Critical Reasoning

David@VeritasPrep wrote:These are not typical GMAT questions!

These are both sort of fun and a little funny as well.

The first one the correct answer is C. The conclusion is that one's freedom is ALWAYS worth risking one's life. And then it gives a crazy little example about Guantanamo Bay prison. Clearly that does not justify "always."

The second one is one that I have seen before. I will not even trouble you by discussing it. This is the purest example of formal logic not on the GMAT!

David

Hi David,

Thank you very much for letting me know. Your posts are extremely helpful - I actually print out and highlight some of your threads and incorporate your ideas with my studies. Thanks for making a difference in my prep.

In terms of logical reasoning sets, I don't skip questions - I just do 24 or 25 in a row, then I check my answers. When I review my mistakes and see some of the questions that require formal logic (such as the questions I posted yesterday), I just move on to the next question. I have plenty of LR questions to get to anyway!

Hi David,

Thank you for this wonderful article. I have been researching on how to use LSAT materials for quite a while and your post is incredibly useful.

On your recommendation I have purchased "10 More Actual Official, LSAT Prep Tests". I plan to do the first 26 questions per your suggestion. However, in the book each test has two CR sections: Section- 2 and Section 3, each section contains 25 questions. Can you please guide on which questions I should attempt? Thanks again for the wonderfully informative post.


Regards,
Yuvraj

What I actually said was that you should do questions 1 through 16 of each test (by that I meant each logical reasoning section). Yes there are two sections and each one has from 24 to 26 questions. As you mentioned they most often have 25 questions each. The first 16 of those questions are generally more applicable to the GMAT as questions 17 on (in each section) are usually more technical or just too tough. However, you should not just automatically do 1 - 16 and you should not automatically skip the ones from 17 on. Remember the other points that I mentioned, specifically, having practice lots of GMAT questions you should know what is similar to the GMAT and what is not.

Here are some example problems that I posted with the article to show you what is a good question to study and what is not.

https://www.beatthegmat.com/lsat-problem ... 70055.html

https://www.beatthegmat.com/lsat-questio ... 70787.html

https://www.beatthegmat.com/lsat-problem ... 72345.html

LSAT questions not to study

https://www.beatthegmat.com/lsat-problem ... 70244.html


LSAT questions to try for fun

https://www.beatthegmat.com/lsat-problem ... 72380.html

https://www.beatthegmat.com/lsat-problem ... 73718.html



Have fun!

David,

Thanks for the extremely quick reply. Really appreciate all your help.

Regards,
Yuvraj

David,

Want to convey my sincere thanks to you. I recently took my GMAT and scored a 760(q50 v44). Your articles on LSAT were immensely helpful and helped a lot in taking my verbal skills to the next level.

Regards,
Yuvraj

Yes!!! Congratulations! You did it! That is fantastic. A 760 is the 99th percentile. And your verbal was the 98th percentile. A 50Q 44V is the "dream score."

I am glad to have helped out even just a little!

I really wanted to add alternative perspective to the topic after my own experience. I practiced good amount of LSAT questions mostly 1 to 16 and from the Aristotle LSAT 101 set. Sure they are great questions and I certainly got better at logical reasoning of it - but to my surprise I went back to practice OG13 last 30-40 questions. Guess what - for questions that require "LOGICAL" reasoning - I was better. But many that require "critical" reasoning I started performing "poorly".

I have to say using LSAT question are very well written in terms of logic flow. GMAT questions are NOT. Infact the harder GMAT questions are very good at scope shift and require intuitive approach (So I am discovering the harder way!). More so with GMAT trending to more fill in the blank type questions.

So in nutshell - I question whether the advise of using LSAT questions with the new flavor of test still is as useful as it was.

sophrosyne - Perhaps surprisingly, I agree with you. I wrote this posting in 2010 when there were very few Official GMAC resources and the resources from other companies were not extensive and in general not very good. My recent posts on this matter have been primarily to help people who have already decided to use the LSAT questions to do so in a responsible manner.

Since 2010 my opinion has changed . I wrote about this recently in another posting and this is what I said,

"As someone who has advised students on how to use the LSAT to study for the GMAT, let me say that ... many new resources have come out making LSAT questions less necessary for many people.

Some of those new GMAT-specific resources are:

The GMATPrep Pack 1 add-on is a very exciting edition available for purchase from GMAC. Hundreds of new questions delivered on the computer. Practicing questions on the computer is a more realistic way to practice.

Speaking of attempting questions on the computer,the FREE Veritas Prep question bank https://www.veritasprep.com/gmat-question-bank/ is a great resource for GMAT-specific questions.

Two new CAT exams for purchase from GMAC -- Exam Pack 1 add-on. Two more official practice tests.

The FREE Veritas Prep practice test has been showing very reliable results for people. Link for this test is at the bottom of my signature line.

In addition of course, the official materials available in print are still pretty great:
Official Guide 13th edition, Quant Review 2nd edition, and Verbal Review 2nd edition.

These GMAT specific resources [are] preferable to LSAT questions. And there are literally thousands of GMAT questions represented by these materials. However, [some] people may still run out of official questions or may want to benefit from the difficulty level of LSAT questions."


I then went on to mention three types of people that might work with LSAT questions.

"The only time the that LSAT materials should even be considered is when someone is A) Going for a JD - MBA degree in the US (in which case study the LSAT verbal first and then the GMAT) B) Has run out of GMAT-specific materials and wants to see new questions rather than going over old ones yet another time. C) Is really good at critical reasoning - thinks that it is fun - and wants a challenge.

For the regular test-taker I agree with you ... You are taking the GMAT, study for the GMAT!"

Thanks sophrosyne for helping me to clarify that!!

Just wanted to add -- I recently bought and went through this book from Examcrackers LSAT:

https://www.amazon.com/Examkrackers-Logi ... 1893858537

I used to suggest GMAT CR students really just stick to GMAT CR, but this LSAT book does a GREAT, non-boring job of building knowledge and increasing comfort-level with arguments and how they are constructed. I LOVE it, and it's quickly becoming my favorite CR book for GMAT as well.

If you do check out this book, notice how the chapters are separated by LSAT question-type. You'll want to ignore the chapters with questions such as "Main Point" or "Conform" which are not on the GMAT, but the chapters for "Assumption," "Weaken," "Parallel Reasoning," etc. are GOLD.

While this should by no means be your only book for GMAT CR, it's a great supplement, esp. for students who are consistently missing Assumption, Strengthen, and Weaken questions.

Thanks for the note David.

I should add: I discovered Veritas free question bank two days before I replied to this post. They are excellent questions for GMAT CR.

To my fellow test takers I highly recommend logging into Veritas prep and trying your hand at these free questions. I can say with confidence that for critical reasoning (only section I have tried so far) these are amongst the best GMAT style CR questions I have come across. I wish I would have not taken the LSAT detour and lost the time!

Should we work only on the questions numbered from 1 to 16 from the LSAT and igonre the other ones ?

No. I would not say that. I would say that the questions from 17 on are generally the toughest ones on the LSAT so those are harder than you would likely see on the GMAT.

You do not have to ignore them - just remember that it is about learning and that you can learn from a question even if you miss it.

The questions to not take time on are the ones that will not be on the GMAT at all like parallel reasoning. You should skip those wherever they are, even question 1.

Mostly, have fun and learn!

David

Hi David,

I liked the example and the insights you had given to the Critical reasoning preps from LSAT papers. I currently am working on the critical reasoning of the LSATS and I find that I get 50% of the answers right. I do not know if am doing fine. But i use only the allotted 35 minutes for 25 questions as per the LSAT norms just to get better at GMAT timing. I am preparing for the GMAT.

Hello David,

Coincidentally my CR skill seems to have the same demerit as that of Tinki - getting caught between two prospect options and ending up with the wrong one. And yes, the left out option of the two is mostly the correct answer .
As mentioned in earlier thread, that an example may help you to have a better understanding of our plight, here is a recent one with which I had to struggle:
# Political candidates' speeches are loaded with promises
and with expressions of good intention, but one must
not forget that the politicians' purpose in giving these
speeches is to get themselves elected. Clearly, then,
these speeches are selfishly motivated and the promises
made in them are unreliable.

Which one of the following most accurately describes a
flaw in the argument above?

(A) The argument presumes, without providing
justification, that if a person's promise is not
selfishly motivated then that promise is
reliable.
(B) The argument presumes, without providing
justification, that promises made for selfish
reasons are never kept.
(C) The argument confuses the effect of an action
with its cause.
(D) The argument overlooks the fact that a promise
need not be unreliable just because the person
who made it had an ulterior motive for doing so.
(E) The argument overlooks the fact that a
candidate who makes promises for selfish
reasons may nonetheless be worthy of the
office for which he or she is running

So, I was in a dilemma between A & D. Both seems identical to me, even after knowing that my pick - A is incorrect and thus D had to be the correct one. thank to my special ability of LoosingAtTheLastGround.

Please provide your insights , as I have been caught in this trap since long.

Thank you in advance.

David@VeritasPrep wrote:

sir i am scoring an accuracy of 60 to 58 percent in all 25 questions sometimes even 70
so should i think my CR is being improved