Before we get to our four-step method for approaching the questions in a standard non–Paired Passages question set, it’s imperative to first understand that all of the questions will fall under one of two categories:

Big Picture questions: These questions are just like they sound: big picture. Big Picture questions test your understanding of the author’s main idea, the author’s main reason for writing the passage, the author’s attitude toward someone or something, the author’s methods of constructing the passage, and the organizational techniques employed by the author to get his or her point across. Reading Comp question sets always include certain standard Big Picture questions that test your understanding of the very issues we discussed at length previously—that is, the Essential Elements.

Content questions: These are those questions that focus on the details and specifics. Some ask about particular facts in the passage, and some ask you to form inferences or deductions based on these specific facts. In any case, they are distinct from the Big Picture questions described above. Content issues should take a back seat to Big Picture issues, both during your attack on the passage and while answering the questions. As you’ll see, not every nitty-gritty detail you encounter will be tested in a question. So it does make sense to focus intently on Big Picture issues and skim past complex details, focusing on those only when required to do so by a question. Let’s turn our attention to the Essential Strategy now.

Perform the following steps for every Reading Comp passage you face:

Step 1: Scout the Territory. Yes, another military metaphor, but we think it applies perfectly well. In LSAT as in war, it helps to know in advance what you’re up against. Quickly scan the question stems in the question set attached to the passage. Do this before attacking the passage. This will enable you to determine important things up front—the number and kind of questions types. If you see, for example, that Big Picture questions dominate the question set, you’ll be less tempted to get bogged down in details and more likely to focus especially hard on Essential Elements. As for Content questions, take note of paragraphs and specific details that are tested directly by certain questions. You may find it helpful to underline clue words that indicate definite tested issues and mark in the passage any line number or paragraph specifically referred to in a question.

Step 2: Mine the Essential Elements. The next step is to attack the passage by extracting the Essential Elements from each paragraph in the manner highlighted in the previous section. There are no moral victories for simply making your way from the first word to the last, as that doesn’t guarantee that you’ve assimilated the information you’ll need to get points.

Step 3: Divide and Conquer. Here’s where a proper attack on the passage pays off. If you’ve extracted the Essential Elements, you should be able to knock off the Big Picture questions quickly and confidently. Since these author-based questions are all related and accord with the Essential Elements you’ve focused on in Step 2, it makes sense to answer these as a group, even though that means skipping around in the question set. Content questions focus on passage specifics, and we recommend answering these after you’ve tried all the Big Picture questions. In the next section you’ll learn to distinguish between Big Picture and Content questions and will learn strategies for tackling the question types that constitute each category.

Step 4: Mine the Experience. As always, this step is included as a reminder to extract test day lessons from every passage and question you face. How can you get the most out of the Reading Comp passages you work through in your preparation stage? The best thing you can do is review them thoroughly and meticulously. Use the following questions to guide your analysis.

These are just some of the issues that should guide your review of your Reading Comp performance. Don’t get discouraged if you can’t at first produce stellar answers to every question in this list—that’s what practice is for. Optimally, you’ll see a tight connection between satisfactory answers to these questions and an improvement in your Reading Comp performance. If you find yourself struggling down the road, return to these questions to pinpoint where the difficulty may lie.

Okay, here’s where things stand: You’ve learned about the Reading Comp section and the kinds of skills it tests. You’ve seen a sample passage and have learned about and gotten practice with the Essential Elements you should extract from each paragraph. Then you picked up the Essential Strategy that you’ll employ in each passage. Later, you’ll have a chance to put this all together to tackle two actual LSAT Reading Comp passages, but first let’s take a closer look at the kinds of questions you’ll face.