For LSAT preparation, is there something that a student can do to improve performance on reading comprehension questions?

The secret to doing well is practicing. There is not any single trick to it. It really does come down to exposure and practice and knowing what to expect on the way to the test.

If you have one year to prepare then you can spend a lot of time reading difficult texts. Texts that you would not necessarily normally spend your time reading but really pushing yourself with those academic articles, journals and newspapers that really push your mind and really make you dig in and challenge you as a reader so that's one if you have an year to prepare.

If you have a month  to take your test then some tips for reading comprehension and it boils down to everyone of our texts and our passages makes some kind of argument. It has some point and the author of the passage is trying to convince the reader of something or other. It has a thesis and it does it by way of bringing various arguments to bear so if you don't understand what that point is then your chances of being able to answer many of the questions correctly is very low. So your first thought while reading should always be what's the author is trying to say, what point are they trying to make and that point is the spine on which everything else hangs so if you can identify that main point then you will be in a really good position to answer many of the other questions as well and here is one inside tip that we almost always ask a question about what is the main point of that passage and it's almost always the first question so it really illustrates the importance of that. It may seem like a kind of a simple thing but really it is trying to identify the main point and not getting lost in the details or overwhelmed by the density of the passage. I think that is really important.

Dr. Jason Dickenson
Director, India Testing- Law School Admission Council (LSAC)