Last-Minute Tips for Reading Comp (Advanced) with Emil

01:02:07
  • Summary
  • Transcript

Meeting Purpose

Provide last-minute tips and strategies for the LSAT Reading Comprehension section.

Key Takeaways

  • Focus on understanding the passage rather than speed; slowing down can improve accuracy and save time on questions
  • Use process of elimination on main point questions, as the correct answer may not feel satisfying but wrong answers are often clearly incorrect
  • Pay close attention to the specific wording in author attitude questions to distinguish between degrees of agreement/disagreement

Topics

General Approach to Reading Comprehension

  • Treat the actual test like a practice test - don't change your approach
  • Read at a pace that allows full comprehension, even if it means slowing down
  • Focus on understanding the passage's overall argument and structure
  • Take brief notes if it helps internalize the content, but don't overdo it

Timing and Passage Selection

  • If struggling with time, consider fully completing 3 passages rather than rushing through 4
  • Experiment to find the optimal approach for your skill level
  • Be more aggressive in eliminating wrong answers to save time on questions

Main Point Questions

  • Use process of elimination, as the correct answer may not feel satisfying
  • Wrong answers are often clearly incorrect for being too specific or tangential
  • Pay attention to any caveats or qualifications in the final paragraph

Author Attitude Questions

  • Pay close attention to the specific wording of answer choices
  • Default to the "weak" agree/disagree option unless there's strong evidence otherwise
  • Look for evidence in the passage of the author's tone and level of conviction

Science Passages

  • Focus on understanding why mechanisms matter rather than every technical detail
  • Don't get bogged down in complex descriptions - grasp the overall argument

Next Steps

  • Practice implementing these strategies on full timed sections
  • Get adequate sleep in the days leading up to the test
  • Avoid making major changes to your approach this close to test day
  • Consider light review on the day before the test if it helps calm nerves, but prioritize rest
Emil Kunkin
I can get started in one second just going to try to figure out something with my charger which is being funky right now okay so don't really know what's going on with this but definitely have enough juice for at least the next hour and I'm not really sure it's an issue with the cord the dot laptop so just get a pretend it's not a problem and deal with it as it comes worst case scenario I have the iPad that's charger it's working so anyhow thank you guys for joining
they realize this is an odd time for those of us with, you know, jobs and whatnots versus it's being recorded.
Everything will be available probably later today, honestly, in the recording repository for lot of classes. my apologies for that to anyone who wanted to join, but could not.
So anyhow, I'm Emil. I just wanted to, quick postkeeping notes before we get into actual content that I wanted to go over today.
This is a pretty broad like high level session, talking about like last minute tips. And I don't think that there's any one strategy that's going to be the dominant strategy.
It's more about trying to figure out what works for you. So, I would almost treat this as like a still open forum as well.
As in, it's hard to give generalized tips and advice about reading comps specifically. So, if you have specific questions to you, we'll love if you guys...
feel free to come off mute or to put those in the chat either directly to me or to everyone.
Because the fact is this kind of session does work best when we're talking about specific issues rather than general what works because there is no real general what works.
There is no general approach that one should take. At least when we're talking about getting ready for the test itself.
So of course at any moment feel free to come off mute and interrupt me, talk whatever your questions or thoughts you have in the chat.
And I think that that is all that I had before we get into actual concept. So I do have roughly you know five to ten minutes of spiel of my general thoughts which of course they always are going to depend keep that in mind.
But I do have a bit of a prepared some prepared remarks before getting into your guys questions if you guys have questions which I'm sure you guys do have questions.
So at this point we're on Monday I think the first tests are on Wednesday and the last ones are on Saturday or Sunday.
By now, you have done 95, 99% of the prep that you are doing for this particular test, and nothing I say should be a radical change if this is, if indeed you are taking the test on Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, The last week is about execution.
It's about trying to find little things that can be done differently. It's not about writing new ideas, new learning, new techniques that are completely ethical to what you've been doing before.
So I want you guys to keep in mind. If I say something, if you think of an idea that's like, wow, I think this is so different than before.
Yeah, you can still test it out. I would say that's not a bad idea to test it out. But I would be hesitant about implementing radically different new approaches now, unless you're
approach really wildly was not working for you. And if that's the case, I don't know why you're taking the test right now frankly.
if you're at the point where something's clearly not working to the point where a shifting strategy is going to radically alter your approach for the better, you should not be taking the test right now.
And I think that gets to my first point, which is that I want this test and every other test is just another practice test.
It does not matter more or less than a practice test. You should not be doing anything differently than you are in a practice test.
This is just one data point among many. And if you treat this differently to a practice test, if you put more emphasis, less emphasis, don't really put less emphasis on an actual test than on a practice test, but maybe someone ever has.
If you treat it differently from a practice test, if you do things differently than you do on practice tests, that will almost always work out poorly for you.
Now, to be clear, if you don't focus on practice tests and you do focus on the actual test, that's good, on the actual test, but then why were you not taking your practice test seriously?
I guess if you've been doing things right, you should not treat this differently for practice tests. only differences are that you can't take a break if the mailman comes, you have at built-in 10-minute break, and there's a little guy watching you through your computer, or you are at a different location because you're doing it live at the market.
So with that said, with that in the way, I think we should talk a little bit about reading topics specifically.
And as I said earlier, there's no one right of pressure, there's no one right answer, but there are various things that we can focus on, and I think by far the most important thing to focus on is understanding what we are reading.
This is a test of reading understanding, comprehension understanding. more or less the same thing. I want you to be reading the passages at a pace that is slow and up for you to understand what you're reading and be able to hold a three four minute conversation about it afterwards, because that's exactly what you're doing.
reading a passage, you're reading it at a pace hopefully that you are capable of understanding, and then after that, you are holding a short conversation with the questions about what the passage said, what the author thinks, what various actors in the passage think.
That's all we're doing, that's all we need to do, that's all we need to do, but that's really hard to do if you're sprinting through that reading, if you're not getting the initial passage.
So I think that for the vast majority of non-trivial majority of people, you would benefit a bit from trying to slow down a little bit in the passage and focus on understanding that.
Again, this is not true for everyone, so people are moving too slow in the passage actually, but that's... really not that common.
Really rather. So, my default assumption is that if you don't feel like you're understanding what you're reading, move slower.
Take your time to actually understand each sentence as it's written, and see how it relates to the rest of the passage as you're going along.
This might feel counterintuitive, especially if you're struggling with time. I personally think that actually helps you speed up in many cases.
If you don't understand the passage, you might spend 30, 40 seconds looking between two answer choices, one of which is obviously right, one of which is obviously wrong to somebody who really did understand the passage.
But by taking that 30 seconds, let's say a minute 30 seconds longer in the passage, if you save yourself a minute the back end of the questions, and you get two questions, right?
Great. That was worth it. that's not going to be the case for everyone, but I do think that the first, I would say, is to slow down a little bit in the passage.
Try it out. I have two more general advice tips before we get to questions. The lectures I've got in your question relates to one of them, so I will maybe incorporate that into my general and take care.
But yeah, timing is the number one thing. Take your time to read the passage. You have to read it at a pace that you can understand it.
Otherwise, the questions are kind of just guesswork. And here's the thing. Most of the questions are must be truths.
Most of the questions, and I mean by most looks something like 70, 80% so, are really just asking us, what did the passage say?
What was in the passage? That's a pretty low bar if you understand the passage. Very often, if I understand the passage, I can quickly say,
Even through the questions and the right one jumps out because I understood that passage because I knew what I was I knew what the passage said and knew Oh, yeah, the author explicitly said that in her second paragraph Often I won't even read the one's after it because I just want to know that was exactly what the passage said You want to give yourself more work now to be clear.
That's not always ever questionable when you have a really firm understanding of that passage You don't really need to do more You really don't the questions go pretty easy when you have a firm understanding of the passage um, I have So again three fingers actually three general things to say The next one after timing would be also about timing skipping passes So let's say that you're at that point where you can firmly get through three with about five minutes long Or you can firmly get through two with about five minutes long
What do you do? Do you really spend as much time as possible on those three and truly guess on the last one?
Do you rush through the three you're getting and then do a Very cursory skim of the passive and just try to get as many questions on that last one What's the best approach there?
Well This is where I don't have a firm answer at all The right approach is to try it out to try both approaches out and see which one of what's better for you in terms of getting more questions, right?
I would say if you're getting Let's say you're doing three passages and you're only missing one or two on the three you attempts But you have five minutes left in that case I would say yeah, maybe try to speed up a little bit Maybe try to speed up in the questions particularly And that's where we save time it's in the questions not in the passage almost always we save time in the questions by being more negative and This is I think critical
or not just reading comp, but also for a lot of stories today, we should come in with the default presumption that each answer choice is wrong unless it proves itself right.
You're not proving answer choice is wrong. Ideally, you're proving the right answer, right? And that's true in reading comp, where there mostly must be truth.
And there are exceptions, I will talk about one of those later. But broadly speaking, the burden is on an answer choice to prove itself right, not on you to prove an answer choice wrong.
And you don't, you never have to prove an answer choice wrong. If there's something that you just, I don't really know what this does, odds are that's wrong.
If you just don't know about an answer choice, well, it hasn't done, it hasn't done its job. It hasn't been its burden of proving itself right.
And so let's say you go through all five. There is nothing that you loved, but there were four you hated and one that you just don't know about.
So I would pick the one you don't know about that. Because again, no. I think that's the burden of proving itself right.
But there's one that feels less wrong than the others. So I'm going to go with that one. That's what I mean by speeding up, by the way.
I'm not saying sprint through the passages. I'm saying you can be more aggressive in eliminating wrong answers in the questions.
And I think that that's something that helps with both accuracy and topic. So I think generally, both in really confident and L.R., that is good advice.
Be more aggressive in eliminating wrong answers. And I think that that helps in time a lot. So going to the back to the point of, let's say you have five minutes left, I would say try both.
If let's say you're doing three passages, but you're getting seven questions wrong in those three passages, I think you'd be better off slowing down in the three passages you're doing and truly guessing on the last one.
But look, that really just depends on where you are. I think it makes sense to try both out and see which works for you, but it really depends on how you're doing in terms of accuracy.
It depends on whether or not a cursory skim and then a sprint through those last seven questions in five minutes.
Are you getting too right or are you getting too right on average? There's a lot of factors there. I think that's about experimentation.
There's no one right answer. I do want to get to two last things before we open up the questions for the most part.
One is main point questions. Main point questions, I say, are kind of exception to that like chunk for right answers.
Very often in main point questions, the right answer is just right because, yeah, more or less describes the passage.
Whereas the wrong answers are wrong for one or two concrete reasons, one or both. Either they're just not what the passage said, it was not in the passage or sure it was in the passage, but that's not what the author is trying to prove.
That's not why the author wrote this passage. So I would say what we want to do on main points, we do kind of want to eliminate wrong answers still.
And that's not something that I would say we usually want to do. But yeah, what we do, we want to knock out the wrong answers there.
As in, if they fit one of our two reasons for being wrong, knock it out, the right answer might not feel great.
It might not feel mean pointy, but the answer is something that, yeah, more or less described by the author of the passage.
It will very often not be satisfying, but it's often something we can't knock it. So I will say we probably do want to use cross elimination on main book questions.
Not always. Um, I think there are very much going to be main point questions where the right answer is going to talk out to you, especially on more argumentative passage where the author is trying to three something.
And that's like very often she's trying to three, but oftentimes the right answer will feel like, yeah, I guess that's kind of what the author was saying.
Yeah, sure. Okay. Okay. Um, I think I have one last point and this really does get into your question.
So I'll come to you. You have a question more specific than the one you put in the chat. And for the record, because I know that the chat does not have recorded, which is honestly kind of dumb, I think, but okay, um, she just wants to know bit about regarding taking notes on each paragraph.
This is another one where it's very much it depends. I think that a lot of people do benefit from taking notes after each paragraph or at least after each view comes out.
I think that if you're somebody who has trouble remembering what was said, it's helpful to remember that. Oh, okay.
paragraph one was introducing this theory, paragraph two was talking about the opponents of the theory, paragraph three was attacking the opponents, paragraph four was the author offering her take on why the theory is right for different reasons.
If you have that five level like outline of the passage I think that's right. Excuse me, I wouldn't ever really write more than one sentence about each paragraph if you're taking notes, but I think it's, excuse me, I think it depends on why you're taking notes.
Are you going back and reviewing your notes? Are you finding that your notes actually do with help you to help you to like internalize your understanding of the passage?
If so, take notes. If so, keep doing that. That's it. think a lot of people think it's a substitute for understanding.
I think it's very easy to take notes and feel like you're doing something productive when you're not actually doing something productive.
when that's, if you're doing that. What's that? I'll use that getting you. So I bet you're probably not gonna be surprised to hear that my answer here is to a camera.
Maybe do a passenger too where you're taking no notes, do a passenger too where you're doing notes as you're currently doing, maybe doing what you're trying to even take more notes depending on how many notes you're taking out.
There's no one right answer, it very much depends on what you're doing now and what works for you. I'm personally a bit of a minimalist on notes.
I don't think that they really do much for us people. I think that you're better off spending time thinking about internalizing the argument, but a lot of it depends on your memory.
And if you are struggling to remember, oh, where did the author say this? What did the author say? Yeah, notes are a very helpful way to do that.
As long as they're actual notes, long as it's actual summarizing, rather than just rewriting the whole parts of passage, that's not helpful for any of them.
Katherine Sotelo
Okay, I was going to say, so the reason for my question was because I feel like they do help me with a better understanding.
And... um, anticipating the answers, but I don't feel like I find myself referencing back to them when I need to find the right answer.
Emil Kunkin
I'll try that to be clear. That is a use case that I think is actually helpful. If it helps you to internalize your understanding, great.
Um, for your specific case, I do think that it might be worth trying pass it or to, you know, in the next few days.
I don't think Wednesday or Saturday or everywhere between, but it might be worthwhile spending, you know, taking a passage with notes more than that's feel feel it and trying to get sense to see if look you feel like you understood the passage you took notes on better because I mean, I do think that the after taking notes helps you to internalize passage for a lot of people myself included.
Correct. You something down helps you to remember it. Um, I do wonder though, is it the act of taking
in the notes? Or is it that act of taking a second after each paragraph to think about what was said?
I think that maybe what's actually helping you sometimes is reading that paragraph to think, you know, taking, taking, taking 10 seconds after the paragraph to think about, okay, so here the author was outlining the view people who dislike the theory.
Maybe that has the same effect, you know, it's going to be a dozen. How many notes? mean, when you say you take notes, is that like a lot of short sentence for each paragraph?
Does it depend? What does that look like?
Katherine Sotelo
So I was still trying to do, I mean, when I'm doing practice versus time tests, obviously time, I don't really have time to do it.
And I'm taking it Wednesday. Mainly I have been doing that for the science passages because those are a little bit more difficult for me.
I'm still missing about two questions for those. Um, but I do the argument structure, basically what the video, um, less than teaches you to write what, if, like what role the paragraph plays into the passage and then like a 10 word sentence about it.
Emil Kunkin
Okay, I don't hate that, but it sounds like someone said you're doing it because you think it's the right thing to do.
Katherine Sotelo
Is that, is that correct? I just have a hard time understanding the science passages.
Emil Kunkin
Okay, so this is what you're saying, my gut feels for you, what's happening is that you're on hard science passages, which yeah, I mean, you're not, you're not the only one in that but I'll be very clear about that.
What this is doing is helping you to take an understanding, make it firmer and memorial as it just in case you need to go back to it.
I think that's exactly why notes can be good. I think specifically on hard science passages and on hard abstract passages where you have a lot of varying nuanced views, notes can be really helpful in the sense that not only are they here to understand, it's very easy to slip off and take a view that was saying x and x is a really nuanced concept and you're thinking, if that is a y, taking notes on that memorializing it in words helps you to not do them.
So it sounds like to me notes are not taking up that much time, not that they're not taking up that much processing power and what they're doing for you on science passages is actually helpful.
I kind of like that. I know, yeah, obviously, on the actual test, you don't have that much time to take notes, but is it correct that it sounds like what you're doing, you're reading a passage paragraph, okay, I think what we're doing here is blah blah blah blah, break down blah blah blah blah, move on.
Because if so, I don't think that's costing time in any significant sense, and I think that if that is enhanced your understanding or your attention, then great, I would lean towards keeping doing it in your case.
Katherine Sotelo
Okay, sounds good.
Emil Kunkin
Thank you. And like, I also want you to say, like, if you feel like you understand it, if you feel like, yeah, I get this on its passage, you don't really, that doesn't, you don't need to take notes to justice to science passage.
Take notes because you think it will help you commit that to memory, internalize it, and it's a tool that you can go back to if you need it.
But I would be clear, even if you're not going back to your notes, they can be helpful if they help with that job internalization, which it sounds like they are created.
Katherine Sotelo
Yeah, they are. Okay. That makes sense.
Emil Kunkin
Awesome. I have one other thing that just that, that spurred that I did want to bring up. Not on the net sprint and I get it at this point Questions, this is basically 100% your time.
Do I have more tips and tricks short? I think they're actually gonna be very helpful for most people Oh, I think that this might like individualize the basis way more useful if you have some good questions one thing I will say science passages a lot of people hate science pass it is I think that Almost every now that that's way too much more than half of students think that science passes through the worst kind And I think that that's mostly correct by the way.
I think they are the worst kind science passages are Annoying because they're asked they have complex mechanisms a lot of the time Most time we have ideas we have arguments in science passages.
We have the specific mechanism by which something works That's by far the least important part of a science passage these are still
questions about ideas, arguments, structure, things of that nature, that's what most of the questions focus on. Yeah, you might get a must be true saying, oh, why is oil pump A better than oil pump B?
That's not about the mechanism by which they work. That's about the fact that one was more efficient than the other.
And yeah, it is possible you will get a question saying like, what role does the vacuum play in the mechanism of oil pump B, when that happens sure, fine, go back, reread, re-scame that part of the mechanism.
But for the most part, science past is the mechanism, the specific way that the science works is relatively unimportant.
I'm honestly, I'm completely okay with going into the answer choices with only 80% understanding of the mechanism, as long as I understand why that mechanism matters, why it makes the thing better, why it makes it work, why it makes it worse, whatever.
So, I think it's very easy to make science passages harder than they need to be, by spending forever trying to
making sure we fully understand every bit of the mechanism in question, the mechanisms usually are the least important part of the passage, as long as we understand what role they're playing, why they matter.
All right, we have question on main book questions.
Joseph H
Yeah, one of my last hurdles is main point questions. Specifically, they'll often be like a four or five paragraph passage, and in the very last two sentences of the last paragraph, it'll have some caveats, contradictions, qualifiers for the rest of the passage, and then you get on to the main point question, and it seems like half of them want you to have included those qualifiers like explicitly in the main point question, and so you'll get the, you'll get it wrong if you pick an answer choice that didn't include.
that last little bit of information but sometimes there are main point answer choices that don't include that and the trap answer will have the last little qualifiers in it and I'm just having problems discerning when it's more important or not like if it varies by meta structure or so I don't think anything to do with meta structure is I do think it has to do with what was that information doing and if you happen to remember any of these passages or have them I would be great for us to just quickly look at them but I think that the broad answer here and this is not going to be a pretty good satisfying answer is was that information modifying was that information radically changing what the author was saying or is that information a yes and and I do think that it's not I think that that's not there's no that's not a great one
Distinction, but I think that there is a distinction between those things if the argument was saying that Okay, well if the first four paragraphs are all saying that some people will think that's here's the reasons for us Some people think why here's the reasons for why?
And it seems like the author's kind of leaning towards x and those first ones and then in the first sentence of that last Cleanly the old bar graph.
It's like yeah, x is fairly convincing However Modern blah blah theory actually reconciles the two okay that radically all for so that that's clearly something that's a not Recinsolable what that's clearly something that is new.
That's different, but what I don't think that but that's I mean That's not super common. I'll say when it's that raffle But if that information Undermind something that earlier that information Baudifies her opinion that was earlier stated.
Yeah, that's part of the main part I don't know if it's something that is like oh yeah and further and further further studies clearly get it on this Okay, I don't know I will say they really depends if you think of examples of past versus past as you did at bad this would be great to look at something I don't understand if I can pull some up like I will say that really is a Excuse me, it really is not a bright line distinction and very often there will be other reasons why the wrong answers are wrong As in it's not just that it didn't include that.
It's that it also is something that was only referencing a very minor point So I think that really distinction here is understanding whether or not that new information is like Is this chord with the author saying or is this something 10 national shoes for a game?
Joseph H
Yeah It would probably take me a while to pull them up, so someone else has something else. And now that I'm looking back at the two, I'm going to bring up, I do see why they were wrong.
It's just...
Emil Kunkin
We want to put the look at the...
Joseph H
That might be great, just like getting an example of what those look like. I guess December 2014, passage two, questions one and nine.
Emil Kunkin
Cool. So, and I think I remember these pretty well. I think you might have been in the message board for couple.
That's very likely. Oh, yeah. the first one is about perfumes. And...
Joseph H
Yeah. Okay.
Emil Kunkin
Is it quickly skimming through this to jog my memory?
Joseph H
I guess it's, yeah, my answer choice is between number one, we're between D and E. And I see where it was wrong now, but it's like sometimes they want you to have so much info in your main point answer, sometimes they really just want to give like an answer, that's the essence of it.
So they know both cases, they capture the essence.
Emil Kunkin
Okay, you can capture the essence in nine words or whatever D does here. You can also capture the essence in four whole lines.
This is why I want you to do more like process elimination on main points, by the way, because like, could you try to make it, I would like to make an argument against D and an argument against D for me right now.
Joseph H
I mean, my only argument against D really was that it didn't talk about nearly enough of the content in the passage, like the comparison between different kinds of art, but that just kind of helps it because it's saying it is a great work of art.
My argument against D now that I've read the answer explanations is that it wasn't specifically comparing it only to oil painting as a sister art.
So that is overly specific and missing comparisons to other great works of art.
Emil Kunkin
Okay. And I will say that you don't even, so obviously having an answer trace, I'm having read the explanation that does make it easier to see that, but from what I recall, were other cases where it was comparing it to things that did not involve complex configuration of ingredients.
But broadly speaking, comparing your two anti-D, anti-E, that's a very strong agreement in favor of D. Partly because indeed, it's sort of sounding like you were talking to yourself in circles where it's like, well, yeah, I didn't get as much detail as I wanted.
That's fine, but that's not one of the two reasons to be prepared. There are two reasons to knock out the main point and wrong answers.
It's either just not what the passage said, or it's tangential to the main reason the author wrote the passage.
Joseph H
It's just like whatever.
Emil Kunkin
Yeah, sure the author said that that's not why she wrote the passage. Not getting the detail, generally speaking, is not going to be written and knocks something out.
I will say so in a passage where it's just summarizing, rather than making an argument, it could, if it's way too general a summary, me, but that's not very helpful either, either or that is said there.
But what that's doing is taking, taking, okay, we have the core of the argument. These are comparable arts, first is a fine art.
Then we go and say, yeah, but it doesn't really get treated as such. That does relate to Dean, you know, sense that like, okay, deserve to be treated with their respect and attention that the fine arts do.
Here's the reason why they aren't. I agree that these not satisfying in any sense, but I would say this does feel tangential in the sense that, okay, we've gone, we've made this main point, and I think the author's clearly going up and saying that perfume is an art.
This still feeds into the idea that perfume is an art, and it says, oh yeah, but also here's a reason why people don't consider it to be an art.
But on the whole, the author trying to convince us that it should be an art or that there's a why people don't consider it an art.
What feels more what she's trying to tell us?
Joseph H
Convinces that it is an art.
Emil Kunkin
I agree. And again, there's no frontline rule here, but just gut-wise, it feels like she is trying to convince us that this is an art, and that this last paragraph really does kind of go off on a tangent, but it's that, it's a tangent.
Joseph H
Okay. Well, thank you. I can help with the author's own questions, so I don't take up the whole time.
But thanks. Thanks.
Emil Kunkin
Um, you, sir, real quickly, you also mentioned passage question nine, that main point felt like it was going off in tangent?
Joseph H
Uh, yeah. Um, I see why my answer choice is wrong, because I put it too fast, and I picked answer choice E, and the research wasn't designed to confirm the usefulness, so that knocks it out right away.
Emil Kunkin
Wonderful. And I think that's two, two things that I really wanted to say, and I'm actually so happy that was what happened there.
Well, I'm upset that out there, but I'm so happy for my selfish purposes that I get to make this point.
What I'm saying is, the answer choices, I'm not saying to speed up in reading them. You still need to understand them.
What I'm saying you can speed up on is eliminating wrong answer choices if you know they're wrong. To be very clear.
I do think that this gets the other point earlier that like, it's very rarely going to be asking to choose between, oh, is the main point what was argued earlier, or is the main point what is argued in that last paragraph that's a bit of attention?
Odds are the wrong answer is wrong for other reasons as well. So great, Catherine, to get into your question about tone, author agreement, disagreement.
Katherine Sotelo
Yeah, thank you. So mine was in regard to, so you understand that the author disagrees, or that the author agrees, and then you get to the question, and you are reviewing the answer choices, and they are two that are, all right.
because they use... I get caught up in the words that they use. For example, like let's say there's two that are agree to that are disagree, but what is I strongly agree, agree, strongly disagree, disagree, and then neutral.
So then you know it has to be one of the two of agrees, right? But then the words differences of like strongly agree to like disagree.
How do you differentiate between the two? Because I still go over the passage and I try to search for those keywords, but sometimes I still miss it because I don't think that the author feels strongly about it or vice versa.
Emil Kunkin
So I think there's a couple of responses there and first of all, that's how they always are. almost always strong agree, weak agree, neutral-ish, weak disagree, strong disagree.
And I think there's a couple things that I would say here, first being, don't treat this as a general rule, but it's not that often that it's a strong agree or a strong disagree.
And usually, you'll know when it is when you're reading it. And this is about keywords. This is about the logical force of the argument.
Is the author saying that this is wrong or is the author saying that there's nuance there? I would also say, I do want you to pay attention like the specific wording of them, because it's usually that idea, strong agree or a blah, But it's more that like, is the author, the weak, strong one that would be created as like emphatic disagreement, or it might be utter disregard.
Those are different things. And if you have one where the strong disagree is like utter disregard, that's really rare.
That's like a really high bar for utter disregard. The author would have to say that some people believe These people are completely mistaken.
There's no marriage to their argument whatsoever. So I think that you do actually have to pay attention to the specific wording used, but I think this is something that I want you to be paying attention to in the passages as well.
As in, in the passage, I want you to get a sense like, are the authors saying, when the authors arguing her position, if we have a position, I want you to pay attention to how she's making that position.
Is she saying that the evidence seems to suggest x, or is she saying that these people who argue y are completely without marriage?
So what I'm saying is, I think that this works should be more done ex ante while reading the passage, rather than exposed when you're going back and skimming for keywords, because skimming for keywords really isn't going to get you very far.
I hate keywords. Keywords almost never do anything for us. This is something that I think I want you to do in the passage.
passage more. And I think we have one in this in this section. If you want to look at like the one that in the past you found challenging, that would be awesome.
If you remember one of the top of your head, which probably don't understand, but the broad high level answers that I would give you are first, when you're reading the passage, we want to spend more time.
We want to make sure that we understand not just if the author agrees, but why they agree. And that usually will tell us if it's a strong agree or a disagree.
Sorry, a strong agree or a weak agree. And the second thing I think is while we're in the passage, we do want to get just a gut sense of, okay, is the author, how strong is this argument?
Is the author saying that no, this is always the case, or is the author saying that? Well, it does seem more likely that this is true than anything else.
The third thing I'll say is, yeah, you actually want to pay attention. specific words used, as if you're choosing between the strong agree and the weak agree, is the author going as far as whatever the strong is, and is the author doing specifically what the weak is, because they do often tend to use words that are not just like strongly weak.
Like, I know we haven't had chance to really read things, but going back to the procurement passage, I would put this as a strong agree, as like, I think this is a pretty forceful argument that the author is saying pretty clearly in my mind that perfuming is an art, just like a lot of other arts.
That to me, this argument strikes me as it's going to be strong in the sense that we're not equivocating.
We're not conceding a lot of points to those who would say they're not an art. When I'm considering those arguments, that strikes me as strong
If you have an example, that would be great to look at, and if not, it's fun for some. Okay, so without even reading this passage, I just want to quickly go through my thoughts on the wording of the answer choices on this random question that I found.
Look at the difference between the strong and the weak agrees, whole-hearted endorsement versus restrained appreciation. So, in terms of the second half, endorsement versus appreciation, I would say there is a difference.
are appreciation, just like general admiration or agreement, I think. Endorsement is signing on to it, it's saying, yes, I fully agree with this.
I also think whole-hearted is really strong. That's with no reservations. Does the author agree with no reservations whatsoever? And this is going back to idea of hammering in here about, the answer choices are wrong, presumed they're wrong unless they prove themselves right.
I think the author agrees with the thing in question, my assumption is that it's going to be B, unless A proves itself right.
Unless I can say why the author whole-heartedly endorsed whatever the thing is, it's going to be B. And I think, again, or I've already said that, you know, it doesn't, it just doesn't.
In my dut sense, I don't think it's the extreme ones that often. I think that's one of the reasons how we can get to there, because the extreme ones have to prove themselves right.
You have to be able to say, no, this is why the author is wholeheartedly in favor of this thing.
That's a high bar. So much lower bar to say that, yeah, that's, you know, the author agrees. I don't see how it's wholehearted.
Looking at the, you know, the disagrees here, the two, the wrong ones, DNE. We have, you know, similar dynamic here, weak, disagree, strong, disagree.
But we actually have more than that. So cautious opposition, that's just, that's just saying we disagree. That's not saying anything else there.
But man, what the hell is he saying, suppressed exasperation? That means that the author actively is angry with something but is trying to hide it.
That's more than a strong disagree. A normal strong disagree might be something lines of money to be whole-hearted disapproval.
Suppressed exasperation actually means something different. And again, the bar here is, can you show me where the author did that?
Can you show me where the author was mad at that position and tried to act as if they were not as mad about that position as they are?
I didn't look, I don't remember this passage very well, but having not not remembered it at all, I am confident it's not going to be me.
Because I just don't remember every single passage where we had suppressed exasperation. Me neither, but I just don't think that's, I don't think that's compliment.
And like just quickly looking at what it said about the Supreme Court. Oh, okay. Supreme Court has generally been beneficial to Native Americans being that second paragraph and has not been fully deaf from
That's all. OK, just right there, that is not suppressed exasperation. Whether it's a degree or a disagree, I can tell you it's not a strong disagree.
So I do think going in without default presumption that even if you know they agree, we're assuming it's going to be the weak agree unless we can find the strong agree, unless we can find direct actual evidence that it's a strong agree.
And just look at that I'm skimming through this passage. I think I would probably pick the stronger everyone here.
I'm sorry, the weak agree here. Just any that I didn't give this a very thorough read. That wasn't obvious because I was doing it very quickly.
But like. Double check this. So. That's the thing. I just don't see. Hey, I just don't. see enough to tell me that this is whole-hearted endorsement here.
I think the author is generally in favor of this report's treatment of Native Americans. I think we have pretty clear evidence of that.
if they're for ambiguities or favors, they're treated as rights, treaties or their rights, they're not necessarily granted. That's good.
have an achievement of the justice system. The author's pretty clearly in favor of how Scotus has treated Native Americans.
I just don't see anything that gets me that bar of whole-hearted endorsement. Whole-hearted endorsement is something the author explicitly does herself.
That's when they come out and say, yes, this is correct. We have a sense the author likes how Native Americans have been treated by the Supreme Court recently, achievement we're talking about two achievements of the justice system here.
That's not the whole-hearted endorsement, though. And it can actually, if we go, I've missed the surge. So if you guys have the very first sentence of the passage, I think that's enough to say it's not whole hard endorsement.
It's showing that there is some nuance there, that they have not, they have Americans have not, always been pleased by the courts, but a number of them have actually looked good.
Must be assessed back in the arm of the law. But also we have to add, many of the court decisions have been products for political compromises.
They'll look more to the temper of the times than to enduring principles of law. That's bad. I mean, generally, we don't want the Supreme Court looking to the temper of the times rather than enduring principles of law.
That actually right there, think knocks out it. So as I was saying earlier, second half of passage, it just doesn't give me enough to go to that extreme example.
Here, I think actually now reading that for a second sentence again, I think that's enough to show no, it's not wholehearted.
There is some reservation here. Kind of while you're looking after anyone else for other obviously, Kathy to field those 100% your desk, and if not, I can just like pull up another one of these in a different passage.
I mean, if you guys don't have other questions, I'm happy to just go pull up another author agreement author perspective question.
Ooh, found one. So, what's All right, so I think let's just read the first paragraph here, and then let's quickly regroup.
OK, actually, never mind. This question is not asking that about Gil. This is not asking what the authors do.
It's asking what Gillum's view towards the strictly representational art of his contemporaries. So I'm just going to skim a little bit until I find that.
OK, we go. That's actually at the beginning of the second paragraph. Wonderful. So we're told what are we told here?
So he was reacting to it. Generally, if you're doing an artist, if an artist is reacting to something, they did not like that movement.
He found their approach aesthetically conservative, the message was unmistakable, there was little room for the expression of subtlety or ambiguity, or more importantly, the exploration of new artistic territory through experimenting for innovation.
Specifically, they worked with collage, which was quite popular, Gillum was impatient with straightforward, literal approach to representation. Okay, off that right now, this strikes me as we might have enough here for the strong disagree, for a strong dislike.
I don't think that it is getting enough for a radically strong dislike, it depends on the wording, but right off the bat, I think we have enough there for a strong dislike.
He was impatient with the solution, in its place. Okay, so blind 30 is where I think that part ends, he was trying to replace it with something.
So right off the bat, It's not, oh, interesting. So here we actually have three disagrees, one agree and one neutral.
This is where this specific wording is going to really matter. This is where it actually matters what it says.
And actually, all three of these, I think, are some variant of the strong disagree. These are not saying it's reserved.
These are not saying that it's mild disapproval. These are all condescension, dissatisfaction, dismissal. What matters then is what did the author actually do, or more effectively, what did the author say Gillum actually thought?
Was he derisive and condescending? I don't see that. I don't recall that. That's very specific. Condescension means something specific.
And I don't recall condescension having been in those, like, 10 lines about Gillum's thought towards her facial art. Is it open dissatisfaction?
I guess I think he was. open about it. He clearly was dissatisfied. I think it actually said he was dissatisfied.
Okay, said it was impatient. Close enough. He's kind of like whimsical. There's nothing whimsical about it. Okay, he does.
I think he was maybe dismissive, but there's nothing whimsical. So this is prossalamination. We're going in, we're letting the wrong answers be wrong, and we're left with big.
This is one where also, I think this is an intervention captain that I didn't really mention earlier, specificity is often bad unless it meets that bar at first.
Looking at the three variants of strong disagree here, two are really specific, derisive condescension. That means something very narrow.
don't see that in a passage. I'm not really sure what a whimsical dismissal would look like. I guess it might be on the lines of, oh, this is so stupid and silly.
I'm going to do something. I'm going to show you guys how silly this is. I genuinely can't imagine what this would look like, but again, see it's so specific.
These more general, I just like broadly speaking, a general answer on these is more likely to fit the passage.
Doesn't mean it's going to be right. You can have a very specific answer if that matches the passage, but here B is the only thing that matches the passage.
Because yeah, was openly dissatisfied, it seems. Would I automatically pick B? No. I would have only gotten there through cross elimination, but ultimately we did get there through cross elimination.
We have a few minutes for questions. don't we really have time to get to another one of these. So I would love to just hear your guys' thoughts, questions, comments, et cetera.
If you guys have any, and if you don't, don't feel pressured to come up with a question. I mean, I'm skimming through this passage here.
So we're saying that Gillum, very well regarded the second paragraph, is saying that he was acting in reaction to his contemporaries, and he represented a view that was then pretty rare, looking at this last.
He was, he was a, he was a trans. Okay, cool. He experimented a lot. He introduced the idea of the unsupported canvas, which has been really cool.
Gilliams are fascinating artists, by the way. Then we just have some stuff about why what he was doing was so cool.
By the way, I can't, so if we could look at like line like 45 to 53ish, we're talking with the specific mechanisms, the specific thing as he did, you don't need to understand what that looks like in practice as long as you can go back and understand why this matters.
This matters because it was interesting and it was novel and it gave his, it like, it helped him to form a police a poll and in doing so, he advanced the notion of the deepest, hardest to capture emotions and tensions of being African American can not be represented directly.
That's why that matters. 45 to 53, that's a mechanism. That's like a science passage. That's fine if we only have an end.
understanding of it, as long as we understand why it matters. And why it matters is that it captured the deepest, hardest capture motions attached to being African-American.
could not be represented correctly, but we're better expressed through a bulbable of the things that he did. Okay, looking, I just want to walk through how I would have approached this main point question.
that processization think I've been talking about? Right answers might not jump out to me as a right, but the wrong answers are wrong, because either it's not in the passage or it's just not what the author was trying to So is the author trying to describe the motivation behind in the nature of an artist's work?
It's so cold in it. I mean, we did have the motivation behind. He was acting in reaction to the overly realist elements that he thought were common in that African-American look at the town.
And he, we did get some about the nature of in that like 45 to 55 who was hanging canvas stuff.
I don't know, whatever. This is a move on one. can't the book and a great holes in it, which, by the way, is going to be right because I can't poke any holes in it, looking at the, I mean, yeah, did the author describe political themes, I guess?
But that misses a lot of what the passage is talking about. So this past the first test, it is in the passage, we do have some idea of his political themes.
But that's really at best tangential. anything, he was acting against the explicitly political art in the favor of art that was political, but political, the sense that it was expressing dissatisfaction with both the general artistic establishment and the conditions of the conditions and emotions of the African American in the century.
So I don't like the, it's gaining to something that's really tangential. We're not really describing the evolution of his style over a period of time here.
I think we have some elements of that in that last paragraph here. I mean, yeah, maybe this is in the passage, but that's not why the author read passage that ignores all the nuance of the fact that He was acting in reaction and his evolution of his style Helped to express these ideas.
This is about the ideas was expressing We have to have something like that here. This feels tangential as well D I don't really think the author did this and that certainly was not the main point So I think we can dismiss d out of hand and he Uh, I don't remember this at all.
What's textbook notation? I think depending the passage is very clear that he was really proficient in a couple of different techniques Um, if you take federal income tax when you're a law school, there is a very famous case and always Sam Gillum Maybe because of the state I know who's very much.
think he only died like last year. He was He was very he's been around a while Um See Oh, yeah, no, he passed two or three years ago, but yeah, 88 very full artists, you should check them out.
So before we go quickly, Catherine, your question, you take it up to you, oh, chef, for the recording a question is the day before the task would you recommend taking that day off before or do like a half day studying, is that okay?
Yeah, of course, it's okay. There's no right or wrong answer there. It's about what feels right to you. Oh, sorry, I got a funny that the day before you're taking the test is also election day.
So like, it's not going to be a stress free day in general. So this is kind of maybe specific to you if you're taking the test the day after election day, honestly, maybe you should study that day because that might actually be more restful than doing whatever else you have been doing.
But no, there's no one right answer. There's nothing wrong studying the day before I did. It just depends on like, look, you know yourself.
You know yourself better than anyone else. loss. And you know if that will tear you out or not. I think the default presumption should be towards getting it easy on the day before, but you can overcome that presumption if you know yourself, you know your body, you know your mind, you know that you're gonna be stressing it.
If you're not studying, you know that it will stress you out, don't do it. So this is very much a gut sense.
I will say though, I don't think that you're gonna get much out of studying then, but I think that if that studying helps calm you down, it helps you feel better, it.
Best of luck to all of you who are taking it in the near future. Enjoy your week and, oh yeah, guess good ability to have it.
You're able to, probably, you know, enjoy. Get some sleep. That's actually the last comment I have. At this point, studying sleep is more important.
Sleep is the key to success on the test. Get sleep.
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