RC horrible...any improvement?!?!?!?

[Hazzy]

Okay...my first practice LSAT I scored an 80% on the RC.  Not bad, but I'd like to improve it.  BUT, on the last 5 tests (taken 6 so far) I've scored 50-60%. 

Is anyone seeing an improvement in the RC similar to games? 

Thanks for your time. 

[Munkeysgrrl]

Same thing happened to me.... I took Testmasters and my RC went down really bad.  I didn't have time to perfect it b/c I was working on the games.  It sucked. 

[nathanielmark]

if you are taking the test in october, throw your tv, xbox, etc in the basement.  start buying some well-written magazines or journals and spend all your free time reading.  i guarantee you will improve.

i do pretty well on RCs, and i am pretty sure it is because i read a lot.

[jgruber]

RC was my best part of the LSAT.  I read constantly.  Read and read and read and then read some more.  I think that's the only solution, really.  Although.... some of the how-to books give some tips.

[cyim123]

If you start reading the Op/Ed pages in the newspapers like NY Times and Washington Post, they are exactly like the RC Questions.  I think they get them from those sources.

[nathanielmark]

op/eds from WSJ/NYT/WP/LAT are good.  i also highly recommend the economist..  if you read all that and still need more try atlantic monthly and scientific american.

[Hazzy]

Okay...I'm off to buy some magazines and newspapers.  Thanks for the responses. 

I'll keep you guys informed. 

[ocelatl]

RC was my best section of the LSAT as well (only missed one).  I think the fact that I just finished a masters program prior to taking the test really helped me a lot (at least 3-4 books required reading per week). 
I would suggest reading a wide variety of magazines, especially those dealing with the hard sciences and history (those topics seemed to be favorites of the test makers).  There was a thread dealing with this topic in the past (I believe) and someone felt as though they were able to improve their RC score by reading the first sentence of each paragraph before reading the entire passage as a whole.  I personally found the whole "trick" route rather time consuming and preferred to "freestyle" it.  Good luck!!!

[beautiful]

Quite the opposite happened to me: on the first PrepTest I got 8 right out of 27, while at the present time I get right 17-19 right out of 27. My biggest problem is with the Games.

[Hazzy]

Well, I've improved a little bit...got 19/26 today.  That's still not where I need to be, but I got all the answers right on the last reading passage.  That's a first for me, so I'm still optimistic...