all right so welcome everyone this is our free prep hour for January 19th 2020 my name is Scott Miller your instructor tonight and welcome to everybody who is joining us here live tonight on January 19th for this free prep hour and welcome to you anyone who is watching the video at a later date just to let you know a little bit about some so we do these free prep hours twice a month usually and anybody who wants to can sign up for one of these and join us live there are a lot of other really good free resources on our website so if you go to our website and you don't need to worry about copying down the link right now I'm going to put some links for those of you who are here alive tonight with us I'm gonna put some links in the chat window to some of our free resources I'll do that at the end of class if you're watching the recording you can scroll down and look at the information for this recording in YouTube and you'll see links to these free resources there all right here's what we're gonna talk about tonight reading comprehension and we're gonna do is look at a couple of reading comprehension passages tonight and some questions accompanying those passages and what I'd like to focus on tonight is you know we'll talk about some of the basic stuff like why the right answers are right and why the wrong answers are wrong but what I'm gonna focus on is showing some suggestions some tips for how to review effectively when you are you know when you're anytime you do time to work anytime you do any kind of time to work on the LSAT it's always really important to go back and review it thoroughly and this is a part a step that really a lot of people neglect a lot of people you know you answer some questions and you go and look up what the right answer is and see if you got the question right and if you got it right you kind of ignore it and if you got it wrong you go and try to figure out why the you know right answer is right I mean people do some some some review but it's often kind of superficial and really if you want to push your score up if you really want to improve your score doing a thorough review is is a really crucial step a lot of the things that you practice when you're reviewing a question are going to help you work more effectively and more efficiently when you're actually working under alive time conditions so review isn't kind of you know I think a lot of people think of something as a review or a lot of people think of review as like an optional step or something that's not really directly connected to your performance under time conditions but really it is very very directly connected your practicing things when you're reviewing they're going to help you a lot under time conditions um and I'm just curious for those who are here with us alive tonight in the chat window if you wouldn't mind um what are like maybe in a few words describe what some of your biggest challenges are with reading comprehension if you had to describe just in a few words what is your your the big the thing the main thing you're working on the main thing you're trying to improve in reading comprehension right now what would that be you put that in the chat window time a lot of details okay yeah these answers coming through are common common issues that people have common things that people are trying to work on or improve ID and key words time alright so let's see if we can as we're going through this tonight let's see if we can help with some of those specific issues or talk about how some of what we're talking about tonight we'll see if we can discuss how it relates to some of those specific issues again we're gonna use questions from the June 2000 LSAT the reason we do that is because with these free prep hours since they're free we we like to rely on resources that people that are available for free that you can have access to for free and so that June 2001 that LS AC has traditionally made available for free through their website you can download it and print it out if you want or you know just work off the PDF and so what you'll be able to do if you want is go back and review some of these you know some of these passages and questions that we talked about tonight you want to go back and review on your own after this alright so what I'm gonna do is put a passage up on the screen and if you've already read this passage if you've already worked on the June 2000 test that's fine it's actually totally fine because one of a really useful thing that people often underestimate is just rereading passages that you've already read before and reviewing questions that you've already worked on um and a lot of people with something well I wouldn't say a lot of people what some people say is you know yeah I kind of already remember the passage you know remember the passage should have read it before that's great because as you read a passage I mean I recommend to my students when students come to my courses or when I'm tutoring someone I'll recommend that they reread passages like four or five six times like you work on a passage this week or tonight wait a couple days read it again wait a couple more days read the passage again wait a couple more days read the passage again so take a little bit of time in between each read but reread passages what that does for you is is like some details will start to become familiar some start parts of the passage will become familiar but you'll start to notice things that you didn't notice the first time you read the passage or the first couple of times that you read the passage and these can be some of the you know important details that can help you when you go to answer the questions some of the things were going to talk about tonight so you know um Lisa you put in the chat window you said getting hung up on details is you know an issue for you and so one of the things that that will help you in reading comprehension on the LSAT is to realize that not all details are equally important so some details you you know you do want to pay a lot of attention to when you're reading and really try to remember other details you don't have to remember and learning which is which is a big part of your success reading comprehension and you know just rereading passages is a really good way to learn how to you'll start to it because especially if you've already worked on the questions as you're reading the passage again you'll get a better sense for which details are important and which ones aren't and you'll also really start to notice how some passages are similar to other ones there are actually a lot of similarities between the different passages you see on different ell SATs and rereading passages this is a good way to really notice the differences and learn how to use that to your advantage so again whole thing is if you've already read this passage one time before in the past you've already worked on this test that's fine let's let's practice that let's practice this process of rereading reanalyzing a passage that you've worked on before and seeing what you can get out of it um okay so here it is on the screen and I'll give everybody I'll give everybody like four minutes to to read through the pass and if you're done in less than four minutes then look away from the screen and try to make some notes for yourself about what you think are the important main points in the passage without looking back at the passage if anybody has any trouble reading this let me know in the chat window you okay that was about four minutes um let me know for those who are here alive tonight let me know in the chat window if you're still reading if you have a not finished reading there just give me a yes in the chat window if you have finished reading definitely let me know if you haven't yet for those who are watching on YouTube you can pause the recording if you're not done okay so and this little drill is this little exercise I mentioned over here on the side this is a really great exercise to do it's not something you would necessarily do while you're working in real time like on the actual LSAT or on a practice test it's not necessarily it's definitely not something that I say people have to do some people do after they read the passage you know some people do sit there and take a few notes about what the passage was about or do some type of note-taking some people take do none of that at all I generally don't I'm gonna read the passage I might make some annotations while I'm reading but generally I'm not gonna sit there after I'm done reading me personally I'm not gonna sit there after I'm done reading and write out some notes about what the passage is about or any can't do any kind of detailed note-taking I'm just you know once I'm done reading I pause for a second take a breath and then go into the questions that's a little bit of a matter of personal preference but when you're practicing when you're when you're you know working on these passages trying to improve your reading comprehension skills this exercise is a really great one to do so you know if you are doing timing yourself it's okay to pause the timer for a second if you're not timing yourself then you know this is a great thing to do look away from the passage but the passenger side and just write out some notes to yourself about the main points that you remember not every detail that you remember but what you think are the most important notes to remember the most important things to remember about the passage and hang on to those notes because a really great thing to do is after you go and read the passage again maybe you know when you're reviewing that same day or maybe a couple days late you go back and read the passage again after you read it again look at your notes and see if it still seems like those things that you noted are the most important things to remember right what this will do is help you to sharpen your ability to pay attention to the important details and again like we said not every detail on the LSAT is important some details room.what not every detail in LSAT reading comprehension is important some details are much more important than others alright so now that we about a chance to read the passage what I'm gonna do is just let's dive right into some of these questions we're gonna look at some questions from this passage and what I'd like you to do is let's do this I'm gonna take you through a little bit of a step-by-step process for answering questions the process that we recommend and this process for answering questions always begins with what we call a pre phrase so I mean it's pretty common it's pretty natural to like when you're ready to answer questions just read the question and then immediately start looking at the answers right but on the LSAT and reading comprehension it's one of the fundamental skills that can help you increase your score is when you read the question pause for a second and think and basically there are two things you want to think right now first of all can I answer this question from memory like do I feel like I understand what this question is asking really well and do I feel like I have a good enough you know sense of what a correct answer might be to go ahead and just answer from memory or is this a question where I should really go back and look at the passage before I answer it and this is even before we get into the answer choices for this this is a big hesitation that people have people are either like rereading it's really interesting when it comes down to rereading sometimes people are really willing to reread a lot while they're reading the passage right so you read the passage and I mean I've heard people say I you know reread that first or that second paragraph like three times it didn't understand it well like it's okay to maybe reread something like me I might maybe reread one sentence if I really felt like that scent is important and I didn't really quite understand it but if you're just sitting there rereading something you know three times a single sentence you know you got to move out I definitely while I'm reading the passage I would not reread something like an entire paragraph two or three times you really want to limit or try to limit the amount of rereading that you do while you're reading the passage for the first time it's you know when you're actually working on her time conditions reading that passage for the first time you have to be willing to say okay I you know I don't really get what this sentence is about or even like I got a little bit of idea what this paragraph is about but there are a lot of details that elude me you got to be willing to say that and just move on because it's a time test and I think you know think about this sink try to notice if you find yourself rereading parts of the passage over and over and over again trying to understand all the details or trying to get a handle on it sometimes you just got to move on where you should be willing to reread is and where people are more reluctant to reread is if a question is asking you something you read the question stem and really to answer the question you should go back and reread part of the passage maybe reread a single sentence or a single line or something and this is what people are reluctant to do it right so we let's kind of you know flip-flop this if you find yourself in either of those categories if you're you find yourself rereading a lot when you first read the passage we find yourself rereading a lot let's try to minimize that and if you find yourself while you're working on questions really reluctant to go back and look at the passage to help you answer a question maybe be a little more willing to do that still selective about it but a little more willing um and you know one of the things to realize is it's not really that terrible if you have to go back and reread part of the passage in order to answer a question because these aren't super long passages um and even if you don't like immediately remember where to go exactly it's probably not hard to quickly skim and find a piece of information you're looking for like would somebody tell me in the chat window um what part of this passage discusses what is taught in graduate writing programs where would I find that in the passage even just a proxy in the chat window where am I going to find information about what's taught in graduate writing programs okay I love it first paragraph that's a fantastic answer that's absolutely correct first section first paragraph now maybe like it's actually starting in starts here around line three like if you said lines you know three two you know three to five let's say like that would be fantastic but you don't even need that level of specificity you're able to say oh I remember that was in the I think it's in the first paragraph that's great and then you can quickly scan the first paragraph and find that exact information if you need it um where would I find information about Germany where is Germany mentioned see if you can remember without looking and put it in the chat window they may remember without looking like approximately where that is yeah it's in the third paragraph yeah line 35 or a round line 35 yeah it's it's right down here so between lines 30 and 35 so again this kind of general general ability to remember where topics are and the passages are really important if you're able to do that that's a really good level of specificity a really good level of detail you're remembering some of the main ideas the big points the main ideas that were mentioned and where to go back approximately and find them if you need to so um for this particular question which of the following must actually expresses the main point of the passage would you go back and reread anything before answering this question or do you think this is a question that we could answer just from our general memory knowledge understanding of the passage what do you think go back and look before answering the question before should we go back and look at the passage before looking at answer choices or should we try to answer this based on our general understanding Lisa says let's answer yeah I agree with you Lisa so the main point of the passage I mean that's that's one thing if you get nothing else from the passage if there are even if there are a ton of details in there that you don't feel like you understand what I hope is you always get a pretty understanding of what the main idea is the main point is so so yeah let's try to try to answer it and maybe you know think about that for yourself in your own words just take a moment and think and it can be really just general just a couple of words what's the main idea of the passage any thoughts about that what's coming to mind and even if it's just a couple words it doesn't have to be like a fully articulated sentence even if it's just a couple words that come into mind that's great that's great whatever pops into your head can be really useful difference between writing for poetry and fiction yeah that's a great thing to pop into your head did nice exactly alright so what we've talked about here um Lisa that's a great answer yeah if that's what pops in your head that's fantastic anything about difference between poetry and fiction I mean if that's all you got yeah a difference between you know separation between fiction and poetry or fiction and poetry being connected more you know those are all great at great things great great ideas of a pre phrase so one of the again this is something that that try to practice even if you have to something that people do to get better at this is exactly what I do here on the screen people will actually cover the answers with their hand to force themselves to pause for a second and think about the question before looking at answer choices and the whole reason we do that is because if you practice this you'll actually find that you're better prepared to answer to look at the answer choices you're better prepared to think about the answer choices because you've taken a few seconds to think about the question first all right so the next thing the next key to success is you know something at Manhattan prep if you look at any of our resources or go to one of our classes or look at our books or whatever we always talk about working wrong too right so it very and the reason we emphasize this so much is it's very natural kind of a natural test-taking habit that we pick up on is to look at a question and then try to find the right answer and the people who create this test are really good at doing two things they're really good at writing answer choices that look right but are actually completely wrong and they're also really good at rating answer choices that look wrong but are actually completely right so you the best defense against this is to learn to recognize what makes an answer wrong specific words or phrases in an answer choice that actually make it wrong and be able to use that to your advantage so here's I'm going to do I want you to look at each answer I'm gonna show you the answer choices I want you to look at each answer choice take a moment look each answer choice and don't worry about whether it's right but see if you notice anything wrong with it see if you notice what's wrong with it and just make a little list to yourself of all the answer choices that you think are wrong and we'll talk about you all right how about in the chat window for those of you who are here tonight in the chat window which answer choices do you think are wrong any little list of the answers that you think are wrong maybe that's just one that's great okay Denise would you like do it again if you don't want to hop on the mic you don't have to but would you like to hop on the mic and tell us why he is wrong and if you want to use your microphone hover your mouse over the bottom of the screen and there should be an unmute button in the left corner I think Dee is incorrect because it does not say that I did not actually see that in the it doesn't discuss how she the way she with how she realized her how she relies on tradition traditional techniques I did not see that in here yeah and and especially it says without relying on traditional techniques we never say you're exactly right Denise we never say that Rita Dove didn't rely on traditional techniques she did something that's a little bit unique for sure combining like you know poetry and fiction and in kind of a unique way but it never says that she totally didn't rely on traditional techniques so and again notice it's just that one phrase and that answer choice without relying on traditional techniques that makes that answer wrong so Dee is out of there Thank You Denise um Angelo would you like to talk about answer choice a let me see if I can so if you want you can again unmute your microphone the buttons in the lower left corner of the window if you don't want to talk no yeah you might great yeah so I saw that with a even though she has been widely acclaimed because of her elements of going back and forth that doesn't really mean that that's the main point of the passage since we already referred back to the main conclusion or the main point that it has to do with fiction and poetry and how it's moving along it doesn't really have the conclusion has to do with Rita does work okay so that's your main or argument against a is a is to specifically focused on Rita doves work yes that's correct okay thank you alright any of these other answer choices anybody want to take a shot let me know in the chat window if you want to take a shot at or Denise or Angela if you want to take a shot at one of these other answer choices eliminating it shot it eliminating one of these answer choices so notice um and we want to point out answer choice B me to does lyric narratives present clusters of narrative detail in order to create a cumulative narrative without requiring the reader to interpret it in a linear manner I mean isn't that really close to where is that yeah that's kind of it's kind of what's going on right here in this paragraph kind of lines 40 to 50 around that area so why is be still a wrong answer anybody in the chat window I'll tell you what what's wrong with B it's actually this is B has a problem that's very very common in yeah I love it Lisa too specific it's a minor detail so notice what the question is asking this question is asking Li asking which of the following most actually expresses the main point of the passage and of the passage is what we're really interested in here it's not like a main point it's not the main point of the third paragraph it's the main point of the passage so they're very often gonna give you an answer choice that sounds pretty good it sounds just like something that was actually said in the passage I mean there are a lot of details in answer choice B that sound almost exactly like what they're saying here between lines 40 and 50 but this stuff is only mentioned between lines 40 and 50 so it's not gonna be the main point of the passage as a whole it's so that's a really tempting answer choice to look out for your answer choices that are you know sound really good that sound like something that they actually said in the passage but it's not the main point of the passage as a whole it's a minor supporting point and actually in order to is also questionable if you actually read what answer choice B says saying she presented cluster of narrative detail in order to create a cumulative narrative without requiring the reader to interpret it that's actually not quite right either but other than that it sounds really good but it's just focusing on one part of the passage all right so now we're down to C and E how do we make a choice between C and E anybody have any ideas I'll give you a hint some things if read answer choice seekers both of these answer choices sound pretty good something's missing from answer choice see what's missing from answer choice see when do they ask this a different way oh the word trend from the passage that includes I don't remember the word bias although it could be in there working against a bias okay working against the bias that has long been dominant new us well is there anything Lisa let me ask you this question and I'll you you can unmute yourself if you want oh okay oh sorry at least so you're actually it's saying you're because the version of zoom you're using I can't let you talk but maybe in the chat window is there anything in here that's even kind of like a bias some kind of bias that's being described in the passage and I'll kind of give you an idea we're kind of talking about this idea of yeah a bias against at least you're absolutely right a bias against the connection between fiction and poetry so there's kind of a bias here we're talking about existing views and kind of these rigid views that poetry and in in the u.s. at least where poetry and fiction are viewed as separate and we're you know graduate graduate writing programs and universities trained students as poets our writers of fiction but almost never is both so there certainly seems to be or where it says us culture is often suspicious casts a suspicious eye on the generalist as if ability in one field deluded or compromised is dilute or compromise by accomplishment in another so you're absolutely right Lisa that the passage does you know and admit might be in here Oh actually the word bias is in here I just found it I just noticed at line 21 there are signs that the bias against writers who cross generic generic boundaries is diminishing so the word bias is in there but here's something - it's for everybody remember Lisa for you to remember it everybody it's okay if an answer choice mentions something that was described in the passage even if they don't use that exact word so what I was about to say is even if I hadn't who hadn't spotted that word bias in line 21 even if that line even if that exact word bias wasn't there if there's enough description in the passage that is describing a bias even if they don't use that exact word answer that would still be okay for answer choice C answer choice C is it even if they didn't use the exact word bias in the passage answer choice still would see would still be okay and this is a really important point because a lot of people will get rid of answer choices for that reason because it's using a word or that wasn't actually using the passage and one of the most important things to remember about reading comprehension is a lot of the answer choices that you're gonna see correct answers are not really direct quotes from the passage you know some answers are asking you for something taken directly from the passage but we actually call these main point questions synthesis questions it's the term we use for them because the correct answer will synthesize or connect or combine information from several points in the passage it's not just gonna be narrowly focused on one part of the passage so this is one of the most important things to remember about LSAT reading comprehension questions is they don't always pull language directly from the passage in fact one of the ways that the test writer is hide correct answers is by not really using language taken directly from the passage but the description is accurate and that it has the same meaning so in terms of answer choice see if you haven't seen it yet um notice that answer choice C so working against the bias that has long been dominant in the u.s. yeah we actually are talking about that even if they didn't use the word bias it's kind of sounds like what we're talking about recent writers like Rita Dove which yeah we're talking about one important example of this trend is Rita Dove so that's supported in here in line 25 have shown that the lyrical use of language can effectively enhance narrative fiction so certainly the lyrical use of language yeah we're talking about that we're talking about you know using poetic language in fiction you know it can effectively enhance narrative fiction the reason why I see is wrong and this is this is a really small detail minor detail between C and E and I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you I've kind of kind of given you a hint about it but does anybody see a significant difference between C and E how is he different from C in a way that actually makes a correct and C incorrect what's the difference between the two notice how he talks about Rita Dove so talks about Rita Dove successful blending of poetry and fiction so it's talking about her blending of both poetry and fiction exemplifies the trend away from trend away from the separation of the two genres which is really what the passage is about yeah the the in exactly Lisa C emphasizes that she's showing that the lyrical use of language can enhance narrative fiction but we're not just talking about NAT enhancing fiction we're also talking about using fictional structures to enhance poetic writing right so it's both II really focuses on the the both poetry and fiction how we're blending both to enhance both or to eliminate this rigid separation between the two whereas a is just talking about effectively enhancing fiction narrative fiction which is only one side of the coin small difference right small difference between Ian C um what are some of the things that you're seeing here in just this one question that we talked about so we do spend a lot of time picking this question apart what are some of the things that you've noticed and I'm gonna give everybody you know a little bit of time to write this in the chat window what are some of your takeaways what are some of the things you've seen in the way we just discussed this question that you think can help you in LSAT reading comprehension okay excellent Lisa said the pre phrasing right the strategy of thinking of the answer first before reviewing the answers yeah interrogate each answer to see if it really acted it refers back to the question at hand yeah see like be aware of that the the sometimes they'll give you an answer that it's actually not terrible and in fact one of the things that makes answer choice be tough to spot as a wrong answer is because it does include so many things that were explicitly discussed so many terms that were explicitly mentioned in the passage and a lot of people gravitate towards that they gravitate towards the answer that seems to contain the most words from the passage but that's not what we're looking for right we're not looking really for a direct quote from the passage we're looking for something that describes the main point of the passage as a whole and yet eliminating incorrect answers so think about some of these things that you wrote you know thinking about the answer first before reviewing the answers question each answer to see if it actually refers back to the question at hand and then eliminating incorrect answers so think about how you can use that those takeaways the next time you're looking at a question so you work on a question and then you're gonna try to like answer that question yourself are analyzed that question yourself think about how you can focus on those takeaways and use those when you're analyzing when you're reviewing a question think about those specific details because that'll do two things it'll help you understand the question better right help you understand why the correct answer is correct and why the wrong answers are wrong but you're also reinforcing the idea of thinking about those things while you're working in real time you know there are a lot of things that we want to do on the LSAT that are really great really important but they're hard to do in the limited amount of time that you have to work on questions that's why you have to practice them kind of in slow motion you know it's like Tai Chi if you know anything about Tai Chi it's a martial art and they do everything really really slowly but then if somebody tries to like grab you you'd move really fast you're you're like adrenaline kicks in and you do what you've practiced so you practice this so slowly and precisely that you just like grab the person and throw them on the ground and tie them up in a knot um that's kind of the idea and that up works well in the LSAT to taking the time to review questions thoroughly and really thinking through things carefully if you do that multiple times for with multiple questions you're actually reinforcing these these these pathways in your mind and these ways of actually thinking about the questions to the point where you can do them you start doing this really quickly alright so um excellent excellent so here's something that you can do too and exercise this really is addition to everything that we just said if you had problems with this like maybe this is a question you found difficult or maybe you just you know I'll start with two things one is if you just generally found find a question difficult one of the most useful things to do is go back and look at the correct answer and see if you can find support for the correct answer in the passage why is why does answer choice II described the main idea of the passage so needed of successful blending of poetry and fiction so you know that's kind of that's all what's talked about here that's why you know Rita Dove is given it as an example an example of this you know there her work in both genres right and the rest of this kind of talks about her successful blending of both recent trend away from the rigid separation of the two genres so this is all about the rigid separation of the two genres and we're saying yo Rita Dove is giving it as an example of us moving away from that so if you can look at this answer choice e and relate it to the specific topics that are mentioned in the passage and understand how that actually does describe the main point of the passage as a whole then that's gonna go a long way towards helping you understand how the correct answer is the main point questions are written if another answer seemed appealing right do what we just did try to really like look at each piece of this answer and compare it to try to find the relevant part of the passage you know her work has been widely acclaimed primary because okay why do we talk about you know why Rita doves work has been widely acclaimed because of the lyrical elements she introduced into her fiction is that the only reason why she's widely acclaimed no that's not the only reason why she's widely acclaimed and the passage isn't really it's not the passage isn't about Rita Dove it's not about why she's been widely acclaimed that's not really what the passage is about it's about her as an example it's about how she's an example of something that's a big difference between answer choice E and answer choice a the passage is about her how she exemplifies this thing not the reason why she's wildly acclaimed so this is a really important thing to do to a really useful thing if you picked answer choice a is a correct answer go back and look at the differences between those two answers how is answer choice in it you know if you if you picked answer choice a and you know that answer choice is correct how are those two answers different what's the main the big differences between those two answers just like we looked at here um what's the biggest difference and how does that difference inform you about why one answer is correct and one isn't for this question right why is this the correct answer for this question and this one not if you're down to two answers another common thing is like if you were trying to having a hard time choosing between C and E then why you know what is the big difference between answer choice C and s or choice E again answer choice C is focusing on the lyrical use of language enhancing narrative fiction whereas answer choice E is talking about the trend away from the rigid separation why does that make answer choice C correct answer sorry why does that make answer choice D correct and answer choice C incorrect so this is a great exercise to do when you're reviewing you know if to answer choices seem appealing or if the correct answer didn't seem appealing in the wrong answer did what's the difference what is the big difference between those so again what this will do is a little help you learn to read more specifically learn to pay attention to the details in the answer choices that are going to help you decide between right and wrong answers and especially the details that make the wrong answer is wrong and how do you relate those details to both the question that you're being asked and the information that you're given in the passage okay let's look at another question and here's what we're gonna do I'd like you to practice this process that we just did we're gonna practice all of this we're gonna practice go ahead put together everything that we just talked about so let me find another question which would be a good one to look at um okay here's a good one what I'd like you to do is I'm gonna have you do these steps by yourself all right I'm not gonna walk you through it so let's just I'm gonna give you I'm gonna give you 45 seconds to answer this question so here's what I want to do when the question comes up on the screen the first thing I want you to do is take a breath then I want you to read the question stem it's gonna may be a little hard to do because you're gonna be forcing yourself to slow down a little bit take a breath read the question stem pause for a second before you look at the answer choices and just think you know what do I think a correct answer might be might look like what is this question asking me about what is the main thing that this question is asking me about and what does that do it does it help me predict at all anything about the answers right so take a breath read the question stem pause for a second and think about it and then when you look at the answer choices the first thing you should be doing is looking for answers that you can eliminate which answers even if it's just one that immediately stands out at you is wrong then which answer choice is it that immediately stands out as wrong if you can eliminate and just write down any answers that stand out to you is wrong and if you can eliminate four answers that's great to put the remaining one in the chat window we'll see if that's the correct answer if you get down to two then again slow down even more and read each answer choice carefully and see if you notice something that helps you choose between them all right so take a breath read the question pause for a second to think about the question look at the answer choices and try to notice which answer choices seem wrong to you seem the most wrong write those down if you're looking at two or three that all seem appealing take another breath read each one a little more slowly and see if you notice details that help you choose between them all right let's do that here it is you you okay that was a little bit over 45 seconds but let's see how we did on this that everybody remember to take a breath before you looked at the question before you read the question did you remember to read the question and pause for a second before you looked at the answer choices awesome I'm seeing some yeses in the chat window um which answer choices were you able to eliminate are there any of these answer choices that seemed definitely wrong those in the chat window okay a and B D and E and B okay how about let's go with Angela again with Angela would you like to uh unmute your mic and tell me about those answers that you eliminated and why and first of all before you do that I'm gonna put you on the spot here a little bit tell me what what would you think like after you read this question what do you what are you thinking just after you read the question before even look at the answer choices what thoughts popped into your head well the first thing that I saw was the most likely to believe so after the previous question we were able to get the main conclusion from it so we can kind of infer based on that that what was she trying to figure out or what was the main passage that she'd believe so it would definitely have to be something that would have at least read add up or some sort of writer or it would have to have to be with poetry and fiction to come together in recent times rather than later so it was my first intuition of what would be a what I would expect one of the answers would be mhm and who is this question asking us about whose opinion are we being asked about the authors the author so that's one important thing to notice we're being asked about what the author thinks the author of the passage right not Rita Dove but the author of this particular LSAT reading comprehension whatever essay and whatever academic Journal they are using for this passage so whoever wrote this thing um what this person is likely to believe so we're being asked for something that they would agree with right not disagree but what would they be likely to believe now one thing I want to I like so I like a lot of the answers you gave but where it says would be most likely to believe which of the following what most likely to believe means is it doesn't actually refer to the main point but out of these four answer choices which one would the author be most likely to believe out of those answer choices not the main thing what's the main thing that the author would be likely to believe so we're not really looking it doesn't have to relate to the main point but what that's saying is there might be maybe more than one answer choice that looks okay but it's the one that actually is the author's most likely to believe it and our Angela one more question are we being asked for a direct quote from the passage or are we being asked for is it kind of like the last question where the correct answer doesn't even have to include something directly stated in the passage I think that since it's like I began to most likely likely to believe depending on the answer and how confident you are or depend on the answer choice you may have to go back to to reread a certain section so maybe me personally I may not be confident I'll pick based upon my memory I could answer it I feel like I would have to maybe go back into the passage okay good yeah like that's okay to say hey I might need to go back into the passage to answer this question but what is this word where it says it can be inferred from the passage what is that telling us it can be inferred meaning that it can be like you can assume yeah it's kind of like assume it's inferred it's it's something you could conclude you could conclude that the author would be likely to believe one of these but it it's not necessarily something that's directly stated in the passage so that's one of the things that you you know and when you're reviewing this question I like look Angela I just spent like a minute or two talking just about the question stem and what is the question stem actually saying and what is it actually asking us this is something you can and should do on your own especially with questions that you find difficult make sure you understand like what is the question actually asking is this asking me for something explicitly stated in the passage or not and again this question isn't its asking us for something that we can like conclude infer based on what's said in the passage all right so Angela um what's wrong with answer choice a why would we get rid of that uh so for answer choice a once i saw each of doves works i kind of threw me off because i know that we like she never inferred or like the author never taught each of doves works so we can't really deny or confirm that statement so it'd be hard for us to believe that let alone the author so that's why that's how i saw it so that's how i just marked a is wrong okay now basically what i just said a moment ago though that the the correct answer you know inferred from the passage means it doesn't have to be something explicitly stated in the passage does that change your answer at all about that each of doves works not necessarily because as i can working through it i mean it can be classified either through like primate like primarily poetry or primarily fiction i mean both of these i mean from the author i don't believe that she the author would believe this most likely element because i guess it can contain both but i don't know i just i guess maybe they each of the Dubs might have thrown me off in this sense i know she wouldn't be like the author wouldn't necessarily agree with this because we can't infer it yeah it seems like a lot to infer about doves works yeah so just based on this like hey it's what it was at four paragraphs can we really infer something about each of doves works okay what about answer choice B Bravo so this one when I was thinking like it's representation of a sequence of events rather than its ability to evoke inner states I was a little confused in the sense of what does that mean and referring back to the questions it can the author like would the author believe that and I upon like I think inferring from the passage I don't believe that the author would be most likely to believe that one maybe it's possible I don't think that'd be the most likely to believe okay is there anything wrong with it is there anything like something that would make us like and this is you know do you see something that really makes you say no there's no way this is a right answer I mean the first thing that threw me up was the aesthetic value of lyric narrative and my first question was in that passage I never saw that and so I just referred to like referring from the passage and then looking back is like are they most likely to believe that I can't deny or confirm that again think I don't know because I didn't get that intuition based upon the author's passage and where do we talk about lyric narratives this whole lyric narrative thing where is that coming from anyway what part of the passage is that coming from that comes from lines between 40 and 45 and that's when they kind of integrate together but I don't see I guess as I can representation but the aesthetic value of it I don't know I guess maybe that word usage by are just thrown off in the sense that I didn't infer that from the passage therefore I don't believe the author would be most likely to believe it yeah and you just said something a moment ago that's actually really good a really good thing to keep in mind when we talk about lyric narrative it's Rita doves combining the poetry and fiction together right that's what the author is describing you know indeed her poetry offers example after example of what can only be properly regarded as lyric narrative so even if you don't exactly know what lyric narrative is you get this idea that this is the way the author described Rita doves poetry right Rita does writing and so would the author believe that the value of it is in how it represents events and not in its ability to evoke interstates like that seems like the whole dividing of fiction and it's the whole dividing of fiction and poetry that the author is saying hey this is a bias right this isn't really a good thing what's really more like interesting is how authors are able to combine these two so this is kind of going against the author of the passage is the whole like idea and main idea of the passage right is that hey we're gonna separate these things mmm okay awesome um how about Denise and we'll wrap this up a little bit we'll talk about a couple more these answer choices and then we'll wrap this up and talk about some takeaways but Denise do you wanna unmute your mic and tell me about some of these answer choices that you eliminated it or that you eliminated and why you eliminated them and Denise if you're thinking that's fine if you want to talk if you click on the unmute button in the lower left corner of your screen sorry I didn't see the unmute no problem it disappears sometimes alright so tell me about Astra trace DNA you wanted to eliminate those D the past in the process the author doesn't imply that he doesn't imply that that uh that either poetry or or lyrical language is superior that one is superior to the other passage yeah aesthetically superior like yeah the author seems to be thinking it's really wonderful that you know Rita Dove and other authors can combine these two it goes against this rigid separation but really doesn't get into whether one's actually better than the other the author's just kind of saying hey it's possible to connect them they don't have to remain separated so that's exactly it what about e echo um only dub is discussed in the passage he it doesn't talk about other writers or the writers who successfully successfully crossed generic boundary it doesn't even go into that in the passage yeah did anybody see any lies and you could put this in the chat window or Denise you can answer this anybody see any lines where we talk about writers who successfully combine poetry and fiction try other genres do we do we dub is the only one they discuss the author discussed mm-hmm notice down here in lines I was at 33 in when Doug was in Germany she observed poets write plays novelists comprise composed liberati libretti sorry playwrights write novels so we are talking about other writers and where they're crossing the boundary between poetry and fiction so you know poets right oh I don't know poets write plays I guess that's kind of like what's being said here but do they try their hand at other genres such as drama so it's kind of he is kind of talking about hey if you you know if you cross over from one type to another then you're likely to cross over to a third type and the closest we get so the only time we really talk about other writers specifically other than dove is down here and we're not really saying that hey if Poteau poets write plays they're also gonna try this other thing - it's not what it says so ii is you know if you thought it kind of sounded like you know 33 to 30 36 there maybe but again it's it's going beyond what's even said in the passage not just going beyond what's said but going beyond what we would infer or we'll we would conclude from what was said so answer choice C is answer choice C the correct answer the way in which dove blends on resistant in the u.s. writing what do you all think about that without precedent that's something the author would believe do we have support for that in the passage so that's always going to be the question is if even if it doesn't explicitly say that in the passage there needs to be some support for it without precedent like that that's kind of the the what this answer choice hinges on this answer choice is hinging hinging on the idea that dove in blending these two things together is without precedent in us writing nobody did it before her so where do we have support for that so notice Lisa you're saying the author is commending Rita Dove for her work but does that mean that she Rita Dove is the first one to do it first paragraph Denise where in the first paragraph tell me what lines it does say for decades there was a deep rift okay line five said so this is talking about graduate writing programs trained students as one of the other but almost never as both so this is certainly setting the idea that there's been a trend there's been a tendency but here's the thing it says when we specific where do we talk about specifically yeah one important example so Lisa I notice what you wrote you're your king and and actually the important line Rita Dove is described as one important example of this trend so we know it's not just Rita Dove you know there are signs that this bias against writers who crossed nerrac boundaries is diminishing so it's we're talking about the bias against writers who cross generic boundaries so almost that almost implies that you know writers have been doing this there's just a bias against it and it says one important example of this trend so the thing that you wrote Lisa that's really example is it's materially important as you said the third paragraph says one important example maybe it's important because it's a precedent but do we know that can we really infer that there's a little bit of information that makes us think maybe Rita dub is not the first because the author doesn't say the first author to buck the trend I mean it's seem the author seems to really think favorably of Rita Dove maybe I would think maybe the author would tell us if she really was the first but the author never described her is the first and the author does describe you know writers against you know bias against writers who cross generic boundaries is diminishing not that it's never happened but just that the biased against it is diminishing the bias against it is diminishing so see is actually wrong he is actually not the right answer and a is the right answer so why is a the right answer each of doves works so you know what we said earlier Angela pointed out is you know do we really talk about each of doves works do we really know anything about each of doves works so I'm curious if anybody can find any support for a any support for the idea that the author would believe that each of doves works can be classified either primarily as poetry as primarily as fiction notice it doesn't say exclusively it just says primarily where do we find support for that 26 what is 26 so she's highly acclaimed for both her poetry and her fiction so yeah we're talking about them as if they're two separate things so notice where do we so here's another question similar to one I asked you earlier remember I was asking you questions like where do we find you know Graduate writing programs where do we find information about Germany where do we find a description of Rita doves writing where would we look for for your sampling where does the author actually talk about Rita does writing and what it's like 36 so 36 is talking about not understanding our restrictive 'no snow tiss in the yeah we start to see more like lines 37 here we start to see a description of what Rita dubs writing is like and notice how the author talks about Rita doves writing the author talks about her use of language in these poems is lyrical and then we talk about down here many passages in her fiction so the author is specifically talking about her works as works of either poetry or fiction because the author specifically talks about them as works of poetry or works of fiction then there's support for a even though the palette agree with you the passage never never explicitly says that then the author you know then the passage never specifically mentions in those words each of doves works the passage never explicitly says that the author thinks they can be classified either primarily as poetry or primarily as fiction but the author refers to them as works of poetry or as works of fiction and again this is something that you might get from reading you know other lsat passages and seeing how things are worded but there are passages that describe as like being blended into some new form right does the you know the author never says that they can't be distinguished as you know Rita doves works are so blended that they cannot be distinguished as either poetry or fiction you know there's something new or there's something different or they're a blend polishing or something right so the author does explicitly mention just describe them as poems and as fiction which is our support for answer choice a it's tough right answer choice a is a really tough answer to spot it's tough to spot us correct but what I would argue is there's more support for a because the author specifically describes them as poems and as fiction and notice how like does that let me let me ask that question in the chat what does everybody see that does anybody see how the author is explicitly describing in lines where is it 42 and lines 51 to 52 describing her works as poetry and fiction explicitly describes them as two different things and do you see where we have to make more assumptions well maybe like when she says that she's an important example when the author says that redid that was an important example maybe that means like you know that she was the first so this again the whole idea here I think this question is a really great example of because and here's what might happen right here's what often is gonna happen is you get a question wrong yeah absolutely Angela more assumptions can be dangerous and I believe we're making far more assumptions to if we infer or conclude that the author thinks that does writing is without precedent those that were making far more examples are sorry we're making far more assumptions to go from an important example to saying without precedent and that's what's dangerous about picking C we're making far fewer assumptions too and really not many assumptions at all when the author explicitly describes her works as either poetry or fiction cool so this is what happens very often on the LSAT right you get a question wrong and you're really perturbed because you picked answer choice C and you thought answer choice C was actually a good answer or you eliminated a in B and D and E and you were really confident that they were all wrong so you picked C because it was the only one left and then you find out it's the wrong answer C is the wrong answer and so that process that we just went through of saying okay where do I find in the passage not that exact quote but where do I find the support for that in the passage what language is talking about the way in which retd of blends genres in her writing and where do we talk about okay then maybe you know a is the right answer maybe you look in the answer key and say hey is the right answer really a why is a the right answer so then you go back and you look for the language that supports that not that explicitly says it but that supports that as an answer and so you know like I said there are times when you want to reread things and there are times that you don't a time when you want to wait a time when you don't want to reread things is wow you're actually reading the passage for the first time you know again rereading one sentence especially if it's something that you think is pretty important to know yeah that's fine if you have to read something twice that's fine rereading an entire paragraph twice or three times rereading a sentence three or four times not what you want to do you've got to be willing to move on remember a lot of these details that are in this passage we never even talked about right there are a lot of details in here that don't come up in a need to questions so be a little bit stingy about how often you reread something while you're reading the passage initially where you should be willing to reread is if you need to to make a choice between two answer choices if you're looking at to answer choices and you notice a difference between them and you feel like going back to the passage will help you see which one is more correct or which one is incorrect do that another time to reread and do a lot of rereading is when you review when you're going back and looking at answer choices you're looking at questions that you answered either questions you answered incorrectly your questions that you struggled with being able to really read the answers careful and go back and find the support for that answer in the passage is what will help you sharpen your ability to spot wrong answers and to correctly eliminate the wrong answers and sharpen your ability to know like how does the LSAT actually write answer choices how does the answer how does they all set actually word a correct answer choices in a way that makes them not really seem that great and what kind of details do they include an incorrect answer choices that really make those answer choices wrong so Lisa had a good question in the chat window well every question be like that asking about what we can be inferred about what someone may believe have an answer that the passage could substantially support yeah every every answer every question like this when a question asks about something that can be inferred so this is answering your question Lisa when a question asks about something that can be inferred from the passage there will be support the two things to remember out the correct answer it's not gonna be a direct quote from the passage when it says inferred it's not gonna be something that was directly stated but there will be support for it there will be one of these answers where you can point to thus the lines or the for the words in the passage that actually help us make that inference that helped us conclude that that is the correct answer that provides support for that answer and just as importantly the other answer choices will have language in them that is sometimes contradicted or at the very least does not have clear support there's gonna be language there's gonna be something wrong with the other answer choices that makes them not supportable or they would require more assumptions they would require a bunch of assumptions in order to go from what's in the passage to what's in the answer choice all right so hopefully what you're taking away from this now we went over time a little bit thanks for sticking around um what we are taking away from this hopefully is some ideas about how the LSAT rights questions how they write answer choices and some techniques that you can use to successfully analyze you know and it's not always whether you get a question right the FIR that's actually when you're preparing for the LSAT I know it's frustrating when you don't get questions correct but that's not really what's important what's important is what you do with them after and your ability to go and really pick the answer choices apart and relate you know understand the question relate what's in each answer choice to what's being asked in the question you know what is this answer choice how does this answer choice connect to what I'm actually being asked for in this question and then being able to connect correct answers to what's said in the passage being able to correct connect incorrect answers and specific language and incorrect answers to things that are you know the opposite of what's said in the passage or at the least unsupported all right um that's all we got so for those of you watching tonight on YouTube thanks for being here I promised I would share some links to some free resources and other information so if you are here with us tonight I'll put that in the chat window if you're watching on YouTube then you can find those links in the scroll down and find that those links in the information for the video um thanks for coming tonight thanks for being here I hope this is useful I hope this is interesting and good luck in your LSAT prep