Phenomenon/Explanation Meta-Structure (Beginner) with Rob

Hey, thanks for joining, for those of you who are joining, we'll take two minutes to get started though, so thanks.

you have any questions, feel free to type them in the chat as usual, and maybe I can help you out with something before we officially start.

There we go. All right, now we're doing a few people here. Yes. Yes, we are. need a few more.

You Alright, couple more. Yeah, maybe stuff time for people. I'll give it another minute and then we're going to go and, you know, there we go.

There we go, some people are coming in. Okay. Yes, I was like listening to this bleed on from another office hour or somebody asked the question.

It took a really long time to realize that that question was not actually asked here. I just had another recording going on at the same time.

So that's a very strange situation that I never thought I'd find myself in. All right, let's get this thing moving.

My name is Rob. I think you guys know that. I'm an instructor at L7M. Next today, we have another live class on meta structures.

So for a while, I would say like probably like the last two years. Yeah, about the last two years.

We've been looking at meta structures, you know, I know that there's not a lot of you have been studying for two years.

But if you have, you may have noticed that we have in reading comprehension this idea of meta structures and meta structures really just refer to a lot of the basic patterns that continue to show up in the passages.

And the reason we teach meta structures is that by giving you a familiarity with those patterns, it allows you to do a little bit better on the questions.

And, you know, even that comes down to specifically like knowing what kind of meta structure you're in, knowing like what kind of big picture pattern your passage is.

should allow you to do a couple things. One of those things is like you have a better understanding of what kind of main point the author is making, you know, like it's pretty easy once you know your meta structure, like the all the meta points are going to really vary too much, you just need to get the details right.

It's going to help you know kind of like what to focus on as you read. So that's all this is if you see something you're like oh my gosh these meta structures, I don't know what these are, mostly just patterns.

So for the last you know, meta structures were something that were developed in we started rolling these out in early 2022.

So now it's 2024. So these have been around for two and a half years as like a specific part of the LSAT max curriculum and study aids.

Now there are a couple different kinds of meta structures, you have major ones, you have minor ones, major ones are like what kind of like

like general like what kind of passage does this fit into? Like is this a passage where you know like today we'll focus on one that describes a phenomenon and an explanation for that phenomenon?

Is it a kind of passage that you know criticizes Simmons opinion? Is it a kind of passage you know that you know reports like an interesting viewpoint?

You know there's a all these major ones fit within four categories of major meta structures. So you're gonna see like why am I saying this?

Because you it's like kind of disorienting it you know if you don't quite know what's going on I would encourage you you know hopefully like you have an instructor and this this isn't unfortunately like with all we have to get done today like this is not the opportunity where I can give you like the full debrief on meta structures but if you're looking at this.

And you have any confusion on this whatsoever. I would recommend watching some of the other archived live classes that I've done at round meta structures that don't dig in so specifically into some of the things but take it from the wider lens.

So today, on the agenda, we have a couple of things. Oh, whoops, my iPad's not really connected. It's going to be really hard to show my screen if it's not going.

So we have a couple of things. We're doing two things. One, we're talking about a specific type of major meta structure, a passage that falls under the description of phenomenon explanation.

And at the same time, we're talking a little bit about the beginner reading comprehension method. And we will do some problems, as promised.

OK. So we get here. You guys see this. Yes, that's awesome. Ready? Okay, so phenomenon explanation is one of the maybe like 14 types.

I'm actually not sure what they all are, which you know should tell you two things from that. One is that you don't need to completely memorize these.

You know, hopefully you've learned in your LSAT studying at this point that like wrote memorization without understanding why you're learning something or how it actually works doesn't get you very far.

It's a nice thing to have but you know it's more important to know the processes. I would say it's more important to be reading the text in a way that allows you to understand that you've read more so than even wade into the world of meta structures at all if you only have time for one or the other.

But we've time for both. So phenomenon explanation, what happens in a passage like this is you get like a phenomenon is basically just like something that you

can observe happen, like whether it's an observable fact, whether it's a type of behavior, whether it's a situation. phenomenon could be a scientific process that we're trying to figure out how it works and unravel the mystery behind it.

A phenomenon could be that the economy does certain things at certain times, and then it can get even a little bit more outside of that academic domain.

A phenomenon could be, you know, why? I mean, you know, I don't know why I fall asleep every day at exactly 10.30, or why, you know, when, oh, that was unfortunate.

Some of my desk just fell. Or, you know, like, why, I, you know, my brother up on the phone, like he answers the telephone.

Like, they're they don't have to be really complex. Like, a phenomenon is just like some thing that's observable and that is happening in real life.

So usually what you see for these passages is it's like kind of talked up to like somewhat of a mystery.

Like we have an observable fact, a process or a situation. There's a little bit of a mystery to it and then what happens you know then the author does what explains why it happens or why it happened.

Right, you know today we're looking at one that explains why something happened. takes a social movement in the 1920s and beyond and says like you know this this is a pretty interesting historically what caused it.

So, there's a little bit of overlap between this and some other meta structure, so if you are listening right now and you're like, hey, that sounds like something else, yeah, you write.

You know, not going to dig totally into that, but yes, your punches are very good. So, you know, some of the value here is for that main point question, you know, what does the main point look like in phenomenon explanation passage?

Well, you know, there's two things that are going to happen, you know, author endorses explanation, in which case what's your main point, you know, it looks something like, you know, this happened because, and then you have like a short, you know, featured snippet of what the because is not a featured snippet, a featured snippet is like direct.

we can take it out. But you have, you know, a summary of your major points, like, you know, World War II happened because X, Y, Z.

Okay, that's the main point, right? Unless you get one where the author takes a different posture and criticizes the explanation in which case you would say, although people think this, they're wrong because, you know, be like the common explanation for blah, blah, blah.

This is your, because, and then you go right off of that. So, pretty, I think it's one of the more straightforward ones in terms of meta structures.

That's why there's kind of like a lot of crossover between some other ones, but some of these can get deeply technical.

I do not feel like that is the case here. I think that this is, I mean, this is pretty clear.

So when we take this and knowing that we're about to read something more, something happened in the authors like either going to explain it or the author is going to criticize somebody else's explanation for it, we have an idea what the main point is.

have an idea of just, you know, how, like, how it's probably going to flow, right? So that takes us to what, you know, the reading comprehension method.

So the R C method for beginners is what? mean, how many times you got to read the passage? You read the passage three times.

So what is your first, second, and third read for? Who knows Any great ideas, okay so we have you break it up and the first time you're reading it you're reading for content and You know basically like what are the ideas?

Like you know, what are the ideas? is the information? What's the content? Your second read is? You know understanding how the passage is organized or structure You know, I'm just throwing structure slash organization because you know for some people it's easier understand It you know one way or the other like you don't need to think about as structure slash organization Just pick whichever one makes sense to you Okay, and then your last read is for what uh Tone you know another way of describing the tone is you know what the author's attitude is

So we have read it three times and that just right out of the gate like that begs the question like Why would we do this to you?

Why do you read it three times? Well, here's what happens when people typically like when you're just starting in the outset and honestly even when you're pretty far along And you only read the passage one time.

What do you I would say that probably like This is this is what I get from people probably 90% of your energy is here 10% of your energy is here and you guys don't pay any attention at all to this Which is really reasonable.

So what happens when you do that when you read passage after passage after passage Like that You don't get good at interacting with tone or attitude at all Like you never get better at it because you're it's like never a conscious part of something that you're reading And you really don't get better at structure organization takes a long time to get there You get a little bit better understanding

and in literally the content of what you've read, but that's the least transferable skill because the content varies from passage to passage.

So if you read it once, and this is how your breakdown is, you're not gonna do very well, right?

So instead of that, say, we don't want you to do that, and we wanna be realistic because when I read a passage, and you're at your expert level, like you've done this method long enough to the point where you're ready to graduate, then you read it twice, one for content, one for structure and tone, maybe, or one for content, one for structure, but like tone something that you highlight.

However, you wanna slice and dice that. Eventually you get to the point where you only read a passage once.

I would say that my breakdown is probably something like, yeah, this is where I finally come down on this.

50%. I'm going to call this like 35 and then this for 15. I'm not sure how many other instructors would say that like that's ideal.

But I think realistically like there's no way that you could read something and only pay attention to tone if you had never seen the before like that would be insane.

But to me this is a much more even-handed you know I mean I'm capable of like 50% of my energy going here, 35% going here, 15% and I'm able to do that all at once.

Whereas if you're a less experienced reader you end up doing something like this which this doesn't work for you.

So this is kind of what an expert one read is but when you have the beginner method you get to play a little differently.

So, beginner, because you read it three times, you get a hundred percent, hundred percent, then a hundred percent. Like isn't that really nice?

when you have one read, your complete focus is on understanding the content and the ideas and how they interact with each other, then you're next read, know, and while you are on this first read, your form of note-taking, I mean, it can be what you want it to be.

I find, just as an aside, that isn't super pertinent to just the beginner reading method, is that if you are taking notes, the most helpful notes that you will take are going to be notes that reference the structure or organization of the passage.

That's what you should probably take notes on. I don't think people take a lot more content heavy notes, and they're really dumb.

Notes are for when you read something and have to remember it an hour later or, you know, weeks later or months later.

Notes are not for something that you have to understand three minutes later. The only type of notes that really like works well is notes that are on the structure organization.

Usually what happens, people take notes and notes are good, but you got to be doing it right. What most people do, and this is where they go wrong, is they write down the stuff that's like really obvious to them.

You guys see the problem with that? You guys see that maybe the issue. If you write down the stuff that's really obvious to you, you're also writing down the stuff that you have a least need of reference for.

Like you're writing down the stuff that you are most likely to remember. It doesn't really make sense. That's why, you know, if you guys have ever done LSAT and you're like, yeah, I wrote down these notes and then I didn't even look at them when I did this.

a passage or I looked at him and they already said what I what I knew. Yeah, it's because he wrote down what was really obvious.

So don't write down the things that are obvious. Try to take notes that are a little bit more helpful for structuring content.

This class is not going to go into that deep, but that's just like another aside, focus your notes, probably here and less on content and then you'll find out that they end up being more helpful to you.

Okay, so you will read it one time for content, throw a hundred percent of your energy on that. You read another time for structure, throw a hundred percent of your energy there, and then your last time for tone and attitude and you throw a hundred percent of your energy there.

When you're reading for tone or attitude, one of the ways to really focus on that is I think that you focus on a couple things because usually we just like tell you tone.

People are like, yeah, but Rob, what do I literally look at? Here's my advice. Adverbs. Why are adverbs helpful?

Adverbs tend to give the author's opinion. Just throws little flavor in the description. Author's position, right? is something that is technically in the content section, thinking about it in terms of tone.

Like, tone tells you how much author believes in their position. Like, are they adamant about it? Are they cautious about it?

Is the whole thing written in sarcasm? You know, like, if you read the onion and you don't understand that the onion is uh, like, satirical?

Then in, know, like, you read the content and like, I understand exactly what said, but you don't understand the tone.

Are you tonaling this at point of my heart? the audience all about. So, you know, you have the author's opinion, you know, and anything that indicates how strong it is, you know, etc.

You know, I mean, like there's a point that's being made, but is that point being made in a way that's, you know, really, really forceful or the author's 100% behind it?

the author a little more cautious? Is the author a little more academic? Is the author, you know, sometimes you read these critical passages where the author just absolutely eviscerates someone and it's like the author like hates the person they're criticizing and it's very apparent from the text.

So, you don't want to read that and be like, well, author was preserved. It's like, no, the author said one of the meanest things you can possibly say to somebody in text without using

a like it was horrible, you know, and you should be picking that out, you know, and be like, Oh, dang, like some shade was really thrown here.

All right, so we're going to open up a passage. And we're going to be working on two things. Unfortunately, for this passage, I'm not going to read a passage three times.

I'm not going to do that. That would, uh, that would test the patience of the patience of everyone involved.

But what I will do is that after each paragraph, we're going analyze these three things separately. We're going to analyze the content, we're going to analyze the structure, we're going to analyze the tone.

Keeping in mind that we're looking at a passage that will introduce a phenomenon to us and either provide an explanation or well, it'll provide an explanation.

The author is either going to, that will either be the author's explanation or an explanation that the author refutes.

All right. Ready to rock. Not doing that one. All right. Passage, you should always read the little thing up front.

Sometimes it ends up being very helpful in interpreting what you read. Usually for comparative, that's true. think it's less true of solitary passages, but I would, I'd always read that.

It'll usually not to net them though. Roughly 40% of the African American population of the southern United States left the south between 1915 and 1916, or 1960, primarily for the industrial cities of the north.

While there was some African American migration to the north during, or 1915, is the start of what historians call the Great Migration.

Uh, I think we have a phenomenon here, right? The Great Migration is a phenomenon and historians are seeking to, uh, to understand.

There were at least three catalysts of the Great Migration. Okay. So here it's like, the author is not introducing somebody else's thought.

The author may obviously interact with, you know, what, um, historians thought at some point to like talk about the author's opinion.

But we're starting out to off the gate or like right out of the gate with the author's opinion. Like there were at least three catalysts.

That's a very different line than saying historians believe that there are three catalysts or it was one thought that there are three catalysts, you know, like you notice the difference in tone here.

Um, I would say the author is like, pretty sure, like, pretty sure of what they're writing here. Three catalysts of the Great Migration, world or one increased labor demand in the industrial north.

Second, the war in Europe cut off immigration, which led many northern employers to send labor agents to recruit African-American labor in the south.

Finally, a bull weevil infestation ruined cotton crops and reduced labor demand in much of the south in the 1910s and 20s.

Okay, so you're going to analyze what you would ideally be doing is you would read what you would read the whole passage for content and then the whole passage again, but that would make no sense for what the purpose of this hour is.

So, I'm going show you how you analyze this passage for three things. First, we're going to analyze it for content.

Second, we're going to analyze it for structure. Third, we're going to analyze it for tone. So in analyzing it for content, what do we see?

Well, we see the introduction of a phenomenon, which is the great migration, like be specific. be like the author told us about something and then gave three reasons for it.

That's not helpful. That's not going to be answering any questions. That's like, you know, when you, like you'll know that you'll get to law school, you're going to try.

like spark notes something and be like ah that didn't work that didn't work in this class um so the phenomenon is the great migration which is what exactly when 40 percent of the African American population in the southern u.s left for the north in a period over period of 45 years starting in 1915 that's oh that's uh pretty wild 40 percent of an entire population just um migrated um and then we get three reasons why what are those reasons again uh first of one increased labor demand in the north uh you couldn't get uh workers from europe due to war and uh decreased demand in the south so it's like those three things are obviously going to lead to a huge huge um influx of African American migrants into their immigrants yeah immigrants

into the north. Okay, great. That's your content read. What's your structure read? Structure read is the author introduced a phenomenon and then stated the thesis three reasons why and then gave a short little piece on each of those three things.

So that notice the structure read is not specific. The content read is very specific. Now here's how you read it for tone.

I can tell that the authors, like I know what the author's position is, like those are the three reasons that the author believes and I don't see any hesitancy in that in rolling out that opinion like no hesitation at all.

So let's say the author is like confident in this explanation. Say a tone of confidence. How does that sound good?

I think it sounds pretty good. Next paragraph. In short, the great migration began. So in short, it's like now we're like condensing three reasons.

It's a very strange way to start another paragraph. In short, the great migration began and 1915 and not earlier because it was only then that the north-south income gap became large enough to start such a large-scale migration.

Less clear, however, is why migration continued and even accelerated in subsequent decades at the same time that north-south income differences were hard.

So, wait a minute, looks like I was like, I jumped a gun a little bit on figuring out what the phenomenon is.

Clearly, the phenomenon that the authors interested in explaining is not why the great migration happened, but why did it accelerate when the income differences were narrowing?

Like, when the income differences expand, that makes a lot of sense why immigration should increase. But why did immigration decrease even though the income gaps were coming back to where they once worked?

Wow, who knows. So, we'll either see the authors' explanation for this or we're going to see the, you know,

an explanation that the other criticizes so that you know that's your content right you know introduce like the thing that the others really interested about you know which is the phenomenon of acceleration in spite of income differences narrowing structurally it's like the first paragraph really just provided context for what the great migration is and told us a little bit why it happened and now that led us to the author to like really dig into the phenomenon that they wanted so the first paragraph is really just background into the second in terms of tone so you know how it seemed the author was like really confident at first how confident do the others seem now I say like not confident in whatever the author believes like that's the classic like less clear however see out there doesn't you know the other is gonna throw some darts on the board but like they don't

They're not really comfortable with where they're landing. We propose, reading the next paragraph, that once started, migration develops momentum over time as current migration reduces the difficulty and cost of future migration.

Economists have typically assumed that people migrate if they're expected earnings in the destination exceed those of the origin enough to outweigh the difficulties and one-time cost of migration.

Previous research suggests that the difficulties and cost arise from several sources. First, the uncertainty that potential migrants face concerning housing and labor market conditions in the destination presents a significant hindrance.

For sure. For sure. mean, if I didn't know how I was going to resolve my housing and what kind of jobs I would get like that, that's certainly an obstacle, you know, to my moving anywhere.

Second, there is a simple cost in terms of time and money of physics. moving from the origin to the destination.

Yeah, of course, like, you got to run a U-Haul, got to do, I mean, know, I'm not trying to be like, you know, what I'm trying to do is like understand this and be able to articulate it in, you know, in a way that I get it to confirm my understanding of it.

I'm not just, you know, trying to, like, compare the great migration to, you know, moving across the country in the year 2024.

Third, new migrants must familiarize himself with local labor and housing market institutions once they arrive. They must find housing and work and they must often adapt to a new culture and language.

Yeah, that's, that can be very challenging as well. Okay. What does this paragraph do in terms of content? What do we have?

We really just have like, you know, the economist basic, you know, understanding kind of like, why things, why things are the way they are in terms of migration, like, why, like,

You know, this idea that people are less willing to migrate when the costs are high, then they take a look at three different kinds of costs.

One is the costs arising from a lack of certainty. The other one is like literally the physical costs of like leaving, and then the third one is, you know, the questions of questions and costs of simulating into a new culture.

There's your content read. Structurally, we have the beginning of the author's understanding, know, explanation of the phenomenon, but notice the author is really throwing out some studies so far.

Like the author's not really committing to any of these. Like, eponymous have typically assumed, I don't know where the author stands on that.

You know, so it's a like we're getting a little bit more development of the explanation of this phenomenon. Tone is really interesting here.

So you guys probably can catch right away. way that second word of the paragraph propose. So, when we saw on the last paragraph that the author thinks that an explanation for this phenomenon is unclear or less clear, when you see we propose that, it's like, okay, so this is just like a theory that's untested.

Keep that in mind. Like, the author is proposing an explanation, but not confident enough to say that like this is the explanation.

Moving on to the last paragraph. Empirical studies show that during the Great Migration, information was passed through letters that were often read by dozens of people and through conversation when migrants made trips back to their home communities.

Okay, so people of North pass information people down south. Thus, early migrants provided information about labor and housing market conditions to friends and relatives who have not yet made the trip.

First time African American migrants often traveled with earlier migrants returning to the north after visit to the south Which reduced physical cost?

See where this is going like remember in the second paragraph We're trying to figure out why people continue to migrate even though the income gap was narrowing like even though like Like that doesn't really make sense like why are you leaving?

It makes sense when you leave a job in the south that pays 10 cents for the same job in the north that pays a dollar It makes less sense when you leave a job in the south that pays 50 cents, but the one in the north pays 60 cents But when you have all those costs with moving That are being reduced because like we've read in last paragraph one of those costs is uncertainty about the market But if a lot of people have done it before Then that uncertainty is being reduced So like a lot of these costs it's not just the income differences that matter It's these other costs that end up being reduced because more people are going over Ah now

we're seeing it. First time African-American migrants often traveled with earlier migrants returning to the north after the visit to the south, which reduced physical costs.

can't remember if I read that or not. Additionally, previous migrants reduced new migrants' cost of adapting to a new locale, so another way in which the cost is going down, by providing them with temporary housing, food, even credit.

migrants also provided a cultural cushion for later migrants, so that they did not have to struggle as hard with their new surroundings.

So, though people migrated later, it was actually cheaper because they didn't have all these unfortunate costs that come with uncertainty and physical costs and adapting to a new culture, even though the income difference wasn't as good.

Do you think that this is a good explanation of the phenomenon? What phenomenon are we trying to explain? We're trying to explain again why migration accelerated, even though the income

narrow, and it's like, well, now we see it, even though the income was narrowing all of the other costs associated with migration were going down over time.

So that, you know, the hidden costs, because they're going down, now we understand why the migration, great migration continued and accelerated.

So really interesting stuff here, you know, you look at this last paragraph, you know, for content, obviously, you know, we're revealed a lot of the ways in which, later migrants had the benefit of earlier migrants, which, you know, reduced these hidden costs, which structurally, for the structural read, this is like when you can kind of put all these things together, which structurally, in terms of organization supports the author's explanation of the phenomenon that was introduced in paragraph three, and then explained in paragraph, or introduced in paragraph two, then, wait, the phenomenon is introduced in paragraph two, the explanation came in paragraph three, for the thesis.

And then the, you know, the support behind it, these are just kind of pererographone. Tone. We don't see a whole lot of tone here, you know, I mean, there's a little bit of reliance on empirical studies.

So it's like, you know, it's like a, like a little cautious. It's not like totally, you know, really excited about it's more like, you know, I think my position is supported by research.

It's less clear, but I think it, you know, when you start looking at the studies, it is pretty clear.

So I think that the author is, you know, somewhat confident in the explanation. So what you would do at this point is you want to understand the main point, anticipated before you go to the first question, doesn't matter if the first question is not about main point, you still have to do that.

And then you hit the question. So what's the main point? So as we saw earlier in this lecture, the main point for a phenomenon explanation.

and meta-structure is just going to be the author's explanation, like that's it, right? So it's like, okay, what's the author's explanation?

The author's explanation is that the great migration accelerated in spite of income differences. Why? Because earlier migrants were able to reduce the cost for later migrants, you know, making it increasingly cost effective.

And then we anticipate that's our anticipation. We pick something that matches that. So what do you guys think? Do we have that on the board?

Which one of these sounds like my anticipation? And remember, that is the question you're asking. Which one sounds like the anticipation?

Like, remember, think of the anticipation as you were reviewing stuff. don't just say like, oh, thanks for anticipating that, Rob.

I'm going to take that and I'm going to throw that out of the other side of my brain. And I'm just going to like do this one, de novo, like, you know, just from nothing, as if you didn't even say that.

No, remember the anticipation, your explanation for why these are right or wrong, should be couched in this is our anticipation or this is not our anticipation.

So, you guys let me know what you got. For those of you out there, if you have read A, you should recognize that A does not explain anything, so that's wrong.

B does explain something, but it doesn't explain the thing that the author is really interested in explaining and C sounds like our anticipation, so you pick C and then you move on.

So, some of you are like, what about D? about E? Well, D is not to because he doesn't tell you what any of those factors are.

But in C, the whole point of the last paragraph is an explanation for how earlier migrants to free the financial cost of the migration for later migrants.

Like, that's the whole point of last paragraph. That's where I see is right. Okay, great participation, everyone. All right.

According to the passage, the Great migration did not start earlier than 1915 because... What do we know about the Great Migration?

Well, zoom out on this and think, what are we trying to understand about this passage? We're trying to understand why the Great Migration accelerated even when income differences are narrowing.

So like what happened at the Great Migration, it started because income differences were like we're suddenly like huge, for variety of reasons, for three reasons actually, they're found earlier, three things explain the income gap between the North and the South.

And why in 1915 it suddenly became so big that people were willing to migrate, because before it wasn't. So we looked for something that is like that, so our anticipation is like, well, that only happened in 1915.

What you think about it? Yeah, I pick a pick a it's it's exactly what I said. But before that, the income gap wasn't big enough.

The reason it wasn't because like the South had an infestation that made it to the income like so that there was like no demand for workers because the fields were all ruined so that you know the only workers that they had, they paid nothing and then the North there was like a lot of demand so they obviously paid more and then you can't get the European laborers so I'd say great.

Now we hit our structure question. So third and fourth paragraphs of the passage function primarily too. So what we know the second one basically it takes two paragraphs out of the gate to even understand.

what the author's really interested in explaining, you know, so it's a little interesting. So like don't, you know, you guys, I know that someone at some point, whether it's like on internet street or some like weird tutoring advice, will tell you that the main point is like in the first or last paragraph, that's wrong.

It's clearly not in the first here. The main point of thesis can often be in the second. I think that it is fair, in this case, to say like that the real thrust of the argument comes in the last paragraph, but if you just read the last paragraph, I mean it's all explanation.

It doesn't really strut a thesis as much. I actually think the thesis is the first sentence of the third paragraph.

So anyway, what is the third and fourth paragraph, too, with a third paragraph? puts out the thesis and then what right like the second paragraph is where the author says this is what I'm interested in in figuring out third paragraph says here's my idea here's how this idea works in theory and then the fourth paragraphs like here's how it works in practice which like with with the great migration specifically you know like notice the third paragraph is like literally all theory so I would say the third and fourth paragraph are basically the meat of the argument so you can look for anything that is in anticipation one those lines that say hey that's where the author actually defended a position go for that right hey what do you think of a casting doubt upon historical explanation nope nope we don't cast doubt on that first explanation that first explanation is context so we can even so we can just understand

what the author is interested in talking about. Survey the repercussions of a historical event. Describe that's, no, the author is like proposing a theory.

It's very different than saying, this is what happened in Gettysburg. This is what the great migration happened. it's like, no, I'm not telling you what happened.

I'm telling you what I think. Like, not what happened, but like why something happened. So that, when they're just knowing that you're reading a phenomenon explanation passage should give you enough to say, like, the answer to B is like not going to be something that I'm going to like.

C, derive a historical model, give rid of that. Give rid of that. also, there's evidence presented in the first two paragraphs.

That sounds like junk. What about D? Answer a question raised in the second paragraph. What is the question? Well, the question, obviously, is why migration continues?

Like, that last sentence of paragraph two is a question. It's like a question. question without a question mark. And then the third and fourth paragraphs answer it.

That's exactly what we want. Okay, here's another one. Authors of the passage would be most likely, I'm sorry guys.

To agree with which one of the following statements, what do they agree with? Well, the authors agree with two things in this world.

So I want you to keep this in mind when you read income. The author agrees with only two things in this world.

One, the main point. Two, things that support the main point. So if what you read in these answer choices is not one of those, and you're reading it and you're like, I don't even understand how that would possibly support the main point, then it's wrong.

What's the main point? Migration accelerated in spite of income narrowing, because early, their migrants defrayed the cost of migration for later migrants.

So anything that says either that or something that supports that is going to be right. Hey, hey, know, I mean, it's like.

You know, sometimes you got to be a little bit open to something. So we'll see what we have here.

A, expected financial gains alone may not be a reliable indicator of the likelihood of individual migrate. Is that true?

Like, is that supported by the passage? Is that go to supporting the main point? Well, keep in mind, the thing that the author is trying to figure out is like, why would you migrate when the income differential is not very big?

The whole point of an income differential is that there's freighter expected gains, like when the South pays 10 cents and the North pays a dollar, you have expected financial gains of like 90 cents.

But when the incomes got closer, people continued to migrate and migrated with even not in even greater numbers. So maybe the expected financial gains don't tell us the whole story.

So that's why A is right. You know, you always want to be thinking about the big picture, like what is the main point?

How does this antitrust like fit into the main point? And, you know, you don't want to like, you know, you can't be like crude in that analysis and be like, this doesn't sound like the main point, like, yeah, you got to be adaptable.

You know, you got to be like, oh, yeah, I got Like the whole point of this is that we're trying to figure out why something kept happening when the financial when the expected financial gains went down But I guess that's what income differential is Okay All right, let's keep cooking here the primary purpose of the last sentence of the second paragraph, okay That's which sentence I mean we've talked about that a bunch that you guys should have a an awesome oh You hate when that does that I'm sorry about that There we go.

Hope that doesn't kill the text. Okay in orange What's the purpose of this the purpose of this is to introduce the phenomenon that the author wants to explain Find something and the answer choices that is that so when you know that you're on a phenomenon explanation passage you usually get a question like this and The answer is usually that like this is the point where the author

told us what was really interesting and and what they wanted to figure out. So, um, not a not B not C not D looks like.

Oh, wait, looks like D. Yeah, the thing we presented a fact which keep in mind a phenomenon can be an observable fact a processor situation.

We said here's the fact and here's what and I want to explain that. That's exactly what we saw. Like you do not need to look at any of the other answer choices or go anywhere else in the text like that one is very clean.

You know, like that is the power of anticipating and the power of just like a really good read up front turns this question into one that you can do in five seconds.

Like that's where you get your time back. By the way, if you guys are reading any of these passages in less than three minutes, you can

like, just, I honestly think, you know, I want to go higher than that, but it's like, I think if you're reading less than three and a half, you, you know, you should, maybe you can get away with that, but like less than three minutes, I don't, no, no, it's not working for you.

I just, I'll just tell you that right. The thesis is the first sentence of the third paragraph, but I don't in a single line that, you know, in this case, like, that's just how it crumbles, like, they

it just is. But I think the main point is something that like ripples throughout the passage instead of something that you can just like immediately put your finger on all the time.

Like if you expect the main point to be something that you can always put your finger on, I think you're going to be disappointed a lot on the LSAT.

And it's like a sloppy way to read. But you know, your instructor may give you different advice on that.

And sometimes like, you know, like when I do these and this is, you know, technically for beginners, but a lot of the stuff that I'm advocating for and ways that I want you to think about it are things that like can take you from beginner to advanced.

There are obviously like different like instructors like we do different we recommend different things. You know, I mean, I would recommend something very

different from, you know, for a 140 score trying to be a 145 score than I would for a 140 score trying to do 160 score.

Like, yeah, it's just, you know, most of what you see in these classes, especially from me, is about like best practices that help you get the best score over time.

So that's why, you know, I might say stuff like, yeah, I don't read the question stem first. And you're like, okay, Rob, like, I'm trying to get a 152 on this exam, or 155, that's, do I really need to do that?

like, well, yeah, that's probably not the thing you want to focus on. Like, if you're trying to get 155, go ahead and read your question stem first.

Like, you know, that's not going to make any difference to you at that level. Similarly, with main point, like, that's why I don't, I think it's unhelpful for you guys for me to tell you that there's a place where you'll be able to put your finger on the main point.

Like it's just, it's just untrue, you know, but sometimes like you say untrue things because when somebody has three weeks of studying, it's easier for them to implement something that's like technically wrong, but like easy to implement and like will give them a little bit more boost in the short term than then giving them something and just saying like, Oh, the main point ripples throughout the passage, like that's not helpful to you if you're taking a test in two weeks, so just like a little steal on that I get it.

All right, so we, we ace this one that one is the passage provides the most support for which one of the following statements.

Again, what's the main point? The main point is that, you know, like this is what I'm doing every single time.

Like I don't go into the answer choices. You always anticipate if you don't have anything to go off of you always like remember what the main point is and how the author supported it.

What's the main, it's very disciplined way of doing it. What's the main point? in point. The main point is that in spite of income differences narrowing the great migration accelerated because earlier migrants were able to, you know, defray the cost for later migrants.

Okay. Highest paying jobs in the south did not pay more than the lowest paying manufacturing jobs in the north.

That you don't know. felt like we're seeing like a big picture on this that's too specific. Overall cost of migrating from the south to the north and 20th century is lower for their earlier migrants because there's more high-paying jobs.

No. No. in fact that like directly refutes the author's thesis like if that was true then migration should have decreased but instead it increased.

So that's a no. North South income increased around 1918 because the increase in demand for labor in the north and the decrease in demand for labor in the south is that that's true.

Like that's the thing that started the great migration.

Yeah, yeah, you always just want to get your bearings and ultimately like that the answer to C is like directly supports the main point.

You know, so it's like that's why I know it exists there. There's this weird theory with well it's not weird theory it's like some of the most common advice that you hear out there is like oh for reading complex the answer is always in the text and let me talk a little bit about why that is because most people like your reaction to hearing that you're like oh the answer is in the text what that means is that if I don't know an answer I'll just like go back in the text and look for it.

But back up a few seconds think about this on on a theoretical level. The reason that the answer is in the text.

like, hold on a sec. What's in the text? The only, there are only two things in the text, the main point and things that support the main point.

That's what's in the text. Like there's nothing in the text that's like irrelevant to the main point or things that support the main point.

And there's nothing that's like outside the text that would support the main point, like nothing. It's a complete overlap.

Like complete, like not even an event diagram, just like two circles on the top of each other. So when you were looking at a question like this and you're like, the passage supports this.

A lot of people think, oh, I'll just find something in the passage that supports the answer trace. And instead, you can save yourself time and energy.

If you ask yourself, I'm just going to look for something that supports the main point. That's a lot easier to do.

So that's why we anticipate like, what's the main point before these global questions? Because all you're being asked to do is find something that supports the

like And then that's what like cuts all of your time and energy in half and makes you get like really good at reading comp.

Like when you understand like what's in the passage, it's just the main point and things that support the main point.

So like you don't look for things that are like in the passage, you look for things that support the main point.

That's what it is to see.

Last one, we'll do this real quick, which the following if true would provide the most support for the author's analysis of the great migration.

Okay, so this is not in the passage because it's a which of the following if true, which means you guys have seen this in strength in a weekend, it means take something outside the passage, put it in the passage, change the merit of the argument.

So what's the author's analysis, the great migration will accelerate it because the costs were afraid. We get a little bit in paragraph four about like what those costs are.

I would say like What's gonna offer more support is? Anything that you see here that provides even greater Support for the idea that like earlier migrants were like paving the way like anything that earlier migrants do that made it easier for the later migrants Is gonna support the others positions so anything we find like we just picked up Anything on here Okay, not a not that's gonna take us the wrong direction What would it be So it's um, yeah

He's like really tricky. I never, you know, I'm the last time I did this, like I didn't like B, I was like, ah.

But the theory behind B is when they share a common geographic place, it's showing the connectivity between the earlier and the later migrants.

Like imagine if it wasn't, if this wasn't true. If the communities were formed with people from all over the place, then wouldn't that seem a little bit weird for the author to say that the early migrants were, you know, helping the later migrants?

Like wouldn't it seem weird when they said like they were sending letters back and forth and they were like helping them find jobs and like, you know, it actually probably comes from adapting their culture.

Like, that's probably like if we looked up the answer explanation on this. It probably brings us to that line.

I don't necessarily think you need to go through that line to get this correct. that there's a whole point of where later migrant, like the challenges to adapt to new culture, but if they're, if everyone there is from the same place that you were from in the South, like, I, doesn't sound like you're adapting to your new culture, does it?

No. Sounds like you're rolling right into a community that's exactly what you saw. This is a pretty tricky question.

I don't want to spend too much time on this. want to highlight what I said on this question, which is that when you do a global question, you're looking for something that supports the main point, and that's why you're always anticipating and always remembering the main point.

Like, that's the usefulness of that. So if you need to go back on this one and, like, play the tape when it gets uploaded, awesome.

you know, feel free to just ask me about that in another office hour, like, class or tutoring session. You know, if you want to do those.

So, um, yeah, this has been a little bit about the beginning reading method and a little bit about a minestructures phenomenon explanation.

guys have been great and this is the end of the class.