Perhaps the most important skill set in reading comprehension is
determining the author’s opinion.
Our understanding of the author’s opinion is usually central to
properly and efficiently grasping a majority of the questions. Now
the LSAT is going to provide us with levels of difficulty in
acquiring an author’s opinion. Some opinions will be more subtle
than others. Through training, we will improve our ability to
isolate opinion from fact.
There are many ways to showcase an author’s opinion. In this drill
set we begin with the most common and most important way of
isolating an author’s opinion. The most common way of identifying
the author’s opinion is by acknowledging the meaning of certain
adjectives and adverbs used in the passage.
This drill set provides practice sentences and asks the student to
either (1) identify the Author’s Opinion (AO); or (2) note that
there is No Author’s Opinion (NAO).
(Explanation: NAO. “Bill believes” indicates that this is a descriptive sentence regarding Bill’s opinion. Belief is a direct reference to Bill’s state of mind. The author’s opinion is not indicated.)
(Explanation: AO. The term “recognizes” suggests that Tim being kind is BOTH Bill’s opinion and the author’s opinion. To “recognize” something is, usually, to indicate a person has spoken of an objective truth in their circumstance, or at least a truth that the author also acknowledges. The author has chosen “recognize” to indicate that she or he concurs with Bill’s opinion. Therefore, the author believes Tim is kind.)