Diagramming CR VERY time consuming

[bkw]

I have started reading mgmat cr book, and the second chapter is all about diagramming cr problems.

I tried a few of the problems in the given set and I have to admit this is a VERY time consuming approach. I mean I can by no means spend 1.5minutes per cr to find conclusion diagram. There would not be any time left to read answers, and pick one

In your experience is diagramming something mgmat just want to educate students in to be pedagogical?.
Or do you actually use it?

[rishi raj]

I never found the Diagramming method very efficient.It is quite a time consuming approach. However, it can be quite helpful in higher difficulty level questions where sometimes the arguments become obscure and it becomes difficult to figure out the conclusion ,assumption or even worse the premises.
I remember having watched one video on Grockit in which they showed how Diagramming can be useful. Found it to be quite useful.

[aleph777]

I agree with Rishi. I'm using MGMAT, as well, but I decided to stick with their technique for a while and see if it worked. At first it's a pain, and I found I'd write too much and waste too much time. But after working with it for a while, I started to get the hang of it.

During practice tests, though, I tend to completely ignore the technique unless I get bogged down in a complex text.

For reading comp, however, I do find that writing a few notes here and there is actually helpful as a means to really make the content stick in my mind.

For both RC and CR, I think the rationale is something like, okay, so you've been killing yourself on essays and quant for the past 2.5 hours. And you're stressed out. So slow down, take notes, and really pay attention to what you're reading.

[bkw]

I never found the Diagramming method very efficient.It is quite a time consuming approach. However, it can be quite helpful in higher difficulty level questions where sometimes the arguments become obscure and it becomes difficult to figure out the conclusion ,assumption or even worse the premises.
I remember having watched one video on Grockit in which they showed how Diagramming can be useful. Found it to be quite useful.

Raj, thanks for response.

What pre-work do you do with common CR such as , ASS, STR, WKN, (not INFR), before you start looking at the Answer choices?

Do you only make notes of Conclusion, or Conclusion AND Premises before starting POE?

I assume you only note Premises with Infer questions since there are no conclusion given, it is among the answer choices?

thanks!

[michaelfaulkner]

I agree with you. The MGMT diagramming strategy isn't very practical give the time constraints.

I spent a while trying to hone my skills, but I could never get it down fast enough.

Instead, I use a bit of a hybrid method so that I stay on track. For each question, I begin by writing down the question type (before I read the statements). Then I read the statement and write down the conclusion in extreme shorthand.

[Night reader]

the same here, many GMAT prep. companies share very similar student teaching ideas, and they aspire to distinguish themselves with some means. One example is diagramming, which is a sort of picturing the CR entry by sorting its content into different parts - premises, conclusions, internal vs. external conclusions ...

[Adam@Knewton]

I find that diagramming, while it can be useful, is very time-consuming and, frankly, not entirely necessary. MGMAT's approach is particularly cumbersome and seems to imply that we should imagine all possible weakeners to a question, which is not efficient; Kaplan also encourages us to rewrite the Conclusion, etc., which can be useful for some non-native speakers, but I generally find it's a bad plan to rewrite what's already on the screen in front of you.

One thing to keep in mind is that, on the LSAT, students have to do about 28 Logical Reasoning questions, which are generally harder than GMAT CR questions, in only 35 minutes. This requires much more efficiency in thinking through such questions, and unless there's formal logic involved (there never is on the GMAT), writing anything down is discouraged. Well, having worked with a lot of LSAT students and a lot of GMAT students, I'm pretty sure that the LSATers aren't smarter; they just get trained to do it without writing anything down. As a result, I've started to encourage GMAT students to also not write anything down. You can keep the salient info in your head; you just have to be actively asking yourself, as you read, what info is salient and what isn't. This takes practice, but it's doable.

Another thing that really helps is anticipating the answers you'll see, both right and wrong. My biggest advantage in CR is that I've been doing this for 5+ years and any new CR question I see, I know I've seen something like it before, so I've learned to expect certain kinds of right answers and can quickly eliminate wrong ones. This kind of confidence, too, takes practice, but it makes things far faster if you know as soon as you finish reading the Stimulus what kind of right answer you'll see, and know as soon as you read some out-of-scope word that a choice can be eliminated.