Hi GMATters,

Recently I was writing a post for TopMBA (capped at 1000 words!) and it sort of exploded on me.
The result is this guide. Hope you enjoy!

https://yourgmatcoach.withcoach.com/fre ... -reasoning

BTW here's the TopMBA link: (https://www.topmba.com/blog/ancient-tec ... -questions)

If you want to try it out, I've included a sample below.

Rowan
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What is an assumption?

An assumption is a nebulous concept-at its most basic, you can think of it as something that "holds facts together."

Another way to think about it is that facts themselves are like carved pieces of wood that make a chair.

Now the better the woodcarver has made the pieces, the better they fit together.
That's not to say that there will be no spaces-even in the best-made furniture, there will be spaces at some level.

However, a great craftsman (or craftswoman!) can make a chair without using any glue at all-simply because these pieces fit together so snugly, they make a sturdy chair that can support a huge amount of weight.

An assumption, on the other hand, is like the glue. When the chair pieces are poorly carved, the glue is necessary to hold it together.

If the pieces don't really fit together and there is a lot of space that needs glue, the chair doesn't support much weight at all.

In fact, the more glue there is for a given number of pieces, the less weight the chair will hold.
Arguments work like this: the more snugly facts fit together, the less room there is for misinterpretation or false conclusions.

In other words, the closer-fit the facts are, the sturdier the arguments! In other other words, the broader the assumption in an argument, the weaker the argument.

To paraphrase that dumbass teacher you had in high school (you know which one I'm talking about): "When you assume, you make an ASS out of U and ME."

https://yourgmatcoach.withcoach.com/fre ... -reasoning