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advise on how to attempt critical reasoning weaken question

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advise on how to attempt critical reasoning weaken question

by saurabhdhakad » Sat Aug 17, 2013 1:00 pm
Hi,

Need help on critical reasoning weaken and strengthen questions.
I can identify the conclusion and the flow, but i still struggle with right answer a lot.
I try to guess the assumption before attacking the question , but sometimes they are near by but mostly they are very different from what we say - linking the conclusion with premises-.
I am unable to figure out where i am stuck.

Any advise would be really helpful.
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by [email protected] » Sat Aug 17, 2013 3:57 pm
Hi saurabhdhakad,

CR prompts tend to follow a standard format: someone has a conclusion that is based on a limited amount of evidence. It's important to be clear on the SPECIFICS of the prompt because the correct answer will almost always discuss the same things that the paragraph discussed. Taking notes while reading (and linking the ideas that the author discusses) will help you to find the correct answer. You do need to know that sometimes CR prompts have more than 1 central assumption (hard CR prompts will have up to 4 assumptions), so if you predict an answer that isn't there, that does not mean that you're wrong - it means that there are other predictions that you could have made and one of those is the correct answer.

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by saurabhdhakad » Sun Aug 18, 2013 5:08 am
Thanks Rich.

I will try to find unusual gaps and make notes from other questions.

But sometimes these assumption are presented in a really twisted manner that even negating two of the options sound to affect the argument and thats what really adds to confusion.Whether one you seem u thought is correct or one thats new and also affecting the argument is correct :| [/img]
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by [email protected] » Sun Aug 18, 2013 2:16 pm
Hi saurabhdhakad,

It sounds like you're talking about a tactic called "the negation test", which is a tactic that is taught by certain prep companies. While some people are a fan of this approach, I am not because it forces to you into spending lots of time thinking about answers that really have nothing to do with the prompt. You'll find it more useful to put your time and effort into understanding the author's logic and predicting what you'll see in the correct answer (instead of trying to figure out if each answer fits the prompt). The EMPOWERgmat course uses a method called the CR Box which allows you to quickly take notes and determine what the correct answer would say.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
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