GMAT Club Verbal Focus: The CR Hack For 75% of CR Questions

CR Crushery: The CR Hack For 75% of CR Questions

- by EmpowerGMAT

The 3 Main Assumptions

People like patterns because they bring order to chaos. There’s a shocking pattern that underlies 75% of CR, and it’s one of the most powerful hacks on the entire GMAT:
 
CR arguments ALWAYS make at least one of 3 assumptions. Knowing and being able to detect those assumptions will enable you to forecast the what the right option will do.
 

What the heck is an assumption anyway?

An assumption is information that an arguer takes for granted. The assumed information NEEDS to be true for the argument to work.
 
For example, think of a business plan. Business plans will make a revenue, and profitability projection, but certain assumptions are required for those projections to be accepted, such as demand, marketing, distribution, etc. Those assumptions are always itemized at the back of a business plan. If those assumptions turn out to be inaccurate/unrealistic, the business plan is rendered worthless.
 
Interestingly enough, perhaps that’s why one of the world’s most successful venture capitalist has the following advice to offer:
“We start at the back…[then] we look at the front to see what kind of business it is.”
—Tom Perkins, Co-Founder of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
 

So what are the 3 GMAT CR assumptions that can be used to hack 75% of CR?

 
1. Relevance - The group or evidence presented is actually relevant to the conclusion.
2. Success - The outcome is likely.
3. No Other Factors - There were no other factors that led to the result.
 

Let’s take a look at an example:

The Cumquat Café began advertising on our local radio station this year and was delighted to see its business increase by 10 percent over last year’s totals. Their success shows you how you can use radio advertising to make your business more profitable.
 
1. Relevance
The argument concludes that your business can use radio advertising to boost profit since the Cumquat Café did.
 
Does the argument assume that the evidence is relevant to the conclusion? Blatantly. This argument assumes that what's true of Cumquat Cafe is true of radio advertising in general. This whole argument hinges on that. If it weren't true that what was the case for Cumquat Cafe is true of radio advertising in general, then this argument would collapse.
 
2. Success
This argument also assumes higher profitability from radio advertising is likely. Do you see any proof to believe that's the case? No it's completely assumed.
 
3. No Other Factors
Does this argument ignore other possible factors that could have led to Cumquat’s increase in profit? Yes.
 
This reasoning makes the crazy assumption that there weren't other possible factors that could have caused the increase, such as better food, service, or even TV advertising for example. Maybe Cumquat Cafe got a feature write up in the local newspaper.
 
You detect a major assumption, then what?
By detecting an assumption, you are prepared to answer the question. For example, if you have a strengthen question, look for the option that makes the assumption more likely to be true, and vice versa for Weaken. Take a look at any CR question, and you are going to be shocked by how powerful this framework is. Try it after you finish reading this article.
 

Conclusion

In addition to training to read at 150 WPM (a core component of EMPOWERgmat’s Verbal tactical program), you need to know the 3 major assumptions, and you have to know them well enough so that you can instantly detect them. At that point, prepared to be amazed at how straightforward CR questions are.