Hi btgsnt.
GMAT critical reasoning is in a way pretty straightforward, but the prompts and questions can seem daunting at first.
One of the most important things to do when beginning to work on developing CR skills is to work very slowly and carefully. While eventually you need to be able to answer them in two minutes or less, in the beginning handling each question might take even fifteen minutes.
That is FINE. Take five, ten, fifteen minutes per question, whatever it takes to see what is going on in the prompts and answer choices. As you practice, you can be sure that you will speed up.
When you are working on questions, notice the key parts of the prompts, parts such as underlying premises and, in particular, the conclusions. Seeing the conclusions clearly is particularly important, because most CR questions are based things having to do with the conclusions. So if you are not clear about an argument's conclusion, likely you will not get the correct answer.
For instance, an argument's conclusion could have something to do with URBAN unemployment. Then an answer choice might discuss NATIONAL unemployment. If it's not clear to you that the conclusion and the answer choice are focused on two related but different things, you could get tricked into choosing that choice.
So seeing conclusions clearly is key, and really in a way CR is testing your vision, in addition to your logical skills.
Another thing that's key for rocking CR is noticing key details. Even one word can make or break an answer choice.
Most importantly, logic trumps all in CR. All the strategies people talk about will not get you right answers if you don't clearly see the logic of the arguments and how the answer choices relate to that logic. So as you do questions, look at all of the answer choices and seek to figure out why ALL of the wrong answers are wrong and the right answer is right. Getting good at this is probably not going to take an hour or two. It may take you a week or two, but by being super careful, analytical and diligent you can get great at this.
You can get some more ideas by looking over the explanations to CR questions that can be found in these forums. I, along with other pros, often discuss the types of trick answers being used and show how to use the logic of the prompts and answer choices to get to the clearly right answers. You can also post questions yourself, and we will be happy to show you exactly how to determine which answer is correct.
