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Critical Reasoning Tips

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Critical Reasoning Tips

by mbadotcom » Thu Nov 15, 2012 3:48 pm
I am really struggling to improve in CR. I have read and heard multiple times that it is not about doing a laundry list of problems to improve your score. Its more about the quality of your studying, and how you analyze each question and every answer choice, which I have been doing. I was wondering if anyone could provide study tips on how we should be analyzing the answer choices? My issue is I don't think my thought process is very effective- I certainly want to figure out the best way to approach this. Any tips/ advice would be appreciated. Thank you!
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by Jim@StratusPrep » Fri Nov 16, 2012 7:23 am
1) Identify Portions of the passage - Premise, Details, and Conclusion (possible counter conclusion)
2) Predict Answer after reading question
3) Ask why each answer is 'wrong' or not like your answer
4) Select the least wrong answer
5) Some criteria to decide among final answer choices - Does the subject of the answer match the subject of the passage/portion of the passage in questions? How many steps of logic do I need to take to make this answer correct? (fewer the better).
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by David@VeritasPrep » Fri Nov 16, 2012 1:30 pm
The key to the Verbal Section is to narrow your focus. Unlike the Quant section where you should probably use all the information that you are given and in fact try to expand that information (for example in a geometry problem) on the Verbal section that give you TOO MUCH information, about 50% of which is not actually something to focus on for that problem.

For sentence correction the stuff that you do not need to focus on is modifiers, extra clauses, prepositions, etc. For critical reasoning the stuff that you do not need to focus on is called "context" or "background information." What you do need to focus on is the evidence (usually a single premise) and the conclusion.

Here is an article that I wrote that will help you separate these things out. Background, evidence, and conclusion.
https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/02/ ... duncan-way

The incorrect answers often tie in the extraneous details found in the background information. You can learn to recognize what really matters and this will help you to have an idea of what the answer should be before you go to the answer choices to get lost!
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by GMAT Kolaveri » Fri Nov 16, 2012 8:47 pm
You need to master only one skill to do well in Critical Reasoning and that skill is *Reasoning*

Here are my tips for improving in CR

* Improve your reasoning skill. When attempting Strengthen, weaken, assumption type of question try to guess more than one possible answer. It is called Pre-thinking or para-phrasing the possible correct answer.
check this post: https://www.beatthegmat.com/the-answer-t ... tml#467125

* Think from your perspective or think of the argument like a dialogue. How would you answer to the argument to strengthen or weaken it. Personalize the argument.

* Don't worry about the time during the initial practice. Put in more effort and time in *reasoning*.
Once you improve your reasoning skills you will take very less time on the test.

* Don't try to apply rules to eliminate answer options. This is time consuming. Pre-think and then browse thro' the AOs to find the correct answer. Use can use POE Process of Elimination as a secondary skill. But your primary skill in CR must be *reasoning*

* Practice identifying the sections of the argument - premises, conclusion, assumptions.
Try to identify the logical gap or jump from the premises to the conclusion. Identify this gap will help you to find a possible answer that could either strengthen or weaken the conclusion.

https://www.beatthegmat.com/cr-t142755.html#530270
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