Reading Comprehension questions are part of the LSAT and test your ability to understand and analyze complex written materials.
This article will equip you with essential strategies to master the LSAT Reading Comprehension section. You'll learn how to efficiently read complex passages, identify main ideas, understand supporting details, and answer a variety of question types accurately. This will help you to significantly improve your reading comprehension skills and boost your LSAT score.
LSAT Reading Comprehension tests your ability to read a densely written passage and answer questions about its content, tone, and organization. You'll be presented with lengthy passages on various topics, followed by questions that assess your comprehension of the text, including identifying main ideas, supporting details, the author's purpose, and making inferences.
The value of honing your reading comprehension skills extends far beyond getting a good LSAT score. A huge part of a lawyer’s daily life consists of reading dense, boring text and understanding every detail. This is what you’re signing up for if you want to be a lawyer, so you’d better get used to it. If you find that you’d rather poke your eyes out than read another convoluted passage about the solar system or jurists or some obscure poet you’ve never heard of, you might want to reconsider whether lawyering is a job you’ll actually enjoy.
With determination, focus, and consistency, Reading Comprehension is just as learnable as the rest of the LSAT. Start with the articles below to kickstart your journey toward Reading Comprehension mastery.
Here are the basic characteristics of the Reading Comprehension section in the LSAT.
LSAT Reading Comprehension topics fall into the following categories: law, social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities. However, the LSAT does not test external factual knowledge of these topics.
You are equipped to answer the questions on any Reading Comprehension passage—as long as you read it carefully—because everything you need is on the page.
Reading Comprehension passages can be either informative or persuasive. The author often presents an argument based on lengthy technical background information. They might evaluate opposing perspectives or try to advance their own position. The author frequently introduces other voices, such as those of experts or social groups, and popular opinions. As you read, keep track of these other voices and whether the author agrees with them.
On modern tests, each Reading Comprehension section contains one “comparative reading” passage, which requires students to compare and understand the relationship between two shorter passages, often about the same topic.
Many students harbor the misconception that LSAT Reading Comprehension questions require them to “read between the lines”—that is, draw their own conclusions about what the author might be thinking. This is never the case. Never put words in the author’s mouth.
In a sense, all Reading Comprehension questions are Must Be True questions. If a question asks you to determine which answer choice the author would be “most likely to agree” with, there will be exactly one correct answer that is unequivocally supported by the passage.
If you have to bargain with an answer choice, then the answer is probably wrong. The correct answer should require no bargaining. To improve at Reading Comprehension, read critically and identify clear support in the passage for the answer you choose.
It’s okay if you don’t finish the section. What’s not okay is blundering through every question while constantly checking the clock. Rushing leads to sloppy mistakes. Accuracy is more important than speed.
