Try this technique:
In your practice you can take some brief notes. But by test day you want to get it down to the point where you just write down what you need the answer to say or do.
When you practice Strengthen, assumption, and "most useful to know in order to evaluate" questions write out the conclusion and the "most important premise" (for a definition of what this is please read
https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/02/ ... duncan-way)
With these questions what you are eventually trying to do is to create what I call a "mantra." A mantra is a few words describing what the answer choice must do. From the example in the article above the mantra is "more flexibility = less sleep deprivation." I call it a mantra because you repeat it over and over as you go through the answer choices.
In your practice sessions you can write all three of these things down -- Conclusion, MIP, and mantra -- eventually you want to get to the point where you only write the mantra. This is where you want to be for test day. Writing fewer than 12 words will not take long and this is the result of your thought process, so it is good to have this down.
You see people get much more confused when sorting through the answer choices as opposed to reading the stimulus. The stimulus can seem quite clear when you are working through it but things get a little fuzzy after looking at 3 - 4 answer choices. That is why you write the mantra - if you write down what the answer choice must do then you never have to go back and re-read the stimulus. You can reset at any time while you are working through the answer choices - just look back at the mantra. "Oh, yeah, I need something that says "more flex = more sleep."
For PLAN questions just focus on the plan achieving or not achieving the goal. This is your mantra.
For weaken questions you really just need to focus on supporting the opposite of the main conclusion. Make this your mantra.
For INFERENCE questions do not take any notes. Just eliminate the incorrect options with a simple A B C D E and mark out each choices as you eliminate.
By test day you really should be able to write no more than 12 words for any particular critical reasoning and the words you do write should be THE RESULT OF YOUR THOUGHT PROCESS not the process itself. That is why you want to write the mantra so that you can refocus if you get lost on the answer choices. You should not be using your note pad to do your thinking on critical reasoning. You are right that it does make sense to write so much. So try this!
