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A few American students' discussion on doing LSAT reading. Some are excellent advice.
Sup Guys,
Just wanted to find out what you guys think about speed reading software for RC. Do you recommend it? Waste of $? I tend to run out of time on the RC section, so i was thinking about working on my speed as far as reading the passages. It usually takes me about 4 minutes to read a passage (with everything outlined, margin notes, etc). Has anyone used a specific program and benfited from it?? Thanks for the advice, in advance!
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I had a near-perfect score in reading comp, and I think the conventional wisdom is wrong.
You don't need to read faster. You need to read *slower*. There's not a lot of material, it's just dense. Read all the questions, then resist the urge to spead up. Absorb the material as much as possible. If you do it right,you should be able to go straight through the questions without referring back to the text (except for those that say, "On line 21, what is the purpose of..." or similar).
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…its much more comprehension than speed that is measured. When I'm doing a reading comprehension question, I'm thinking the entire time and reading at normal speed. When I get to the questions I can answer most of them without re-reading much of anything. That I think is the key to this section, figuring out, as your reading, what is being said and what it means.
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Anyway, I usually had two-three minutes left at the end of the RC section to go back and look my answers over. On test day, it was closer to 3. The variance was caused primarily by how difficult the science section was (or wasn't). Slooooooooooooooooow down, and don't skip any words. They want you to rush. Don't play their game. .
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Actually...don't slow down *or* speed up.
You should try to read the passages at your comfort level--that is, the level you read at when you're reading something that is familiar to you, and you're not pressed for time, but you're also not reading totally leisurely (say, readings for a class you really like). Time yourself reading something you're comfortable with, and see how you do. This should give you your comfort range.
If you slow down too much, your brain will get bored and you won't take anything in. If you read too fast, you won't take anything in. Your brain has a comfortable speed; find it. Then, try and read LSAT passages at this speed. You might not take in *everything* if the material is difficult, but speeding up or slowing down ultimately isn't going to help you in LSAT time (35 min).
If you find that your "comfortable speed" is still too slow for the LSAT, then it's time to strategize.
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I think the best approach (as Dani suggests) is to read at your own pace. As for my speed, it depends on the topic. I'd say I'm probably in the 2 to 4 mins range. Keep in mind that if you speed read and don't grasp the content, you'll have to spend more time answering the questions.
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I'd say 3 minutes is a good ballpark--that allows for some wiggle room. What should also help--*most* ot the RC questions shouldn't be surprises. There are some very basic questions that are almost always asked (although in tricky, crafty ways--but with practice, you get used to LSAT-speak and can see through the disguises), so you should be mentally tallying main points as you read--the main argument of the passage, or the main supports introduced, or the idea and author disagrees with, etc.
Also--being able to recognize these things helps you read more efficiently as well--you can think to yourself "this is an argumentative essay, so I need to internalize the thesis and supports," or whatnot. The essays LSAT offers tend to be fairly well-organized and linear, and thus should be fairly straightforward to navigate, despite differing topic matter.
Maybe you could try some drills...give yourself a boatload of essays about the same length and a stop watch, read the essays in three-four minutes, put them down, and then try to articulate what kind of essay it is, the main point and supports, etc...I dunno. It's an idea.
Writing abstracts for essays and articles is a great way to train yourself to look for the right info in a passage, although doing them can fry your brain--I think it's worth the effort, though:
http://writing.colostate.edu/references/documents/abstract/index.cfm
...not that you would do this while taking the LSAT--rather, it's training to get your brain looking for the right info in an efficient yet thorough manner.
Keep at it--Good luck!
Dani
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发表于 2005-2-27 23:43:00
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