Study and Strategy questions relating to the GMAT.
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Critical reasoning help

by MuppalaS3 Wed Jan 10, 2018 4:27 am

Hi Tutors,

Could you please help me with critical reasoning with regards to the following issues :

1) Should we remember all the premises(like by-hearting them though not word for word) before we read the answer choices.This is not required in inference type of questions I feel,but not by-hearting is putting me at a major disadvantage in Assum/Strn/Weak type questions.Please help.What is like exactly the right strategy to approach.

Right now my strategy is to remember the conclusion and attack it before going to the options.I am able to get a few difficult questions correct with this strategy but a few where the premises need to be attacked I think I am missing out on.Again the premises support the conclusion so attacking the premise is similar to attacking the conclusion.So taking this into account is it better to know everything in the passage before I attack the answer choices..?The problem with trying to know all the details in the passage is 1)Time 2)By the time I reach the second option I forget the details of the argument because I am busy figuring out the options.I need help with about how really impressive test takers(such as the tutors) go about solving the assumption/stre/weaken questions.Do you have a strategy or has it become intuitive for you people to kill all such questions..?

2)After I finish reading the argument is it a good idea to stop and just short phrase what I just read in my head or is it ok to trust intuition and proceed after isolating the conclusion.Yourself being a seasoned test taker,I would like to know what goes through your head when you solve such questions.

Please excuse me for the typos.

Thanks you in advance..

Sumanth
StaceyKoprince
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Re: Critical reasoning help

by StaceyKoprince Thu Jan 11, 2018 6:49 pm

There isn't one exact approach that will work for everybody—our brains work differently and so we have to adjust approaches accordingly. You said that you feel that not knowing the premises by heart is resulting in a disadvantage for you on certain question types, and so we need to figure out some better approach for you with those question types. :)

When you say that not knowing the premises "by heart" is putting you at a major disadvantage, does that mean that you are finding yourself falling for traps (or just not seeing the right answer) because there is some particular detail in the premise that you have forgotten to consider? I'm guessing it's something like that.

For Assumption Family questions (Assump, Str, Weak—the ones you name), the primary issue typically lies between the premises and the conclusion—in the underlying (and unstated) assumptions that allow the author to make the leap from his/her premises to his/her conclusion. So, yes, on these question types, it is important to note the premises as well as the conclusion—ie, the overall flow of the argument as a whole.

Also, just a note. You talked about attacking the premises. The premises themselves are given—we're supposed to accept them as true. What the answers are really attacking are the assumptions that lie *between* the premises and the conclusion. And, yes, those of us who are really good at this test have learned how to brainstorm the unstated assumptions that lie in between. Here's a (relatively straightforward) example:

Revenues of product X went up last quarter, so profits for product X must also have increased.

Unstated: Assuming that...costs didn't go up enough to cancel out those revenue gains. :) No mention is made of costs, but obviously costs factor into profits—so you can't conclude that profits went up just by knowing that revenues went up.

Some arguments are shorter and more straightforward. For those, you might be able to keep both the premises and conclusion in your brain as you look at each answer choice. (And those also might feel like the correct answer is just attacking the conclusion, because the correct answer is so closely tied to the conclusion.) For these, I would pause just to make sure that I've got the sequence straight in my head, yes.

Other arguments, though, are longer or more convoluted—for those, the unstated assumptions might not be so clear. Here, you're going to want to jot down a little "Map" of the argument (premises + conclusion = argument) so that you can understand the flow of the argument. That will help you to identify the unstated assumption that might be at the heart of the correct answer. (And this is essentially a longer version of the pause I mentioned in the previous paragraph.)

When making a Map:
(1) Do not just copy down the argument as it is written.
(2) Instead, look to put things into your own words—that means you actually understand the "story" that the argument is telling. (Though if there are certain words that really matter, you can use the same word. For example, "most people" has a different meaning than "lots of people" or "many people." If the argument says most, you should probably write down that exact word.)
(3) Also, abbreviate heavily and develop your own "vocabulary" of abbreviations. People = ppl. City council = CC. Use symbols. --> means the first thing leads to or results in the second thing (cause and effect). Use > and < to mean more than / greater than and less than. Use up and down arrows to indicate that something is increasing or decreasing. And so on. You can abbreviate however you like; you just want to practice it so that you can develop certain symbols / patterns in advance. That's how you get really efficient with it.

Next, let's talk about how you can train yourself to start to spot the unstated assumptions. Go back to CR questions that you've done recently. Articulate this to yourself:
1) The premises
2) The correct answer
3) The conclusion

Now, look at how the correct answer fits into the "gap" between the premises and the conclusion. If it's an Assumption question, you should be able to say, "The author assumes that <the information in the correct answer> is true, even though the argument doesn't say so. And that assumption is filling a gap between the premises and the conclusion—you do actually have to assume that this is true in order to get to the conclusion."

Here's how that would work on my mini-argument about the revenues.
1) Revenues went up.
2) Costs did not go up so much as to offset the gain in revenue.
3) So profits must have gone up.

In this case, we know that R + C = P, so the assumption about the costs is necessary in order to draw the given conclusion. The correct answer does fill in this gap between the premises and the conclusion. (You can also try plugging in the wrong answers to see how they do NOT fill in the gap.)

If, on the other hand, the question is a Strengthen or Weaken, the evaluation is a little bit different. Rather than saying that the correct answer is necessary to fill in the gap, you're going to say that the correct answer, if true, makes the argument at least a little more likely to be valid (strengthen) or invalid (weaken)—but it's not actually necessary for this information to be true. You can still look at the same 1-2-3 sequence as noted above; just use this different way of evaluating.

Again, try this on some old CRs that you've already done to see how the correct answer does make the overall argument a little more or less likely to be valid. (And incorrect answers will fail this test.)

If you'd like more on any of this, you can find it in our Critical Reasoning Strategy Guide. Good luck with your studies!
Stacey Koprince
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Re: Critical reasoning help

by MuppalaS3 Fri Jan 12, 2018 12:45 am

Thanks a lot for laying it all out so beautifully Stacy.You are a kind soul...I shall definitely do the questions in the manner you've advised.The writing part is a little time consuming though(I've tried it before) and more importantly I feel I lose my intuitive understanding and flow when I start to take notes(am I making sense....Does it ever happen to you(a good test taker)?).

Stacy....One small pinching issue.Please let me know what would you doing in the scenario below(I guess it has more to do with psychology than strategy but not sure)...

You read an argument(Assum family) question.You understand the argument properly(like e.g..Newspaper level understanding, know what is going on and stuff) but are unable to find any obvious gaps.....At this very precise point,do you phrase the argument in your own words(or thru writing) and try to get a better understanding or do you trust your intuition(that you have understood) and move forward.

Lastly,do you remind yourself of what the answer is supposed to looklike before reading every option or do you trust your intuition(If you trust your intuition there is obviously no reminding right...?)

In my last GMAT I got a CR percentile of 66%(ESR) solving the questions solely by intuition.Should I minorly tweak my strategy or conclude that intuition will only get me so long and start reminding myself what I just read(i.e go against my intuition)......... is what is troubling me....

If I am not making a lot of sense please excuse me...

Thanks again Stacy...
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Re: Critical reasoning help

by StaceyKoprince Mon Jan 15, 2018 3:36 pm

In the beginning, you will write more because you're using that exercise as a way to train yourself how to think about these kinds of problems. As you get better at CR, two things will happen:
(1) You won't need to write as much; you'll be able to keep more in your head
(2) You'll abbreviate more heavily, so what you do write will take less time to write

You also have a choice about when you write. Some people like to just down pieces as they go (eg, once you have one complete thought, you jot it down). Others like to read the whole thing through and then write the parts down. Try it both ways to see what works best for you.

It is definitely the case that I sometimes don't see what the gaps are in an argument. When that happens, I ask myself whether I really do think that I understand the major parts of the argument. If I don't, I may want to guess and move on right now—or maybe I'll look through the answers once to eliminate ones that seem obviously wrong...and then I'll guess and move on. Either way, I'm not going to spend extra time on this problem and I'm going to be quicker to move on if I think I need to.

If I feel that I really do understand the argument but just don't see the gap, then I'll go through the answers just a little more slowly than usual, trying to match them (well, one of them!) to the argument. I'm basically "working backwards" to see what works—kind of like a math problem. This method still works—it's just a little slower than when you already have a pretty good idea of what the gap is.

Re: reminding myself what the answer is supposed to do—that's step 3 in our 4-step process. (Are you using our book?) So I do that just before going to look at all of the answers, but I don't explicitly do it before each answer choice. I'm just reminding myself / getting my head centered before I start to look at the answers overall.

When I'm going through the answers, though, I do use two passes. On the first pass, I eliminate anything that I'm confident is wrong, but I leave everything else in. That usually allows me to get rid of at least 2 answers. (If I get rid of 0 or 1 on the first pass...I know that I might be missing something, so I should be willing to guess and move on.)

If I do get rid of at least 2 quickly / on the first pass, then I can take a little more time to examine the 2 or 3 remaining, more tempting answers. I can compare them against each other and check them against my understanding of the argument. I can also examine them for common traps.

Finally, 66th percentile is a good percentile! Depending on your performance on the other question types, you may decide to emphasize 1 or 2 question types over the other 1 or 2 types. Unless one question type is already in the high 90s (ie, you don't have much room for improvement) or one question type is really pulling you down (~30+ percentile points below the other two), you can choose to try to improve the types that are the easiest for you to improve. You don't have to master all 3 types to the same level.
Stacey Koprince
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Re: Critical reasoning help

by MuppalaS3 Tue Feb 06, 2018 12:50 pm

Thanks a ton stacey....Sorry for the late reply...
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Re: Critical reasoning help

by StaceyKoprince Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:24 pm

No worries! You are very welcome!
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Re: Critical reasoning help

by BlakeH710 Sun May 13, 2018 12:26 am

Hi Stacey or any other GMAT instructors/tutors,

I've been having a really hard time improving on Critical Reasoning questions, particularly Find the Assumption and Strengthen/Weaken questions. I've taken a 9-week course and in the past few weeks have repeatedly looked back at "Find the Assumption" questions I've done, in hopes that by slowly going through all of the answer choices for each problem, I'd become a little better at them. However, I don't feel like I've made any progress. I think part of the reason is I have a really good memory, so once I see a problem I've already tackled in the past it's hard for me to really look at it like an unfamiliar question. I already know the answer. I have a few questions for you.

A) Are there ways outside of simply reviewing "Find the Assumption" questions and other assumption-type questions that can help improve my ability? For example, do you think it's productive while reading articles, to breakdown certain paragraphs and brainstorm assumptions they're making in the argument?

B) Is there a better/more efficient way to review old questions than my approach? I typically look at each answer choice and try to reason why it's wrong.

C) I'm wondering if I need to alternate my approach to the questions. I typically jot down a few abbreviated notes about the premise(s) and conclusion to make sure I understand the passage. After brainstorming possible assumptions for a few seconds, I scan the answer choices and knock out a few if possible. After that I negate the remaining ones I think could be the answer.

D) Does it make sense to perhaps cut my losses on "Find the Assumption" questions and simply focus on more tested questions in the assumption family like Strength and Weakness? I'm less than two months from taking the test, and feel like that may be the best use of my time at this point.

Apologies for the lengthy post but would love to hear your thoughts, thanks!

Best,
Blake
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Re: Critical reasoning help

by StaceyKoprince Mon May 14, 2018 1:30 pm

Good questions!

Strengthen/Weaken are a bit more common than Find the Assumption, as S/W can also show up in RC and IR. (Occasionally, Assump can show up on those other sections as well, but it's not that common.) So, to answer your last question first, yes—you might just decide to cut your losses on Assump.

Question: When you do your first pass to knock off the ones that you're sure are wrong (ie, you don't even have to try to negate), are you generally accurate at that point? That is, what you cross off at that stage is, in fact, wrong?

In that case, you may decide that's good enough—get rid of the ones you know are wrong, then guess from among the remaining 2-3 answers.

(Side note: Negation works only on Assumption, not on other question types—you are aware of that? Just making sure.)

You mentioned, though, that you do struggle with S/W too, so there we'd want to try to beef up your skills.

When you fall into a trap on a S or W, why did you fall into the trap?

Between the correct answer and the answer that you chose (or just the final two answers, if you did pick the correct answer):
(1) why was the wrong answer so tempting? why did it look like it might be right? (be as explicit as possible; also, now you know this is not a good reason to pick an answer)
(2) why was it actually wrong? what specific words indicate that it is wrong and how did I overlook those clues the first time?
(3) why did the right answer seem wrong? what made it so tempting to cross off the right answer? why were those things actually okay; what was my error in thinking that they were wrong? (also, now you know that this is not a good reason to eliminate an answer)
(4) why was it actually right?

It sounds like you were already doing 2 and 4 but maybe not 1 and 3. If you can articulate why you are falling into traps, then you'll be a lot less likely to fall into those same types of traps next time.

Also, I have the same issue you do (I remember the correct answer, so it's hard to "forget" and look at the problem with fresh eyes). I do three things:
(1) I talk aloud as I'm reasoning my way through. I find that, if I do know what I'm doing, this forces me to articulate it more clearly. And if I don't, I can "hear" that I'm not confident / don't really know what I'm doing, so I know there's more for me to analyze.
(2) I pretend that I'm talking about the problem with someone else who doesn't get it and who doesn't know what the correct answer is.
(3) I try to articulate my thinking without giving away the correct answer—ideally, I'd want the other person to figure it out for themselves from the analysis that I'm articulating. (And, as I'm doing this, I'm thinking about the kind of explanation I would need to give so that this other person finally does understand why the right one is right, etc.)

Try all of the above and let me know what you think.
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep