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General Strategies for Critical Reasoning

Critical Reasoning

Unless the question is a GMAT conclusion question, there will always be two parts to an argument:  The premises—these are the facts that the author presents—and conclusion—the sentence that the author wants you to believe is true, but is not necessarily true.  

Since you cannot mess with the facts that are presented, almost any question impacts the conclusion.  Therefore, there are always two basic steps to answering a critical-reasoning question:

Step 1:  Read the question first!  When you start reading that long, wordy, cumbersome paragraph of an argument, you want to already know what you are looking for so that you do not get lost in the text.

Step 2:  Find the conclusion!  Unless the question is a conclusion question (in which case you have synthesize all the facts presented in the paragraph), your job is to strengthen, weaken, identify the flaw of, identify the assumption of, or infer something from not the entire argument, but the conclusion of the argument.  So make sure you really zone in on that one single sentence!  Also, know your key words signaling a conclusion!

Step 3:  Know your argument types and the underlying assumptions for each type—causal arguments, arguments by analogy, and statistical arguments.  This is critical to the essay analyzing an argument as well!

About the Author


Sarai yaseen is a native of Boston, Massachusetts with an M.A. in English Literature, Sarai has been teaching the verbal portion of the GMAT at GMAX for over five years and has taught more than 600 hundred students world wide. Don't forget to check out her website - www.theverbalcorner.com


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Mastering GMAT Critical Reasoning (2023 Edition)


Chapters
1) Introduction   
2) 6 Step Strategy to solve GMAT Critical Reasoning Questions   
3) How to overcome flawed thinking in GMAT Critical Reasoning?   
4) 4 GMAT Critical Reasoning Fallacies   
5) Generalization in GMAT Critical Reasoning   
6) Inconsistencies in Arguments   
7) Eliminate Out of Scope answer choices using Necessary and Sufficient Conditions   
8) Ad Hominem in GMAT Critical Reasoning   
9) Slippery Slope in GMAT Critical Reasoning   
10) Affirming the Consequent – GMAT Critical Reasoning   
11) How to Paraphrase GMAT Critical Reasoning Question   
12) How to Answer Assumption Question Type   
13) How to Answer Conclusion Question Type   
14) How to Answer Inference Question Type   
15) How to Answer Strengthen Question Type   
16) How to Answer Weaken Question Type   
17) How to Answer bold-faced and Summary Question Types   
18) How to Answer Parallel Reasoning Questions   
19) How to Answer the Fill in the Blanks Question   
Question Bank   
Question 1: 5G Technology (Inference)   
Question 2: Water Purifier vs. Minerals (Fill in the Blanks)   
Question 3: Opioid Abuse (Strengthens)   
Question 4: Abe and Japan’s Economy (Inference)   
Question 5: Indians and Pulse Import (Weakens)   
Question 6: Retail Chains in Latin America (Assumption)   
Question 7: American Tax Rates – Republican vs. Democrats (Inference)   
Question 8: AI – China vs the US (Weakens)   
Question 9: Phone Snooping (Strengthens)   
Question 10:  Traditional Lawns (Assumption)   
Question 11:  Appraisal-Tendency Framework (Inference)   
Question 12:  Meta-Analysis of Diet Trials (Weakens)   
Question 13:  Biases in AI (Strengthens)   
Question 14:  Stock Price and Effectiveness of Leadership (Inference)   
Question 15:  US Border Wall (Weakens)   
Question 16:  Driverless Car and Pollution (Assumption)   
Question 17:  Climate Change (Inference)   
Question 18:  Rent a Furniture (Weakens)   
Question 19:  Marathon Performance and Customized Shoes (Weakens)   
Question 20:  Guaranteed Basic Income (Assumption)   
Question 21:  Brexit (Infer)   
Question 22:  AB vs Traditional Hotels (Assumption)   
Question 23:  Tax Incentive and Job Creation (Weakens)   
Question 24:  Obesity and Sleeve Gastrectomy (Inference)   
Question 25:  Recruiting Executives (Weaken)   

Answers with Detailed Explanation
 
 
 
 

Essential GMAT Reading Comprehension Guide (2023 Edition)


Chapters

  • Collecting and Interpreting Facts: GMAT Reading Comprehension    

  • Effective Note-taking for GMAT Reading Comprehension   

  • 5 Questions to Speed up Summary Creation   

  • Mastering GMAT Reading Comprehension: 3 Best Practices   

  • How to Remember Information   

  • How to improve comprehension by Questioning the Author   

  • How to Read Faster   

  • How to Answer GMAT Reading Comprehension Title question

  • How to Answer GMAT Reading Comprehension Main Idea Question   

  • How to Answer GMAT Reading comprehension inference question   

  • How to Answer GMAT Reading Comprehension Purpose Question   

  • How to Answer GMAT Reading Comprehension Detail Question   

  • How to Answer the GMAT organization of passage Question   

  • How to Improve GMAT Reading Comprehension Score?   

Passage #1: Protein-Rich Diet    Passage #2: Pregnant Women and Stress Management   
Passage #3: F Losing Momentum   
Passage #4: Conservatives and Automation   
Passage #5: Collaboration, Team size and Performance   
Passage #6: Effective Altruism   
Passage #7: Loneliness Epidemic   
Passage #8: Space Exploration   
Passage #9: Lab-Grown Meat   
Passage #10: Minimum Wage in the US   
Passage #11: AI and Creativity   
Passage #12: Bias Against Healthcare in Developing Economies   
Passage #13: Legacy Admissions   
Passage #14: Plastic Ban and alternatives   
Passage #15: Underestimating Homo Sapiens   
Passage #16: Conspiracy Theories   
Passage #17: Relative Poverty   
Passage #18: Why Paintings are expensive   
Passage #19: US Obesity Epidemics   
Passage #20: The Future of Advertising   
Passage #21: Breaking Large Companies   
Passage #22: Helicopter Parenting   
Passage #23: Future of Democracy   
Passage #24: Technology and Global Citizenship  

Passage #25: Morality and Investment   

Answers: 157 to 294

Pages: 295

Questions: 100+

Download F1GMAT's Essential GMAT Reading Comprehension Guide (2023 Edition)

 

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