Overview
What It Is
The LSAT contains one scored Reading Comp section consisting of four
passages, each roughly 450 words long and containing 5 to 8 questions, for a
total of 26 or 27 questions to be completed in 35 minutes. The section usually
contains one humanities passage, one social science passage, one natural science
passage, and one law passage. Some passages are argumentative—that is, the
author takes a stand on the subject under discussion. Others are purely
descriptive. Some passages include the viewpoints of numerous characters; others
present only the author’s views on some person, event, or phenomenon. In
general, the questions test your understanding of:
- What the author does
- What the passage says
- How the passage is constructed
Why It Is
As already discussed, it’s not too difficult to see the relevance of
Reading Comp to the study and practice of law. There’s no way around it—law is
about using the written and spoken word to describe and regulate human
experience. Your prospective law school admission officers and professors want
to know how well you understand what you read.
Your Motivation
In addition to the motivational points from the previous page
(translation: it doesn’t suck as bad as it seems), Reading
Comprehension accounts for more than one quarter of your total LSAT score. As a
bonus, you’ll learn how to analyze dense complicated prose in a way that’s bound
to help you later on in law school.
