LSAT Reading Help

That the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) features a Reading Comprehension section does not come as a surprise. Perhaps no skill is more closely linked to a legal career than is reading convoluted, complex, and dense prose, making sense of it, and using it to advance an argument or demonstrate why another argument is incorrect. Your eventual career as a lawyer will demand that you take the most complicated contract or tax code, distill it down to its main points, and help your client understand its details. Whether you need top LSAT tutors in New York, LSAT tutors in Chicago, or top LSAT tutors in Los Angeles, working with a pro may take your studies to the next level.

The Reading Comprehension section on the LSAT provides complicated passages on par with what you would expect to see in a law school class, and asks a series of multiple-choice questions about each. Each LSAT Reading Comprehension section also includes Comparative Reading questions, which ask you to compare two shorter passages. This may involve ascertaining the difference in two arguments or investigating the implementation in one passage of a policy espoused in another. While both types of questions demand similar skills, you may find certain strategies work better for one type of question than the other.

Regardless of which type of Reading Comprehension question you are facing, it will ask you to perform complex feats of analysis. The LSAT’s Reading Comprehension questions are known to focus in particular on the effect newly-introduced evidence could have on the presented argument. If a certain thing were discovered to be true, would it weaken or strengthen the author’s argument, or have no effect on it whatsoever? Such questions require great skill in tracing out all of the claims and implications of an author’s argument as well as the information on which it is based. Other LSAT Reading Questions may ask you to predict what position the author would take on a related topic, or to identify the purpose of specified text. Still other questions may remind you of the Logical Reasoning section somewhat as they ask you which statements must be true based on what you have read on the passage, or which claims are most supported by the passage.

While each of these common question types may seem imposing, the skills necessary to answer them are all likely skills that you, and most law school applicants, feel comfortable facing on an exam. You have spent years sharpening these skills in challenging undergraduate classes. The real challenge of the LSAT Reading Comprehension test, then, is in maximizing your performance by sharpening your test-taking skills for the particulars of this specific exam. You can approach every question as a personal challenge, a puzzle that taps into the same skills you will need to eventually win a case or present a compelling argument in a class. Varsity Tutors also offers resources like free LSAT Reading Diagnostic Tests to help with your self-paced study, or you may want to consider an LSAT Reading tutor.

Every student has his or her own preference when approaching an LSAT Reading Comprehension question. You may wish to skim the passages or read them thoroughly, answer questions in order, or go with the easiest ones first. Every strategy has certain strengths, as well as weaknesses. You may find working with other students or tutors a valuable approach to preparing for the LSAT, as you try one another’s strategies until you find a precise approach that works best for you.

This kind of repetitive practice is a great way to maximize your eventual score, and the free LSAT Reading Help materials offered by Varsity Tutors is a great resource to consult should you find that despite repetitive practice, you are stuck on a particular question type. Our LSAT Reading Help pages include model problems complete with displayed correct answer and extensive explanation about how the problem can be solved. You can follow along with the logic used in the explanation to practice your approach to whichever question types you find most difficult. Then, when you are ready to practice more such questions on your own, Varsity Tutors’ free LSAT Reading practice tests and diagnostics can help you continue to hone your review. By making use of our LSAT Reading resources, you can study efficiently by identifying and practicing your most-missed question types. In addition to the LSAT Reading Help Section and LSAT Reading tutoring, you may also want to consider using some of our LSAT Reading Flashcards. 

Persistent practice is likely not a foreign concept to a pre-law student facing down the LSAT Reading Comprehension test. You have spent the past several years working hard, earning top grades, and impressing faculty. Take this opportunity to show again how strong a candidate you are with a stellar LSAT Reading Comprehension score. In the end, the LSAT is one of the only standardized ways for law schools to evaluate applicants. While colleges and teachers vary, every student has to face a comparable LSAT exam, and this exam carries immense weight on law school applications, no matter to which schools you plan on applying. The LSAT also demands the same skills that you will have to use to succeed in every law school class you will take. An investment of time and effort now can be exceedingly useful later!