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Critical Reasoning (CR) questions are at the heart of what is tested on the GMAT, because CR questions directly challenge your thinking skills across a wide range of situations that require critical analysis, logical reasoning, and attention to detail.
In fact, some students find that Critical Reasoning GMAT questions are the trickiest questions they encounter in the Verbal section of the GMAT. To master GMAT CR, you must be able to employ smart, efficient strategies for analyzing arguments and eliminating answer choices that are carefully and cleverly worded to trick, trap, and confuse you.
Critical Reasoning questions are at the heart of what is tested on the GMAT.
In this article, I’ll give you 8 tips that can help you truly master GMAT Critical Reasoning, discuss why shortcuts and gimmicks won’t help you make serious gains in your Verbal score when it comes to GMAT CR, and lay out an effective pacing strategy for tackling CR questions. But first, let’s take a look at some Critical Reasoning basics and review the different CR question types.
- GMAT Critical Reasoning: What to Expect
- GMAT CR Question Types
- Tip #1: Practice Identifying the Parts of an Argument
- Tip #2: Do GMAT Critical Reasoning Practice Questions Untimed
- Tip #3: Read the Passage First
- Tip #4: Do Not Assume That the Last Sentence is the Conclusion
- Tip #5: Do Not Attempt to “Pre-Think” Answers
- Tip #6: Do Not Match Words to Find Correct Answers
- Tip #7: Eliminate Only Answers You’re Sure Are Wrong First
- Tip #8: Rely on Pinpoint Logic Instead of “Gut Instinct”
- GMAT CR Pacing Strategy
- What’s Next?
GMAT Critical Reasoning: What to Expect
Of the 36 Verbal questions you see on the GMAT, between 9 and 13 will be Critical Reasoning questions.
GMAT Critical Reasoning questions are designed to test your skill in making, analyzing, and evaluating arguments and plans.
Each Critical Reasoning question begins with a written stimulus, usually a short passage of about 100 words or fewer, which is followed by a question and 5 answer choices.
The question will always ask you to determine which of the 5 answer choices is logically related to the stimulus in a particular way (we’ll look at what those ways are shortly).
KEY FACT:
GMAT Critical Reasoning questions are designed to test your skill in making, analyzing, and evaluating arguments and plans.
Like GMAT Reading Comprehension passages, Critical Reasoning passages can be related to subjects such as economics, science, music theory, politics, and psychology, to name a few, but you don’t need to have any specialized knowledge of these subjects in order to answer CR questions.
Any information that you might need that is not contained within the CR passage will be information that is considered “common knowledge” for anyone with a high school (or even middle school) education.
For example, in evaluating the logic of CR answer choices in order to determine which is correct, you might need to know that profit equals the money taken in from selling something minus the cost of selling that thing, but you would never be required to know the relationship between mortgage interest rates and bond yields.
The former is common knowledge, while the latter is specialized knowledge in economics.
Aside from common sense and a basic level of education, all of the information you’ll need to answer a GMAT CR question will be within the written stimulus.
CR questions are not testing your level of knowledge about a particular topic; they’re testing your ability to logically evaluate information that is given to you.
The “author” of a GMAT CR passage may be some unidentified person writing about a plan or a proposal, a town’s mayor arguing for the implementation of a new law, or a concerned citizen who concludes that there are too many cars using the freeway near her house.
While the authors of these arguments vary from question to question, one commonality that they all share is that they assume that they are correct, whatever their argument may be. In other words, they assume that their arguments are sound and logical. Your job will be to parse their arguments — what conclusion has the author reached?
What evidence does she give to support the conclusion?
What assumptions does she make? — and to analyze, in some way, statements (answer choices) related to those arguments.
So, you won’t need to know anything about local politics or city planning to analyze the arguments of the town mayor or the concerned citizen, but you will need attention to detail, skill in the use of logic, careful, clear thinking, and an ability to sidestep mental traps and cognitive biases.
KEY FACT:
The authors of CR passages always assume that their arguments are sound, logical, and correct, whatever their arguments may be.
Now that we know the basic structure of CR questions and what they test, let’s take a look at the different types of CR questions you can encounter on the GMAT.
GMAT CR Question Types
There are 11 major GMAT Critical Reasoning question types:
- Find the Assumption: These questions ask you to select the answer choice that presents an assumption upon which the author’s argument depends.
- Weaken the Argument: These questions ask you to select the answer choice that presents a fact that would weaken or hurt the author’s argument.
- Strengthen the Argument: These questions ask you to select the answer choice that presents a fact that would support or help the author’s argument.
- Resolve a Paradox: These questions ask you to select the answer choice that presents a fact that would resolve a situation that appears to be (but is not actually) paradoxical.
- Cause and Effect: In general, these questions ask you to weaken, strengthen, or evaluate an argument that is based on cause-and-effect reasoning.
- Inference: These questions ask you to select the answer choice that presents an unwritten conclusion that must be true based on only the information presented in the passage.
- Find the Conclusion: These questions ask you to select the answer choice that presents a conclusion that is best supported by the passage.
- Evaluate the Argument: These questions ask you to select the answer choice that would best help you determine whether the given argument is well-constructed or poorly constructed.
- Logical Flaw: These questions ask you to select the answer choice that presents a flaw in the argument’s reasoning.
- Complete the Passage: These questions, which are hybrids with other question types, ask you to select the answer choice that best completes an uncompleted passage.
- Method of Reasoning and Bold Face: These questions ask you to determine the way that a passage is logically organized or structured.
Of those 11 question types, the first 3 — Assumption, Weaken, and Strengthen — are the most common, but you never know what mix of question types you’ll see on any given GMAT, so it’s important to be prepared for all of them. Luckily, all of the various GMAT CR question types call upon the same key skills: your ability to analyze an argument, your ability to understand what the question is asking you to find, and your ability to find that thing (and not something that the question isn’t asking you to find).
KEY FACT:
Assumption, Weaken, and Strengthen questions are the most common Critical Reasoning question types test-takers see on the GMAT.
So, let’s take a look at how to best refine and implement the skills you’ll need to conquer GMAT Critical Reasoning.
Tip #1: Practice Identifying the Parts of an Argument.
Every argument is composed of 3 key components: a premise or premises, which are the facts that form the foundation of the argument; one or more assumptions on which the argument is based; and a conclusion, which is supported by the premise.
There also may be some background information given in a CR passage, to add context to the argument (ex. The Turkey Lodge has been a free meeting space for community groups in the Town of Gobble for more than 40 years). It can be helpful to think of an argument as a math problem:
(any background info) + Premise + Assumption = Conclusion
To effectively analyze a passage presented in a GMAT CR question, it’s essential that you are able to identify which sentences provide evidence or background and which sentence presents the conclusion.
Remember, CR passages are quite brief — generally a handful of sentences — so identifying the function of the different sentences shouldn’t take long, once you know what to look for. With that in mind, let’s delve a little deeper into the 3 components of an argument.
Premise (Evidence): A premise is a fact that supports the argument’s conclusion and is used to build the argument. Such facts typically provide reasons for believing that the conclusion is correct or justification for the conclusion.
In other words, premises are the evidence provided by authors of Critical Reasoning arguments. This evidence may come in the form of statistics, observations, or results of scientific studies, to give a few examples.
The important thing to remember about premises given in a GMAT CR passage is that they are always statements of fact. You must consider any premise in a CR passage true.
KEY FACT:
Premises given in a GMAT CR passage are always statements of fact.
Assumption: Unlike premises, assumptions are not stated in the passage. An assumption is an unwritten piece of information that has to be true in order for the logic of a given argument to work.
In other words, if an argument‘s assumptions are found to be incorrect, the argument will fall apart. Thus, a vital part of any argument is its assumptions, because without them, the argument’s conclusion could not be true. Think of assumptions as the glue that connects the evidence to the conclusion.
You don’t see the glue — the information isn’t written on the page — but without it, the evidence and the conclusion don’t form a seamless whole.
KEY FACT:
An assumption is an unwritten piece of information that has to be true in order for the logic of a given argument to work.
Conclusion: The conclusion is the statement that an argument’s premises support. Conclusions come in the form of ideas, viewpoints, recommendations, suggestions, and plans of action, to name a few. Authors tend to use specific keywords to indicate that a conclusion is about to follow. Some common conclusion keywords are the following:
Therefore
In conclusion
Thus
Hence
Consequently
As a consequence
Accordingly
It follows that
For this reason
As a result
This shows that
It can be concluded that
Clearly
should
ought to
must
so
Of course, logic and critical analysis should always prevail when you’re looking for the conclusion in an argument, but these words are often useful cues that what follows is indeed a conclusion.
KEY FACT:
The conclusion is the statement that an argument’s premises support.
Since GMAT CR questions ask you to evaluate how various statements relate to the logic of a given argument, a great way to train for CR is to identify the argument’s key components.
In the beginning of your preparation with GMAT practice questions in Critical Reasoning, as you’re reading CR passages, identify the specific sentence or sentences that represent either a premise or a conclusion.
Doing so will also help you to notice any gaps in the argument’s logic — that is, assumptions, without which the evidence does not logically lead to the conclusion.
Let’s test these skills with a realistic GMAT Critical Reasoning practice question. Try to identify the premises and conclusion in the following passage, and of course, the assumption upon which the argument depends — in this case, the correct answer.
Energy Analyst: Given the amount of sunlight in our area of the world, even if the roof of the average house in our area of the world were completely covered with solar panels, the panels would provide only about two-thirds of the electrical power used by the appliances a house typically has. So, in our area of the world, rooftop solar will never be the sole source of electrical power for houses.
Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument is based?
- Electrically powered household appliances will not in general be redesigned to use around half the power that such appliances use today.
- A household would not save money by generating two-thirds of the electrical power it uses by using rooftop solar panels.
- People in the energy analyst’s area of the world are not concerned about the effects on the environment of using fossil fuels to generate electricity.
- In the future, solar panels will generate much more power per unit of area than solar panels available today generate.
- A roof covered with solar panels is not as attractive as a roof without solar panels.
Check the solution to this GMAT Critical Reasoning practice question here.
While we used an Assumption question for our example here, noticing assumptions is useful for more than just answering Assumption questions.
For instance, correct answers to Strengthen and Weaken often make a statement that either substantiates or undermines, respectively, an assumption in the given argument.
Overall, the point of this exercise is to learn to notice what is going on in a CR passage and to understand the logic of arguments in CR, as opposed to just reading passages and attempting to memorize what is said, or having some vague notion of why an argument makes sense. With enough of this detailed and methodical practice, zeroing in on the premises and conclusion in an argument, and recognizing any assumptions necessary for the argument’s logic to work, can become like second nature to you.
TTP PRO TIP:
In the beginning of your prep, as you’re reading CR passages in GMAT practice questions, identify the specific sentences that represent either a premise or a conclusion. Doing so will also help you to notice any gaps in the argument’s logic (assumptions).
To further test your skills, try your hand at this question and this one. Remember, identify the premises and conclusion in each passage, and try to notice any gaps in the arguments.
Tip #2: Do GMAT Critical Reasoning Practice Questions Untimed
We just discussed the importance of doing detailed and methodical analysis of passages in GMAT Critical Reasoning practice questions. Here’s the thing: that type of analysis is very unlikely to fit into a 1-, 2-, or even 3-minute window for finding a correct answer to a CR question.
However, that analysis is necessary for you to become more skilled at evaluating the logic of arguments and related statements in CR questions. And becoming more skilled at doing something is exactly how you become faster at it.
So, you must start your CR practice untimed. Resist the temptation to skip this necessary step and dive right into completing practice questions “on the clock.” Trust that, as you become better at evaluating the logic of the different answer choices and how each choice relates to the logic of the passage, you will naturally get faster at finding correct answers.
If you don’t initially give yourself time to learn to articulate why incorrect answers are incorrect and correct answers are correct, you ultimately put a ceiling on your ability to answer tough CR questions in the allotted time.
In the later stages of your GMAT prep, once you’ve gained the skills you need to answer CR questions accurately, you can further hone your skills by doing practice questions timed. By that point, you should be close to answering CR questions in a reasonable amount of time. So, adding the pressure of a ticking clock will be effective in helping you reach the next level of competency in CR, rather than be a source of frustration that discourages you because you aren’t prepared to handle the time constraints.
TTP PRO TIP:
In the beginning of your prep, do CR practice questions untimed.
Tip #3: Read the Passage First
Many people offering GMAT Critical Reasoning strategies recommend that test-takers read a CR question stem before reading the passage. The reasoning is that you will know which type of question you need to answer and can read the passage with that information in mind.
While this strategy may seem like a neat shortcut, I’ve found that students generally don’t save any time by approaching CR questions in this way. In fact, reading the question first can actually add to the time they spend on a CR question.
Why? Because if they’re thinking about the question and reading the passage with that in mind, they may be distracted from noticing details, making connections, or identifying gaps in the argument that they would otherwise see. They may even be tempted to glance back at the question from time to time as they’re reading the passage, to see whether they’ve hit on a sentence that answers the question.
Distracted reading is likely to result in a shallow or incomplete understanding of a CR argument, which will only make answering the question more challenging.
And at the end of the day, you will probably have to read the question stem again after you’ve read the passage, just to make sure that you’re answering the right question as you begin to eliminate answer choices. Is reading the question both before and after you read the passage an effective way to save time?
TTP PRO TIP:
Reading the passage before you read the question stem helps ensure that you don’t miss nuances and key details because you’re distracted by looking for a particular answer.
Tip #4: Do Not Assume That the Last Sentence is the Conclusion
Unfortunately, many GMAT Focus students have it in their heads that the conclusion of an argument in Critical Reasoning will always be the last sentence of the passage. Although an argument’s conclusion is quite often found at the end of the passage, the conclusion can appear anywhere within the passage. So, expecting the conclusion to always be the last sentence of the passage is a mistake.
Think about it: Why would accurately identifying an argument’s conclusion be so integral to correctly answering CR questions if every test-taker knew exactly where the conclusion would be stated 100% of the time?
So, be aware that the conclusion is often found at the end of a CR passage, but don’t assume that the conclusion will always be there. Instead, analyze the logic of the passage to pinpoint what the conclusion is.
TTP PRO TIP:
Don’t assume that an argument’s conclusion will always be at the end of the passage. Instead analyze the logic of the passage to pinpoint what the conclusion is.
Tip #5: Do Not Attempt to “Pre-Think” Answers
A gimmicky CR strategy that is all too common in GMAT circles is to attempt to “pre-think” the answer to a question. In other words, a test-taker reads the passage, reads the question stem, and then tries to guess what the correct answer will be without reading the answer choices. This is a rookie maneuver.
When test-takers pre-think, they fall into a number of extremely well-researched cognitive biases. These biases can make determining the correct answer to a CR question significantly harder, and at the same time, make falling into a trap much easier.
GMAT Focus question-writers have MASSIVE amounts of data on the mistakes that test-takers are likely to make when they pre-think answers. This data very surely is used to create trap answers that many “pre-thinkers” fall into.
Here at Target Test Prep, we too have large amounts of data on how students incorrectly “pre-think” answers to practice questions. And yes, to better prepare our students for challenges of the GMAT Focus, we use this data to engineer trap answer choices in our CR practice questions.
Remember, CR questions test your ability to analyze the logic of an argument or plan, not your ability to find a justification for your preconceived notion of what the answer should be.
More to the point, why waste your valuable time trying to guess what the answer will be when the actual 5 answer choices are right there in front of you? Skip the unnecessary task of pre-thinking an answer and simply read through the answer choices presented.
TTP PRO TIP:
Don’t try to guess what the correct answer will be before reading the answer choices in a CR question.
Tip #6: Do Not Match Words to Find Correct Answers
GMAT Critical Reasoning is not a word-matching game. So, beware of “hacks” that tell you to look for answer choices that mirror the language in the passage.
The truth is, you will not perform at a high level in CR by selecting answers merely because they include words that appear in the passage or say things that sound like what the passage says. Many CR trap answer choices have been worded to sound just like the passage, and many GMAT Focus test-takers take the bait.
Gimmicks that insist that you should select answer choices that match language in the passage don’t teach you how to analyze arguments and employ strong logic, and those are the skills you really need to master GMAT CR.
TTP PRO TIP:
Gimmicks that rely on word-matching are not reliable methods of finding correct answers to CR questions.
Tip #7: Eliminate Only Answers You’re Sure Are Wrong First
Usually, in a Critical Reasoning question, 3 of the 5 answer choices are pretty clearly incorrect. Those 3 clearly incorrect choices are the ones you’ll want to eliminate in your first pass through the answer choices. By first eliminating answer choices that are obviously not correct, you “narrow the field” and allow yourself to focus on the remaining 2 or 3 answers, which are usually more difficult to process and evaluate.
The important thing to remember is that eliminating answer choices that are clearly incorrect is vastly different from eliminating choices that you’re unsure about. In this first pass, you’ll want to keep those choices you think might be wrong but you’re unsure, or those answers that seem a little sketchy but could go either way. Keeping those choices will give you a chance to evaluate them more closely.
Furthermore, you may be surprised to learn that test-takers often eliminate the correct answer to a CR first! Why? Because the correct answer to a CR question often says something that is not obviously connected to the argument. So, if you’re unsure about an answer choice because you can’t immediately connect it to the argument, but you’re not 100% sure that it’s wrong, you’re better off hanging onto it to evaluate it further.
Additionally, if you’re having trouble finding an answer choice that works, remember that you can always revisit choices that you’ve eliminated. It may be that you mistakenly eliminated the correct answer.
TTP PRO TIP:
On your first pass through the answer choices, eliminate only those answers you’re sure are incorrect, not any answers you’re unsure about.
Tip #8: Rely on Pinpoint Logic Instead of “Gut Instinct”
A major part of being certain that a CR answer choice is incorrect is using clear, strong logic instead of “gut instinct.” In other words, you must be able to pinpoint exactly why an incorrect answer is incorrect, rather than basing your decisions on a vague idea that something “seems off” or “doesn’t seem like it would be right.”
In the same way that you shouldn’t allow your “gut” to decide which answers are wrong, you shouldn’t allow it to choose the correct answer either. In fact, a fundamental error that many test-takers make is to merely reread the 2 final choices they have to decide between and rely on gut instinct to choose which is correct. Even if they’ve employed sound logic up to that point, it’s almost as if these test-takers give up in the end because they just want to be done with the question.
If you want to win a race, you can’t collapse 10 feet before the finish line. Likewise, if you want to earn a high GMAT Focus Verbal score, you can’t simply “leave it up to fate” when you’re down to 2 answers in a question. On the contrary, that is precisely the time to really turn on your critical-thinking skills and higher-order logic and relentlessly seek out the correct answer.
The truth is, relying on your gut is no better than flipping a coin. Your gut can make up all sorts of stories and jump to all kinds of conclusions that are not supported by the information in the passage. The GMAT question-writers know this. The question-writers know that your gut is more likely to select trap choices written to seem correct than to select actual correct answers. They have set their traps to take advantage of the fact that when you rely on instinct, you abandon logical reasoning.
TTP PRO TIP:
To avoid falling for trap choices that seem correct, use pinpoint logic instead of gut instinct to clearly articulate why answers are either correct or incorrect.
Now that you have these 8 essential GMAT Critical Reasoning tips, let’s discuss how to pace yourself when answering CR questions.
GMAT CR Pacing Strategy
The GMAT Verbal section is made up of 23 questions that you have a total of 45 minutes to complete. So, you have an average of 1:57 minutes to complete each Verbal question—just under 2 minutes. Of course, not all Verbal questions are created equal. Some Reading Comprehension questions, for example, may take you 4 or 5 minutes.
For Critical Reasoning questions, a smart strategy is to shoot for the “average time” mark or just under it, planning to spend about 1.5 to 2 minutes on each question. However, be aware that some of the more difficult CR questions could take you closer to 2.5 minutes to solve. At the end of the day, if you’re spending a little less than the time-per-question average on some CR questions, you’ll have a little extra time to spare for some more difficult ones.
What’s Next?
Check out my top 8 Reading Comprehension dos and don’ts for more ways to increase your GMAT Focus Verbal score.
