GMAT Strategy

here are a few general suggestions and guidelines.

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* 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'.

* if your goal is to WEAKEN an argument, try to identify the ASSUMPTIONS behind the argument, and choose a choice that strikes down one of those assumptions. if all else fails, pick the choice that stays closest to the content of the passage itself (the more "links" you need to connect the answer choice to the passage, the less likely it is to be the correct answer).

* same thing for STRENGTHENING passages. if all else fails, try to pick the answer choice that's MOST DIRECTLY related to the passage - the more degrees of separation, the smaller the choice of being correct.
answer choices that need 2 or more "links" to connect logically to the passage WILL be wrong.

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finally, a word about the mentality that you have to take into reading and processing these passages:
if an argument connects ANY two specifics that aren't literally the same, then the argument requires an assumption that connects / relates those two specifics to one another.
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.

this is a difficult sort of thing to look for, because you really have to "turn off the common sense module" in your brain. in other words, you have to think like an autistic - if two things are not LITERALLY THE SAME, then you should consider them to be COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. in other words, "drivers who receive speeding tickets" and "drivers who speed" should look just as different to you as would "drivers who receive speeding tickets" and "drivers with red hair".

once you learn to think that way, you'll be on your way to a much better CR score.

good luck.

more CR strategies pertaining to FIND THE ASSUMPTION and DRAW A CONCUSION problems:

* when you go through critical reasoning passages, you need to be able to sort out IRRELEVANT INFORMATION. there are 2 kinds:
- (a) parts of "conclusions" that really aren't conclusions at all. there's a simple way to tell whether this happens: if something isn't mentioned in the premises, then it can't possibly be part of the conclusion. in other words, the conclusion actually has to come FROM the premises, so anything not in the premises can't be part of the conclusion.
- (b) "bowling pins" or "setup statements": if a passage starts out by telling you some piece of information and then constructs an argument for the sole purpose of proving that statement wrong, then the initial statement (the "bowling pin") doesn't even count as part of the argument.

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when you're looking for an ASSUMPTION or trying to draw a CONCLUSION, remember that those things can NEVER, ever, be more general than the premises you start with. for instance, if a passage talks about weightlifting, you CANNOT have assumptions regarding "exercise" in general - because any other exercise is irrelevant to / out of the scope of the passage.

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remember that assumptions are things that MUST be true. because of this, there's another way that you can attack assumption problems, if necessary:
- REVERSE the assumption in the answer choice, and see if the argument FALLS APART. if it doesn't, then the assumption is not required.

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on ALL critical reasoning questions, but especially on "find the assumption" and "draw a conclusion", you need to be able to do the following 2 things:
- (1) learn to treat all SPECIFICS as objective, judgment-free things. for instance, in problem #V63, "easily" (in choice c) should be treated as would any other mention of an irrelevant specific. in other words, just because "easily" is a common word that's thrown around a lot in conversation doesn't mean you can gloss over it in the answer choice. you should pay absolutely as much attention to it as you would to something like "decisions should be made in blue jeans".
- (2) learn to treat ANY SPECIFICS THAT ARE AT ALL DIFFERENT as COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. in other words, in CR land, there are only two possibilities: (a) two things are exactly the same, or (b) they are completely unrelated without evidence. in CR land, there is no such thing as "similar" or "like each other". so you should get to the point where 2 things such as "people who commit murder" and "people convicted of murder" sound COMPLETELY unrelated, just because they're not exactly the same.

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* if an argument contains a conditional (an "if-then" statement), then any statement for which the IF part is FALSE lies outside the scope of the passage. for instance, if i say "i like redheads", then that's "if she's a redhead, then i'll like her". therefore, any non-redheads are outside the scope of this argument.

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when you draw conclusions, your conclusions have to be PERFECTLY DEDUCTIVE. they CANNOT MAKE ANY ADDITIONAL ASSUMPTIONS, no matter how seemingly trivial.

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you're not allowed to have "vacuously true" statements as conclusions. for instance, in the port blockade problem (og#101), you can deduce from the passage that the blockade won't be successful. therefore, anything starting with "if the blockade is successful..." should be considered out of scope.

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when you draw conclusions, you MUST remember that your conclusions NEED TO STAY DEDUCTIVE. among other things, this means that you ABSOLUTELY CANNOT EXTRAPOLATE, even by a little bit.
- ex: there's one OG problem about fish catch and rainforests. in that problem, you have to limit yourself to ... fish catch and rainforests. you CANNOT generalize to "nature".

sonu_thekool wrote:Btw, is it true that the passages from the VR book seem so easy and the ones from OG are so difficult to comprehend ? Or is it just my feeling ??

the generally accepted consensus is that the yellow o.g. has a much wider range of difficulty - for both the quant and the verbal - than does the purple verbal supplement.
so, regarding the difficult problems, you may be right. but it's probably also the case that the yellow o.g. contains a great deal more easy problems, too; you just may not notice those.

Any strategies on Resolve the Paradox type since that is the next important type after the major ones ?

why don't you post a couple of the ones you found more difficult?
it's much easier to get takeaways / strategy points from actual problems than from hand-waving generalities.