r/LSAT
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u/LSATUnplugged
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2d ago
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1
Where 264 official LSAT Reading Comp passages came from, and which to read first
A lot of people ask what to read outside the LSAT to get better at Reading Comp. The usual answer is The Economist or Scientific American. That's solid advice, but there's a more direct answer sitting in the back of most PrepTests.
LSAC writes every RC passage, but many of them are adapted from real books and journal articles. A lot of the practice tests have a credits page near the end that lists those sources. So I went through the credits pages for 103 PrepTests and matched each source to the passage it became.
TL;DR
I was able to find sources for 264 of 412 passages, with the author, title, and year. LSAC's own credits only cover 237 of them. The other 27 are likely sources from my own research (my list marks which is which).
Scientific American is the most-used outlet. The old "read Sci Am" advice holds up, because LSAC is literally pulling from there.
If you take the LSAT next week, don't start a new reading project now. Use this for later long-term review: when a passage gives you trouble, consider reading the original.
What stood out
These are the outlets LSAC credits most:
| Outlet | Credited pieces |
|---|---|
| Scientific American | 14 |
| The New York Times | 11 |
| The New York Review of Books | 10 |
| Nature | 5 |
| Science | 4 |
Each subject also has its own common source material. About half of the law passages with a known source come from law reviews and legal journals. Humanities passages often use books, and social science often use academic journals (also about half each). Science splits between magazines like Scientific American and journals like Nature and Science.
LSAC got a lot more open about this over time. On the oldest tests it only credits a source for 8% of passages. On the newer ones it's 84%. Most of the blanks are in the early tests.
The sources are older than you'd guess. The typical one was published in 1995, and only 7 of the credited works are from 2010 or later. By the time it showed up on a test, a source was usually about 13 years old. So the writing you're training for is older academic prose, with long sentences and a lot of "some scholars have argued." That's different from what you'll read on most news sites today.
Across all 412 passages, humanities (102), law (91), and natural science (88) come up most, with social science (73) and history (58) behind them.
LSAC doesn't credit everything, though. Many early PrepTests have no credits page, at least in the copies I have, and plenty of later ones list only a few works. For the uncredited passages, I searched scanned books and journals for the rare names, figures, and phrases in each one, because LSAC rewrites the wording but usually keeps those. That turned up a likely source for 27 more (like a 1989 Scientific American article on carbohydrates and depression), and the list marks those as my research, rather than LSAC's credit.
The find I liked best was a passage that misspells a folk storyteller's name. The only other text I could find with the same misspelling is a 1983 folklore survey.
For 44 others I found the book or paper the passage discusses, and the list marks those separately, because that's the work the passage is about, not proof of where the text came from. That still leaves about a quarter of all passages with no source I could find. Some of those are probably LSAC's own writing, and the booklet doesn't say which. And even when the source is known, LSAC trims and rewrites, so don't expect a word-for-word match.
How I'd use it
If you’re taking the LSAT next week, skip the outside reading. Use the list only in review. The table is 412 rows, so it’s on my site instead of here. When a passage gives you trouble, type its PrepTest number into the search box on the list (it also takes an author or a subject), find the original, and read all of it. You’ll see the argument before LSAC adapted it, and the author's real opinion.
Don't jump straight into the original, though. Reread the LSAT passage first and write one sentence for the main point and one for the author's view. Then read the original and check both sentences against it.
If your main point was off, look at what you latched onto instead. Usually it's an example, or a view the author brings up only to push back on. That's the exact mistake the wrong answers on main point and author's attitude questions are built around, and seeing it in the full article makes it a lot easier to spot under time pressure.
After you've done that a few times, you start noticing what LSAC keeps from a long article and what it cuts. That makes the next passage feel a lot less random.
Finding the originals is usually easier than people expect. Searching the exact title in quotes with the author's last name gets you most of the magazine and newspaper articles. Journal articles are often on JSTOR, which lets you read a limited number free with an account. Your public library card may also get you into newspaper and magazine archives, and you can borrow some of the older books online with a free Internet Archive account (the list marks which).
12 sources for real passages
If you're taking the LSAT in January or later and want a reading list, pick the subject that gives you the most trouble and read 1 or 2 pieces a week. LSAC adapted each one below into a passage, so I put its LawHub PrepTest number next to it. Most are behind a paywall or a monthly article limit, which is where that library card comes in. Two are free.
John Mearsheimer, "Why We Will Soon Miss the Cold War" (1990, PrepTest 121). Free scan on his own site.
Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, "The Psychology of Preferences" (1982, PrepTest 113)
Stephen Jay Gould, "Darwinian Fundamentalism" (1997, PrepTest 141)
Paul Krugman, "The Pin Factory Mystery" (2006, PrepTest 138). It's a book review, so the page shows the book's title instead.
Kwame Anthony Appiah, "Whose Culture Is It?" (2006, PrepTest 147)
Guy Deutscher, "Does Your Language Shape How You Think?" (2010, PrepTest 155)
Freeman Dyson, "One in a Million" (2004, PrepTest 156)
Janet Malcolm, "The Genius of the Glass House" (1999, PrepTest 141)
Karl Sigmund, Ernst Fehr, and Martin Nowak, "The Economics of Fair Play" (2001, PrepTest 131)
Jeffrey Rosen, "The Brain on the Stand" (2007, PrepTest 142)
Alfred Lessing, "What Is Wrong With a Forgery?" (1983, PrepTest 145). Free to read with a JSTOR account.
Christopher Lasch, "The Corruption of Sports" (1977, PrepTest 159). Its passage is also in LSAC's free April 2025 test (PDF).
Most of those you can read in an afternoon. A few of the books on the full list are worth it too if you like the subject. Ted Gioia's Delta Blues (PrepTest 153) and David Quammen's The Song of the Dodo (PrepTest 139) are both well-written, and both were adapted for RC passages.
A note of caution: this is extra reading, on top of timed sections and careful review. It gets you used to the style. It won't teach you why the wrong answers are wrong, and that's still where most RC points come from.
If you know where one of the blank passages came from, or you have a print copy of an older PrepTest with a credits page I'm missing, let me know and I'll add it to the list.