CR - I'm helpless....

[svaradhan]

Hi All,

This is my firt post to "beatthegmat - CR" forum. I'm preparing for GMAT which is scheduled for 11th July. One of my weak areas is CR and I have gone through a lot of strategies from this site and various other sites. I have tried to implement them but nothing seems to be working. Predominantly, I make mistakes in Bold face CR, bringing out the assumptions and drawing conclusions. Can somone help me with what is it that I'm lacking or how can I improve in my accuracy? When I do the test I don't realize it but when I go through the same question after the test, I realize my mistake. But it is not helping me in anyway.

Any help in this regard will be deeply appreicated as I just have 1 more month to go.

Thanks,
Sree

[2008]

same problem here, exam on the 10th

[lunarpower]

Hi All,

This is my firt post to "beatthegmat - CR" forum. I'm preparing for GMAT which is scheduled for 11th July. One of my weak areas is CR and I have gone through a lot of strategies from this site and various other sites. I have tried to implement them but nothing seems to be working. Predominantly, I make mistakes in Bold face CR, bringing out the assumptions and drawing conclusions. Can somone help me with what is it that I'm lacking or how can I improve in my accuracy? When I do the test I don't realize it but when I go through the same question after the test, I realize my mistake. But it is not helping me in anyway.

Any help in this regard will be deeply appreicated as I just have 1 more month to go.

Thanks,
Sree

i'll concentrate on the last 2 areas you mentioned - finding assumptions and drawing conclusions - because those 2 areas are EXTREMELY common on the exam, while the first area you mentioned (finding the role played by boldface parts) is quite rare.

CR: DRAWING CONCLUSIONS
* drawing conclusions on the gmat will be a shock to your system - especially because of what one might call the hypocrisy involved: the conclusions YOU are supposed to draw are not the same types of conclusions that THEY draw in their passages.
- you are supposed to draw 'autistic style' conclusions - i.e., conclusions that are not even 'conclusions' at all, in the traditional conversational sense of the word.
- all you're supposed to do is RESTATE, PARAPHRASE, or TRANSFORM the information that's already given in the passage; you are NOT supposed to make ANY assumptions, however reasonable those assumptions may seem.
- to eliminate answer choices on drawing conclusions problems, look for ANYTHING that's not explicitly treated in the passage. for instance, if the passage only talks about percentages of GDP, then any choice referring to dollar values of GDP is out of the question. For similar reasons, any answer choice that extrapolates or makes predictions is never going to be the correct answer to one of these problems.

* if you have QUANTITATIVE passages for these problems, MAKE A TABLE OR GRAPH. that will make it much easier to see the relationships between the different quantities in the problems; you'll then be able to see the correct answers, which tend to TRANSFORM the data into different forms, more easily.

* you can get a lot of mileage out of just eliminating all the answer choices that are irrelevant to the passage (where 'irrelevant' includes all the answer choices that contain ANYTHING not directly related to the content of the passage).

* for certain CR problem types (most notably Find an Assumption and Draw a Conclusion), you must STICK TO THE CONTENT OF THE PASSAGE. (in contrast, for other problem types, such as 'strengthen the conclusion', you MUST go OUTSIDE of the passage for additional information.)
- this simple observation can be a powerful tool for process of elimination. to wit: imagine that a debate judge has handed you a list of the SPECIFICS that are treated in the passage, and will BUZZ you if you mention anything that doesn't show up on that list of specifics. the thing is: correct answers to 'find the assumption' and 'draw a conclusion' problems WON'T GET BUZZED in this situation, because they stick to the specific points actually contained in the passage. you'd be surprised how much mileage you can get from just eliminating the answer choices that get 'buzzed'.

* remember the four principal types of assumptions:
- FILL IN A LOGIC GAP: this is the most common type of assumption. if you draw an arrow between two statements that have any sort of disconnect, then you need an assumption that connects those two statements so that the proper inference may be drawn. for instance, if a premise talks about drivers who receive speeding tickets, and the conclusion deals with drivers who speed, then you need an assumption that says something about speeders actually receiving speeding tickets.
- BACK UP A QUESTIONABLE PREMISE: just what it says. if the logic in the argument is solid, but one of the premises seems a bit fanciful or unrealistic, then you might need an assumption to back it up. remember the example problem about bank customers: the logic in the passage was solid, but one of the premises required the rather questionable assumption that customers can actually determine whether their bank is stable.
- ELIMINATE ALTERNATE CAUSES: if you have a conclusion that says something like 'this is the BEST way do X' or 'this is the ONLY way to do X', then you need an assumption that other methods / paths / techniques won't work.
- ELIMINATE ALTERNATE DIRECTION OF CAUSALITY: if the conclusion has anything to do with CAUSALITY (X causes Y), then you need an assumption stating that the causality doesn't run the other way (i.e., Y doesn't cause X).