you got the right answer. I’ll explain why in just a bit.
Okay, with all that said, let’s discuss how to review the Reading Comprehension passages that you try in your practice.
4. Tips on Review
The vast majority of people get far less out of their review than they should, and one of the main reasons why is because they simply set the bar too low. People think that they have reviewed a question when they understand why one of the five answers is correct (and maybe also why four answers are incorrect). And of course, it is certainly helpful to understand those things.
However, understanding why one answer to one question related to one passage is right has very little direct impact on whether you will get another completely different question related to another completely different passage correct.
The key is to focus on what you do: how you read, what you focus on as you read, how you choose to interpret question stems, the methods you use to eliminate answer choices, and so on. Use your review to think about your actions. If you do so, you’ll get a lot more out of that review, and your review will have a more significant impact on the problems that you try the next time around.
Here are some more specific tips on how you can review both your understanding and your actions:
For any passage that caused you a significant amount of trouble (I would say “significant” trouble equates to two or more questions on which you feel uncertain of your answer, or passages for which you felt lost as you were reading them), start by rereading the passage and solving the questions again a second time, before you look up the answers. This second time through, give yourself as much time as you need. Read the passage as carefully as you possibly can, and do your best to get each question correct with 100% confidence.
Now go ahead and look up the answers—think of all results as falling into one of four categories:
- you thought you got the question right, and you got it right
- you were uncertain of your answer, and got the question right
- you were uncertain of your answer, and got the question wrong
- you thought you got a question right, and missed it
The first category of questions is the one you need to be least concerned with (obviously) and your priorities escalate from there—the questions you thought you got right but missed are the ones that should cause you the most concern.
Now it’s time to review the questions. Again, keep in mind that the goal isn’t just to make sure you understand them. You want your review to directly impact your actions.
If a passage is relatively fresh in your mind, I suggest going back to the questions to review them without reading the passage another time, or with at most just a minimal re-scan of the passage.
It’s likely that your understanding of the passage will be somewhat imperfect, and it’s likely that your understanding will be incomplete. But, that’s also how you are going to feel about certain passages on the real exam, and you are going to have to still get questions right. Even with this imperfect and incomplete understanding, see if, knowing what the right answer is, you can figure out a way that you could have still gotten the question correct. More specifically, see if you can figure out how you could have still eliminated the four wrong choices, and how you could have still confirmed or vetted the right answer.
Again, you will need to be able to get most questions correct even when you don't understand a passage as well as you'd like, and the above work can help you get better at this.
Next, return to any passages that you felt you misread and review them carefully in terms of reasoning structure. Take plenty of time to think about every part of the passage in terms of the role it plays, and, if you’d like, mark up your passage with those roles (main point, support, background, etc.).
Return to each question that you’d like to evaluate again in-depth, and think about it in terms of text and task—make sure you understand exactly why the right answer matches up with the passage as a whole, and the details mentioned in the passage, and make sure you see how the right answer addresses the specific task mentioned in the question stem. More importantly, take the time to look for every reason wrong answers are wrong—if you do this correctly, you will often see many clear “tells” for the wrong choices to a question—things that misalign with the passage as whole, specific details mentioned, or what is asked of you in the question stem (the last characteristic is one that test takers consistently underestimate).
As you do your comprehensive evaluation, also think about the easiest tells—the quickest and most obvious ways in which you could have eliminated wrong choices and zeroed in on the right one. When you think about all the answers for all the questions for all the passages, the easiest and most consistent tell is reasoning structure—a great many wrong answers across a spectrum of various question types reveal themselves because they misrepresent the structure of a passage. Walk through efficient and effective ways that you could have solved the question—the easiest and surest methods you could have used for getting rid of wrong choices and confirming the right one.
Finally, for the passages that cause you the most trouble, try them again, fresh, ideally after a bit of a break (a week or two should suffice). The second time through, try to focus on your form—how you try to read the passage, and how you try to answer the questions. You should expect, because you have familiarity with the passage, that you will be able to go a bit faster than you would if it were your first time seeing the passage. If, this second time through, you can’t do this, or if the passage or questions still feel too difficult, review again and try again another time (you can use the notebook organizer sheets to keep track of the passages to try again).
Throughout the review process, remind yourself that the purpose of practice and review is to develop effective skills and habits. Reading Comprehension is all about what you do—what you focus on as you read, what you think about when you see a question stem, and so on, and not what you know.