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How to read · Lesson 1 of 9

What Reading Comprehension actually tests

After this lesson, you can sort a passage's questions into global, detail, and inference tiers and work them in the order that locks in easy points first.

6 min video, plus notes and 1 practice question below

In this lesson

• RC draws from roughly 400 real official passages, each carrying about 7 questions, so your prep material should be real LSAT text, not magazine articles
• Split every passage's questions into 3 tiers: global (main idea, primary purpose, organization, tone, best title, author's opinion), detail (a line reference you can look up), and inference (no clear anchor, like what the author would likely agree with)
• Answer the global tier right after your first read, since it's the big-picture stuff you already have, then move to detail, then inference
• Work easy to hard because every question is worth the same credit, so locking in the gimmes first protects you from running out of time before you reach them
• If passage-reading speed itself is the bottleneck, train it separately with a tool like a speed-reading app over a few months rather than trying to fix it mid-passage

What reading comprehension actually tests

Skip the New Yorker and Scientific American if your test is coming up within a year. There are roughly 400 real, previously administered LSAT reading comp passages out there, and most people prepping don't even get through half of them before test day. Stick to the real material. Each passage carries about 7 questions, and they don't all work the same way: some are big picture, some send you to a specific line, and some ask you to read between the lines a bit.

Think about how you'd describe a movie you just watched. You might not remember every subplot or minor character, but you can say what genre it was: action, comedy, romance. If you can't even say that much, you probably fell asleep and missed the whole thing. Reading comp works the same way. On your first read of a passage, focus on the big picture: the main idea and the author's opinion. You don't need to memorize every detail. When a question sends you back to a specific line or fact, you can always return to the passage and look it up when you get there.

Sort the questions into 3 tiers before you answer any of them

Global questions are the ones that ask about the passage as a whole: main idea, primary purpose, how the passage is organized, the best title, the author's tone, the author's opinion. You should be able to answer these right off your first read, because they're testing the big-picture stuff you already have in your head. Treat them as your gimmes.

Detail questions send you back to a specific part of the passage, often with a line reference or a clear topic to search for, so you can look up the exact wording before you answer. Inference questions are the hardest to anchor: they ask things like which choice the author would most likely agree with, and they don't point you to one spot in the text. You have to hunt a little, which takes more time and more careful reading.

Work the tiers in order: global, then detail, then inference

Every question on the LSAT is worth the same amount of credit, whether it's an easy global question or a brutal inference question. So work a passage's questions in order of difficulty: global first, because you can answer them straight off your first read, then detail questions, then inference questions last. Answering the easier tiers first also builds your understanding of the passage, so by the time you reach the hardest questions, you're not starting cold.

This order also protects your time. If you start with a vague inference question, you can burn several minutes hunting for the right anchor in the passage, and then run short on time before you ever reach the detail and global questions you could have answered in seconds. Go easy to hard on every passage, every time, so a hard question never costs you an easy one.

When the passage itself, not the questions, is what's slowing you down

Sometimes the problem isn't question order, it's that reading a dense passage on a screen takes you too long in the first place. If that's you, the fix usually isn't more RC drilling, it's trained reading speed. Two free tools built for this are Spreeder and Phrase Reader: paste in a chunk of dense text and they display it back to you at increasing speeds, like a reading treadmill. Use one consistently for 3 to 6 months and your on-screen reading speed will measurably improve.

If the issue is specifically reading on a screen rather than reading speed in general, look into testing accommodations for a paper administration instead. Start that process early. It takes a while to hear back, and there are deadlines, so the earlier you apply, the earlier you'll have an answer.

The 1 exception: reading the questions before a paired passage

Some reading comp sections include a pair of shorter passages on a related topic instead of a longer single passage, and that format can behave a little differently than the rest. Here's the 1 exception worth knowing: before you read a paired passage, skim the question stems first. If a stem clearly points to only 1 of the 2 passages, you can read just that passage and answer the question without loading the other one into your head first. Everywhere else in reading comp, read the full passage before you look at any question. This paired-passage case is the exception, not the rule.

The short version

• Before you touch any answer choices, scan a passage's question stems and sort them into global, detail, and inference before you answer a single one
• When a stem gives you no line reference and asks what the author would agree with, that's your inference signal: flag it and answer it last, not first
• If you keep running out of time on RC, log whether the drag is your passage read or your question order. Those need 2 different fixes: a reading-speed tool for the read, tier order for the questions

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