December 2014 LSAT Section 1 Question 23

Geologist: The dominant view that petroleum formed from the fossilized remains of plants and animals deep in the eart...

colleen_ on July 21, 2020

Help

I often find myself getting lost in a stimulus that is particularly "sciency" like this one is. I found this stimulus in particular really hard to understand. Any tips on attacking a stimulus that deals with topics I am unfamiliar with?

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Ravi on July 23, 2020

@colleen_, happy to help. This is a very common issue that people have. The first thing you should examine is how fast you're reading these times of stimuli. You're likely reading the words on the screen, but you're not reading them slowly enough to soak them up and internalize what's being said.

Secondly, you may also be struggling with these questions because you're not naturally interested in the subject material. One great way to overcome this is to make predictions and anticipations as much as possible while you're reading. This gets you mentally invested in the outcome of the stimulus so that you're more engaged. The more engaged you are, the stronger your working memory will be, and this will lead to much better overall retention. If you're not naturally interested, you have to find a way to generate interest, and predictions are a great way to do that.

Try these strategies out, and let us know if you have any questions!