#secondary structures

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Coronavirus ORF3a

Our protein folding group, Fold.it, University of Washington, is giving us known sequences of coronavirus protein to figure out its geometry.

Instructions from the group read as follows: The viral genome of SARS-CoV-2 encodes its proteins. This portion of a protein in SARS-CoV-2 is encoded in a region of the genome called ORF3a, but the protein’s structure and function are still unknown. If…

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The Many Instances of Examples on Reading Comp

When it comes to the Reading Comprehension section on the LSAT, my eternal refrain is that the best success is achieved by focusing primarily on the structure of a passage, with the content of the passage as a secondary concern. (In fact, I’m working on boiling that phrase down for use as a catchy statement on my tombstone.)

Today, we’ll be drilling down into one way to do just that: making the most of examples when they appear in Reading Comprehension passages. As part of our annotation method, we at Blueprint preach that you should be making note of every example you see on the LSAT. It’s hugely helpful to notice when examples appear in passages, and not only because you are extremely likely to see at least one question about any examples. Noticing examples also helps you have a better overall understanding of the passage. Here’s why:

By definition, examples are used to support a general claim; that’s why we frequently remind Blueprint LSAT students that examples are used in support of a conclusion, but cannot themselves be the conclusion. (So even if three-quarters of a passage is dedicated to explaining a certain example and its significance, the thing it’s an example of would still be the main point of the passage.)

So, just noticing the example itself is not sufficient to fully understand a Reading Comprehension passage, and in fact, it might not help you answer the question(s) related to the example either — some questions just ask for details about an example (such as “Which one of the following was mentioned in the passage…”), but often, a question will ask specifically about what the example was supporting.

Since the point of marking up the passage while you’re reading is to prepare yourself for the questions as much as possible, that means that you should probably be marking which conclusion is supported by an example. At the end of the day, the best way to do so is whatever makes the most sense to you, but here are a couple options:

• Write a note about the general claim the example supports at the top of the paragraph, then write “Ex” under that where the example appears • Next to your annotation of the example, draw an arrow that points at the place where the general claim appears in the passage • When you note the example, append a few words to remind yourself of what it’s supporting (e.g. “Ex. Fruit flies, supp. adaptability”)

Finding the idea that is supported by an example will help you with identifying conclusions, and noting conclusions is a critical aspect of understanding a passage’s structure, which, in turn, is key to improving your overall understanding of a passage. So develop your preferring strategy for noting how examples function in a passage, and get ready to start reaping the benefits.

The Many Instances of Examples on Reading Comp was originally published on LSAT Blog

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How can questions in Reading Comp passages help you?

Reading Comprehension passages, like the rest of the LSAT, are prone to repeating certain structures over and over. After all, there are only so many ways to set up or argue about a short passage. In fact, noticing certain often-used passage structures (which Blueprint LSAT students may recognize as what we call the “secondary structures” of a passage) can vastly improve your overall understanding of a passage. But if you’re fortunate enough to notice a secondary structure, how does that knowledge actually help you?

In a moment you’ll be saying “I see what you did there,” because today we’ll be discussing the “Question and Answer” secondary structure. The format is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: The author poses a question, either explicitly (“How are secondary structures helpful?”) or implicitly (“Many puzzled LSAT students have wondered how to put their knowledge of secondary structures to use.”). For the rest of the passage, the author will attempt to answer that question. Perhaps she will discuss several potential answers before landing on one, or perhaps she’ll get right down to brass tacks.

It’s worth noting that this is an extremely common type of secondary structure — so common, in fact, that three out of the four passages on the December 2017 LSAT used the question-and-answer structure. Noticing this secondary structure is extremely helpful in understanding the big-picture structure of the passage. Here’s how:

Points of view: It’s important to identify how many viewpoints are expressed in a passage — some passages just talk about one point of view, while other passages contain multiple distinct thoughts. In a Q&A passage, each (potential) answer is a distinct viewpoint.

Main point: You should always take a moment to identify a passage’s main point, which is basically a one-sentence summary of the passage; the main point encapsulates any and all viewpoints included in the passage, and if the author was leaning toward a certain viewpoint, that will be expressed in the main point too. In a question-and-answer passage, the main point is a combination of the question and the answer(s) to it that were discussed, including the answer the author identifies as correct. For instance, the main point of this post would be something along the lines of “Identifying the question and answer secondary structure is useful because it allows you to easily identify big-picture issues like the viewpoints and main point.”

Primary purpose: The LSAT frequently asks about the primary purpose of a passage, meaning what the passage is trying to achieve — the purpose might be to correct a common misconception, explain a phenomenon, propose a solution, and so on. The purpose of a question-and-answer passage is extremely simple — it’s to answer the question. So, again using this post as an example, the primary purpose would be to identify ways in which noticing a certain secondary structure is helpful.

The bottom line: Noticing secondary structures is helpful in improving your perception of the passage structure and how it works, and the question-and-answer structure is well worth learning since — as the most recent test administration shows — it’s a common one. Whenever a passage starts by posing a question, take note of any answers to that question that are discussed, including whether the author seems to prefer one answer over the other. Just keeping track of those few things will give you a huge leg up in your overall understanding of the passage.

How can questions in Reading Comp passages help you? was originally published on LSAT Blog