4.5 - How to Review RC

If you Google how to review LSAT Reading Comprehension, you'll be met with tons of conflicting viewpoints.

Some folks advocate note-taking and summarization. Others recommend you repeat the passage until you've got it memorized (gag). There are even some who suggest you can't really improve RC.

Most of this advice is bogus. Allow me to offer you a different perspective.

Don't Simply Redo the Passage

Some folks suggest repeating passages over and over again until you have them all but memorized. This is lunacy.

If you want to use blind review methodology to go back over the questions, by all means, go for it. But don't simply retry the passage start-to-finish. What's the point?

On test day, you will not read a passage you've read before. At best, your passages will share some superficial resemblances to other passages you've studied.

Do not waste your time haphazardly redoing passages you've already done.

Review Right Away

You need to review while the content is still fresh.

Sure, you might be able to recall some details from the passage a few hours later. But you definitely won't be as familiar with it as you are right after you attempt it. So what's the point in waiting? What benefit do you glean from doing so? It just makes no sense to me.

Now, if you're pressed for time, I can occasionally let this slide. But only occasionally. You should be structuring your study time so you have adequate time for review—ideally more time than you spend attempting the content to begin with.

Start With Your Mistakes

I'll add a caveat below about reviewing things you get right, but the vast majority of your review should focus on the questions you get wrong.

When you make a mistake on Reading Comprehension, the fact of the matter is you did not understand something in the passage. You need to hold yourself accountable and review until it makes sense.

Here are some clarifying questions to help structure your review:

1. Did you understand what the question wanted from you? This is easily the most common mistake I see students make.
2. Did you make a prediction?  You can usually predict in RC. If you're not predicting, this is a huge opportunity for improvement.
3. Where is support for the correct answer in the passage? Go find it. Don't move on till you've found it.
4. Why were the wrong answers incorrect? In particular, why was the answer you picked incorrect? How will you avoid similar mistakes in the future?

Should You Review Right Answers?

Some folks encourage reviewing right answers while others call it a waste of time. Let me explain why I'm somewhere in between.

I encourage students to develop an allergy to inaccuracy. You shouldn't abuse yourself for making mistakes, but you should hold yourself to the highest standard when it comes to getting things correct.

On RC, that means a perfect passage every time. If you come to me stoked that you got 5/7 on that last passage, I'm immediately going to ask you why you're happy about getting two things wrong. That performance should have been a 7/7. Hold yourself to a similar standard.

When you don't nail a passage, you didn't understand something—like several somethings. This raises some suspicion the ones you got right. Were you actually right? Or did you get lucky? Scan through the ones you got right and see for yourself. Right is good. Lucky is not.

When you can tell you got lucky, treat it as if you got it wrong. Go find support in the passage for the correct answer. Understand why it's right and why the other four aren't.

Take this advice with a grain of salt, though. You should still spend most of your review on your mistakes.

Expand Your Vocabulary

Reading Comp uses some advanced vocabulary. As you study, you're bound to come across words you don't know. This is especially true if you're an ESL student.

Whenever this happens, go look up the word. Add it to your lexicon so it can never stump you again. This is a good thing to do even if you don't end up pursuing a career in law.

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That does it for our Reading Comprehension chapter. Now, it's time to go put what you've learned into practice. Go drill some passages or try a timed section. Then, join us for our Logic Games chapter, starting with our section overview.

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What'd you think of this lesson? What should I change? Drop me a comment below to help me improve this course.