How to Improve Efficiency on Critical Reasoning

Question

Rave25  recently tagged me in a question about  how to get more efficient at CR .

I'll answer that with general tips for your CR process AND some questions about specifics.

BEFORE YOU READ ANYTHING:
 
  Check in with your mental state . Are you ready to focus NOW and make meaning now? If half of your brain is still thinking about something else (the last question, what you can have for dinner, that angry email you just saw pop up from your boss), STOP and clear your mental working space. You should have notifications silenced on your computer and phone when you practice.  If you are still bothered by a previous question, take a second and write a quick note about it so you can follow up on it later.  Don't allow other thoughts and worries to occupy some of your mental workspace and compromise your performance.    
 
 
 READING THE PARAGRAPH:
 
  Read critically and thoroughly from the START . Make meaning and connect the dots from the beginning. Sometimes candidates will “skim” through the paragraph the first time in order to get a general idea, and then need to re-read it multiple times to more fully understand what’s going on. Re-reading is ok, but wasting your time by pretend-reading the first time is NOT OK.  Don't waste that first reading , thinking that you will wait to really analyze it and “get it” later. Read carefully from the start!
 
  After you read a sentence , think about what it means. Do you understand it well enough to summarize it for a friend who urgently needed to know? Did the sentence give you a fact or an opinion? (That  “fact or opinion?” question  is so important on CR because you can TRUST the facts but NEVER trust the opinions.) After you read the second sentence, ask yourself the same questions as above, AND think about the CONNECTIONS between sentence one and sentence two. Continue in this way until you’ve finished reading the paragraph.
 
 Note: If you think a sentence you’ve read is probably “filler” or unimportant, think again! GMAT does not blow smoke in CR paragraphs. A sentence might not be key to understanding the core logic of the question, but its meaning could indeed matter later. CR paragraphs are short; the vast majority of the information is important and relevant.      
  Reading the question stem:  When you read the question stem (which of the following would best strengthen the argument, etc), think first about what kind of thing you want to find.  What should the correct answer choice DO for you?  Where is the weakness in the reasoning, showing you what could be strengthened? You don’t have to predict the answer but  you should have a mental shopping list  of what the correct answer should do. For example, if the question asks you to identify what might stop the plan from achieving its goal, be sure to re-read what exactly the goal is. I see lots of people mess up these questions because they were thinking of their own broad summary of the goal, not focusing on exactly what the paragraph says the goal is. 
 
 An aside: the  mental shopping list  is key for all Verbal questions. It’s like going to the grocery store hungry: if you don’t have a list, you are going to end up buying all kinds of stuff you may not really want or need. You might buy some unhealthy or overly expensive items. The same idea goes for the GMAT: under timed conditions, we are hungry for answers. But don’t let GMAT sell you on something you don’t want!  Decide what will make a good answer BEFORE you start reading their answer choices.       
 
 
 SORTING ANSWER CHOICES:
 
  Go shopping  through the answer choices and grade them with the idea of  red light  -  yellow light  -  green light. 
If an answer choice is dead wrong and doesn’t do anything like what you’re looking for, you can eliminate it (red light). If an answer choice seems like it could do what you want but it’s a bit weak for your taste, mark it with a ! (yellow light). If an answer seems great, that’s a green light, no mark needed.  It’s very helpful to mark the ‘yellow light’ answers in a different way  (I like  !  as a mark) because we all know the feeling of having eliminated all five answer choices and then having to start over and re-read every single one. So it’s better to sort them out.  A green-light answer is best, but a yellow-light answer can win if everything else is a red light.  
 If you are not  writing down A B C D E  for your process of elimination for each verbal question, I highly suggest you start! Especially if you’ve ever had the feeling, “oh, i forget, did I already eliminate that one?” There is no tax on writing on the GMAT and there are no style points. Do what it takes so that your brain can focus as much power as possible on  thinking .     
 
 
 STRENGTHENING YOUR INTUITION FOR STRONG AND WEAK ANSWERS:  
 
 
When we were at MBA Spotlight Fair recently, one of the high-scoring candidates shared that an important part of his Verbal prep strategy was to deeply analyze about 50 official CR questions, and actually write out his justification for why each answer choice was right or wrong. This took a lot of time initially, but it made him get very clear on what was good or bad about certain answer choices. This helped him identify the patterns, and build his confidence that he could understand what the test writers were doing with each question. This is worth trying! 
 
 
 
 ANALYZING MISTAKES:
 
 Don’t beat yourself up about mistakes. Don’t shy away from analyzing them. Mistakes aren’t the enemy; making the same type of mistake over and over is. Treat each error or uncertainty as an opportunity to learn. Onward and upward! 
 
 When you analyze mistakes, make sure you answer the following questions:    
 
 
 What makes the credited answer  strong ? What specifically does it do for the argument?  
 What makes my (incorrect) answer  weaker ? Why  specifically  was it not as strong as the credited answer? (I'm not saying "wrong" because on harder CR questions, there is often a "runner-up" answer that tempts many candidates. Usually, it goes in the right direction, possibly using some words directly from the argument, but it isn't as strong as the credited answer. If you pick that answer, you must do the work to understand why it wasn't the best.)  
 What stopped me from seeing #1 and #2 when I attempted the question? (For example, Misread the prompt or answer choice, forgot a key detail from the paragraph, didn’t really know what I was looking for, didn’t know what was weak about the argument given in the paragraph, etc)   
 
 
 When you don’t understand why one answer is stronger than another, don’t give up and don’t let it go. Come to GMATClub, read the discussion on that question, and if you still aren’t clear, tag me or other experts.  There is always a specific reason that makes one answer the best.   You need to know it so that you can recognize that pattern or strength in other answer choices in the future.   
**

READING-RELATED WEAKNESSES IN CRITICAL REASONING

Are there certain topics where you don’t really know all the relevant vocabulary? Or are there certain words that tend to come up in CR that you don’t fully understand? Fix this problem! Having a great CR process (as above) won’t save you if you don’t really understand what is going on in the paragraph.

The majority of my students are non-native speakers of English. I see this issue come up for candidates when a CR question deals with agriculture (what does it mean to reap a crop?), insurance (what does it mean for an underwriter to calculate premiums?), or criminal justice (what’s a defendant?). If you do a practice question and realize you haven’t really understood the paragraph, make sure you figure out WHY you didn’t understand it and then DO SOMETHING to address that gap.

**
SPECIFICS TO YOUR SITUATION
(For  Rave25  and all of us) 
 
 Are there certain types of CR that are taking you much longer?  Or certain topics that you find much harder (and more time-consuming) to understand?  This could help us pinpoint improvement opportunities.  
 Or, do you find that you spend too much time waffling between two answer choices and you can't decide on just one? This is a good time to read through the discussion and get expert input to resolve your doubts. GMAT questions are standardized: there is always something we can learn about what is making the credited answer strong, and what's making the others weak.   
**

Does this help? Let me know!

Warmly, Jennifer

Rave25 · Answer

Hi Jennifer,

Thanks for such a detailed explanation on how to improve on CR! It's really helpful.

Specifically, I take more than 2:30 minutes on average per question on CR, especially on Assumption, Strengthen, and Weaken questions. Additionally, I struggle with eliminating the last two option choices. Because of this, I often have to guess the last three questions on the Verbal section, which drags my score down.

BrightOutlookJenn · Answer

Hi  Rave25

OK, good to know. My suspicion is that you are going into the answer choices without being clear of what the correct answer choice needs to do for you. 
Here is what I suggest:

Choose either some new CR questions of these types, or some that you have gotten incorrect recently. For each question, follow the following process carefully. Do not care about how long it takes. Slow down now to get the process clear, so that you can eventually do it more efficiently once it becomes automatic to you.

STEP 1.  Read the paragraph carefully and think about what is weak in the reasoning. (Remember, trust the facts but be suspicious of the opinions.) Why might the author's conclusion turn out to be wrong? What are they assuming without proof? This is the logical leap, the gap in the reasoning.  Write it down in your own words BEFORE you start looking at the answer choices.    (You don't need to write it down during the exam, but we are taking extra steps here to make your process cleaner later.)

Applying step 1 to an example:  Let's see this with a simple example paragraph: "Of the 100 students at Valley Academy, 95 passed their entrance exams on the first try. Therefore, 5 students passed on the second try."

What would you say is missing here? Why might the author's conclusion turn out to be wrong? What are they assuming without proof? (Stop and really think of this yourself)

Maybe you would write, "The author assumes that all the students passed on the first or second try. The author assumes no one took more than two tries to pass, and that no one ultimately failed to pass the entrance exams."

STEP 2.  Then read the question stem. What should the correct answer do for you? You don't have to predict the answer, but it's good to make a shopping list of what the correct answer should do.

Applying Step 2 to our example.  With our above example, if this is a strengthen the argument question, what should the correct answer do? (stop and think)

We might write, "correct answer should show that no one took more than two tries to pass, or that everyone who had to take the exams a second time passed on that round"

STEP 3. Now go through the answer choices and use the red - yellow - green idea to grade the answer choices based on how well they fit your shopping list.

If you are stuck between two answer choices, make yourself explain how each one fits your shopping list. In this process, it often becomes clear which one of them can do the job.

To get feedback on this process, you can post your notes for step 1, 2, and 3 in a discussion post for the question here on GMAT Club, and tag me in the post. This is especially helpful when you're still stuck between two answers; this can help me see where the problem in your process might be.

Note: any other forum readers can also feel free to tag me on their process notes in the discussion of a question! I'm happy to help you resolve your doubts and strengthen your process. Remember, go slow to get fast. Do this process slowly and thoroughly until you are happy with your accuracy. Then it will become much easier to get more efficient with the time while maintaining accuracy.

Does this help? Let us know!

Best, Jennifer

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