Critical Reasoning

sidceg wrote:Hi,

The typical way how I solve a CR question is just read the question and the stimulus and then answer the question. I usually get 5 to 6 out of 10 questions correct (with equal number of easy medium and difficult questions) but no boldface question correct. Is my method advisable or should I draw a map for every stimulus and classify each information is premise/counter premise/conclusion/counter conclusion and then find out the missing assumption before attempting to answer the question? How to solve a CR question in less than 1:45 min?

Dear sidceg,
I'm happy to help with this.

GMAT CR are a hard nut to crack. First, I would say: learn the different question types. Here's a blog that discusses the basic types. Do not do all that mapping & classifying for every question type. For assumption questions, it's very useful to have a ballpark idea of the assumption before you start looking at answers. For paradox or "resolve the discrepancy" questions, the answer is almost always some oddball thing that you couldn't predict, so it's better not to waste time on mapping or predicting and just move directly to the answer choices. Proper strategy depends very much on the type of question. Here's a blog on that:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/save-time- ... questions/
Usually, you can figure out the basic question type very easily, simply by reading the question at the end of the argument. Once you know the question type, that should give you an idea of the proper strategic approach.
Since you mentioned boldface questions, here's a blog on that:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/gmat-criti ... questions/
To some extent, one simply gets better with practice, especially if one is diligent about learning from the mistakes & typical traps on each question. Here's a just a collection of GMAT CR practice questions:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/more-gmat- ... questions/

Here's another GMAT CR practice question:
https://gmat.magoosh.com/questions/3129

Does all this help?
Mike

Hi sidceg,

CR prompts include a variety of question types (assumption, inference, weaken, flaw, etc.), so you need to understand the differences (as well as the similarities) so that you can adjust your approach accordingly. EVERY CR question requires a certain amount of note-taking. The tough part is that by the time you start the Verbal section of the GMAT, you're going to be tired and you won't want to take notes. You have to decide what you want MORE though: a high GMAT score or not to take notes.

The EMPOWERgmat course uses a tactic called the CR Box, which is a way to organize your information and quickly deduce what the correct answer needs to say. Most companies have their own version of note-taking, so you should look at the options and use whichever one helps you to get those questions correct.

As an aside, the general pacing rule is 2 minutes per CR question ON AVERAGE; sometimes you'll spend more time than that, sometimes less.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

sidceg wrote:Thank you guys. Yes I get the point. I think that identifying the question and then picking up the strategy for that particular question type will take a lot of time. And then, if needed, I'll have to create a map for the stimulus. And then answer the question. So how do I do this in less than 2 minutes?

Dear sidceg,
Hmmm. What you say seems a little confusing. Learning the various strategies for the different CR questions will take time --- that's a healthy investment of study time. By contrast, identifying the question type --- that should take less than 5 seconds. GMAT has the uniform structure --- (a) prompt argument, (b) prompt question, and (c) five answer choices. If you read the prompt question first, that ALWAYS makes clear what kind of question it is. Once you get used to the different question types, the i.d. process is lightning fast.

I will also say ---- this is a very tricky point about the GMAT CR. On the one hand, you don't need to have special outside knowledge to answer any given GMAT CR question. On the other hand, you need to have a very good general overall sense of what I might call the "push and pull" of real world forces. For example, you should have a basic intuitive idea about the priorities & issues in business, in law, in science, in medicine, in academics, etc. etc. You should have a good general sense of what's reasonable and what is patently unreasonable. GMAT CR question have, as a kind of background, a strong current of reasonability. BTW, if you are taking the GMAT and applying to B-school, it simply can't hurt to have a very good sense of what kinds of things business executives think are important, what kinds of priorities a typical business has, etc.

Having this good real world sense of things does help the GMAT CR to go faster. If you don't have that, how do you get it? Well, I strongly recommend reading good newspapers, such as the New York Times or the World Street Journal. I highly recommend the weekly news magazine The Economist, arguably one of the finest weekly periodicals in print. This reading will help your GMAT RC, obvious. If you pay attention to the high level of sentence structure, it will help your GMAT SC. And, if you follow the arguments, and develop a sense for what is important to people of various perspectives, this will give you an enormous edge on GMAT CR.

Here is a series of articles that at least begins to outline some of this real world stuff:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-supply-and-demand/
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-labor-and-wages/
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/inflation- ... -the-gmat/
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/beyond-any ... -the-gmat/
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/statistica ... -the-gmat/
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/profit-and ... -the-gmat/
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/gmat-criti ... pulations/

I hope this helps.

Mike

sidceg wrote:Yes that was really helpful. Thanks . I just have one concern here. I used to do reasonably well with just brute force till my last attempt. But since I wanted to improve my score for this time, I started practicing the way you had mentioned. But now I get almost all the questions wrong. I also want to mention that I am still in the early stages of practicing and I hope this is because this is just the beginning. I hope I will get better with time and practice and will improve my performance from last time when compared with my performance with just brute force.

Dear sidceg,
What you describe is not so surprising. Folks like to think that education & learning are simply strictly linear processes --- more input = more output. The mind is not so simple, especially as regards something as sophisticated as GMAT CR. Having a more detailed and nuanced approach to the GMAT CR will, over time, be more successful than "brute force". Having said that, I will caution: don't undervalue the intelligence & critical thinking you were using in that "brute force" method -- that's also important! You need to bring as much of your intelligence as possible to the task.
Does all this make sense?
Mike