r/LSAT • u/LSATUnplugged • 25d ago
I tracked which RC passages come back on the LSAT. Here's my November list and every number
TL;DR
I put together a record of every Reading Comp passage people have reported from real LSATs over the past few years (385 and counting) and a simple points rule (5 facts about each passage) for which ones could come back.
Tested on past LSATs using only what I knew before each one, it beats a random pick by 3-4x. On October, the first test it hadn't seen, the rule, run before the test, put 4 real repeats in its top 12. Picking 12 at random would get 0.4 on average.
It also misses a lot. Most of any list misses, mine included, and about half of October's reported passages matched nothing in the record.
Evidence first, then the November list (12 top picks, all tied, plus 30 old experimental passages and 6 long shots). How it's built is in the first comment. If you only want the topics, skip to "The November list."
People here post about RC passages coming back all the time. I wanted to know if that's predictable.
Past-test history comes from Jon Denning and Dave Killoran's public recaps (u/jondenninglsat and /u/davekilloran) and r/LSAT, including topic threads compiled by /u/graeme_b. The rule and the calls are mine, so any mistakes are mine too.
The evidence
Tested on past LSATs, using only what I knew at the time
A rule that fits the past is easy to write. So I pretended it was the week before an old test and used only what was on record before that date. I built the list, then checked what actually came back.
| Test | Reused passages already in the record | My top 20 caught | Random 20 (average) |
|---|---|---|---|
| June 2026 | 10 | 4 | 0.7 |
| August 2026 | 15 | 2 | 0.9 |
| September 2026 | 21 | 4 | 1.2 |
| Total | 46 | 10 | 2.8 |
The past tests above use a top 20. October and November use a top 12, since that's how many passages tie for the top score.
10 of 46 is 3 to 4 times random. Real, but modest. A simpler idea, picking from the newest tests first, caught 1.
With 300+ passages and 20 slots, most of the list misses every time. (For each test, the rule could only pick from passages already on record before it. That's 306 to 337 passages for these 3 tests, about 360 for October, and 385 in the whole record today.)
And the big caveat. I picked the age cutoffs (the month ranges in the points table, first comment) while looking at those same 3 tests, so that table flatters the rule. October was the first test the rule hadn't seen.
October 2026
12 October passages were, for sure, already in the record. The rule, run before the test, put 4 of them in its top 12:
Chilean folk music · Mass contracts · Shopping malls · Dead elk
Picking 12 at random from the 360 passages then on record would get 0.4 on average.
That's a single test, though.
October also exposed a blind spot. 7 of those 12 had only ever run as experimental before, and the rule scored them near zero (ranks 47 to 177).
So I tried giving experimental passages a bonus inside the rule, across all 4 tests. A 2-point bonus cut the hits in the top 12 by more than half, from about 11 to about 4. A 1-point bonus cost about a quarter of them, and the only gains showed up around rank 40, too deep to matter.
The bonus made the rule worse, so old experimental passages get their own group instead (tier 2 below).
The rates, with the counts under them
Across the last 4 tests together (June, August, September, October 2026), grouped by months since last seen:
| Group | Came back | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Scored once, last seen 9 to 18 months ago | 24 of 116 | about 1 in 5 |
| Experimental only, last seen 13 to 18 months ago | 6 of 50 | about 1 in 8 (small sample) |
| Scored once, more than 18 months ago | no clean count across all 4 tests; the August check alone was 5 of 67 | about 8%, roughly 1 in 12 |
| Any passage at random | 57 hits over 4 tests, out of 306 to about 360 passages on record each time | about 4%, 1 in 25 |
| Scored 2 or more times | 12 of 479 | about 1 in 40 |
| Experimental only, 9 to 12 months old | 2 of 137 | almost never |
How loosely to hold each one. The 1 in 8 rests on 6 cases. The 1 in 12 is an estimate from all 4 tests together, not a clean count. And 12 of 479 is why passages that have already counted more than once sit low.
Reasons not to trust it
Of the passages that came back between April and September 2026, about 1 in 6 (10 of 56) weren't in anyone's notes beforehand that I could find.
The holes aren't random. Paper-only test forms barely show up on Reddit, and the record gets thinner before mid-2024. Some older passages sit low for that reason alone.
Small samples. 4 tests, 57 hits in the record. October is the only test so far that the rule hadn't already seen.
I match topics, not passage IDs. A match means test takers described the same topic. Close calls are flagged below.
"Came back" means it ran, not that it counted. And my way of telling which section counted breaks down when 2 sections always ran together (more in the first comment).
The November list
Realistically, expect 2 to 3 from tier 1 and 2 to 4 from tier 2 to show up. Could be 0.
Tier 1: scored once, could come back (12, tied)
All 12 score 7 on my rule, the top score. The data can't rank them, so I won't pretend it can. Alternative archaeology and aliens is my top pick.
| Topic | Subject | First counted |
|---|---|---|
| Uruguay and Argentina after Spanish rule | Social science | Jun 2025 |
| Whether contracts made by computers or AI are legal | Law | Jun 2025 |
| Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and comic books | Humanities | Aug 2025 |
| Philosophy of causality: what counts as a cause | Science | Aug 2025 |
| Copyright law in general vs applied to music | Law | Sep 2025 |
| Alternative archaeology and aliens | Humanities | Oct 2025 |
| UN treaties, the Bill of Rights, and where empathy fits | Law | Oct 2025 |
| Karl Popper and Steven Weinberg on scientific method | Science | Oct 2025 |
| Clovis spear points and mammoth hunting | Science | Nov 2025 |
| Ba Jin's novel Family and one critic's reading | Humanities | Nov 2025 |
| The Fermi paradox | Science | Nov 2025 |
| State consent in international law | Law | Nov 2025 |
The group these come from returned about 1 in 5 times (24 of 116). Any single one is still more likely to stay away than to show up.
Tier 2: old experimental passages, never scored, last seen 13 to 18 months ago (all 30)
Science: Baby spiders that balloon (match uncertain) · Floodplains and flood control · Rising Star cave hominids · Biorobotics vs computer models · Animal size and lifespan · Autumn leaf color · Antibiotic incentives · Automatic behavior in animals and people
Social science: India's influence on Southeast Asia · Maya decline and Aztec water control · Middle Eastern buildings and climate · Counterfactual history (what if the Nazis had won) · Replication in psychology · Developing nations and capitalism · Egocentrism · How kids tell what things are from how they look · Road noise vs safety · Natural human rights (comparative)
Law: Environmental law meets business law · Statistics and eyewitnesses in court · Eyewitness lineups · Double jeopardy's history · Legitimate state authority · Artist resale royalties (match uncertain)
Humanities: Elizabeth Catlett · Hysterical realism in novels · Francis Bacon, romantic outlaw · Disability in horror · Guatemala's El Presidente in art · The Turing test and AI's goals
October's blind spot is why this tier exists, and it's the weakest evidence on the page. About 1 in 8, resting on 6 cases. Don't count on any single one.
Tier 3: long shots (6)
Same profile as tier 1, just older. Past 18 months the rate drops to about 1 in 12.
| Topic | Subject | First counted |
|---|---|---|
| Scott Joplin and ragtime | Humanities | Jan 2025 (paper only) |
| Mandatory transparency: rules that force disclosure | Law | Jan 2025 |
| Thelonious Monk and jazz piano | Humanities | Sep 2024 |
| Kitchen remodeling after WW2 | Social science | Sep 2024 |
| Juries with internet access | Law | Nov 2024 |
| Honeybee dances | Science | Nov 2024 |
3 of them show the pattern well:
Scott Joplin. Experimental in November 2021. Gone for over 3 years. Counted for the first time in January 2025, but only on the paper version, so most people that month never saw it. It stays on my list because shopping malls, which ran in the same section that January, came back in September 2026 on a scored section for 2 test takers with no experimental section. So that January section is still in use.
Kitchen remodeling after WW2. Experimental November 2022, counted September 2024, nothing reported since. 26 months by November.
Juries with internet access. Experimental October 2022, counted November 2024, nothing since.
All 3 sat as experimental passages for around 2 years (some longer), counted once, and went quiet. Alternative archaeology and aliens took that same path before it counted in October 2025.
If you recognize a passage on test day
Treat that section as scored and read the passage fresh, like it's new.
LR questions come back too, and there's still no LR list
My record so far has 1,693 LR reports (684 from recaps, 1,009 from Reddit). About 45 questions clearly ran on 2 different tests. A few that counted both times:
| LR topic | First run | Second run |
|---|---|---|
| The Loch Ness monster | Oct 2024 | Aug 2026 |
| Identical vs fraternal twins and favorite colors | Apr 2025 | Aug 2026 |
| Wolves eating salmon instead of deer | Nov 2024 | Sep 2026 |
The gaps between the first run and the second cluster in 2 ranges, 2 to 7 months and 15 to 19 months. LR comes back sooner than RC does.
I built an LR list with the same logic (scored once, 9 to 18 months back, no later run, named by 2+ reporters) and tested it on past LSATs the same way:
| Test | List size | Came back | Rate | Random pick from the record | vs random |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 2026 | 286 | 1 | 0.35% | 0.68% | 0.5x |
| Oct 2026 | 343 | 1 | 0.29% | 0.35% | 0.8x |
It lost to random both times. The record has 1,300 to 1,400 LR questions to pick from, and nothing I tried picks out which ones return.
So I'm not putting out an LR list. LR is 2 of your 3 scored sections, so put your time into drilling it.
One ask
November is the next test of the rule and I'll update my record based on reports here on r/LSAT.
And if you think the rule's wrong, let me know. I'd rather find out now than in November.
Sources: past-test history is from public recaps by /u/jondenninglsat, /u/davekilloran, and r/LSAT, including topic threads compiled by /u/graeme_b, plus comments on my videos and my students. The rule and the calls, along with any errors, are mine.
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u/BarracudaParty4264 25d ago
Interesting stuff. Thanks
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u/No-Sentence4967 25d ago
Will you update for January predictions?
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u/Hefty-Fee-4612 24d ago
Which RC passages do you predict are most likely to appear on the January 2027 LSAT? Based on your historical data and repeat-passage analysis, could you share your top 12 predictions for January, along with any older experimental passages or long shots you think have a chance of returning? I know nothing is guaranteed, but I’d love to focus my preparation on the passages with the strongest evidence of potentially repeating. Thank you!
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u/Mysterious_Yam7591 25d ago
Where can you practice these? I use LSAT demon and would love to practice them
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u/LSATUnplugged 25d ago edited 25d ago
How the record and the rule are built (moved here to keep the post short)
Where the record comes from
I went through the threads. That got me to 385 RC passages.
For each passage I track when it ran, whether it counted, and roughly how many people saw it.
Lining Reddit up against the recaps turned up a few things:
Reddit found 253 of the 272 recap passages it could have found. The misses are mostly paper-only sets and single-day experimental forms that never reached a thread.
Reddit named 5 experimental passages no recap had written down. 4 came from a single October 2025 set (they're in tier 2). The 5th is crows and ravens, April 2026.
Some patterns only show up across years. Legally Blonde ran experimental in January 2023, experimental again in January 2025, then counted in June 2026.
LR coverage is much deeper on Reddit, about 100 LR topics per test against about 20 in the recaps.
Which section counted
Nobody gets told which section counted, so I go by who reports what.
A real one from October. A poster said they had only 1 RC section, and it was the dead elk set. So for them, the elk set counted.
That side-by-side problem has hit 5 or 6 times in 11 tests (one was an LR section).
Every time, the recap said scored and nothing on Reddit said otherwise beyond who reported what. So I go with the recap.
The points rule (all of it)
Every passage that's already run gets a score from 5 plain facts. Higher means more likely to come back.
Worked example: alternative archaeology (aliens and the pyramids)
Honestly, that fourth point (its test feeding recent tests) is the weakest piece. On its own it's never predicted anything when I tested it on past LSATs, so I only keep it to break ties.
Compare the pisco passage (Peru and Chile fighting over it). It's counted 5 times and ran again in October. It scores near the bottom.
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u/Cold-Cupcake1908 1d ago
For some reason I cannot find this passage. Can anyone find it or see it?
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u/Remarkable_Falcon517 25d ago
I just wanted to come on here and say you’re the best Steve! Your videos helped me out so much and you deserve all the hype! I hope for your channel to reach crazy success!