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Brian Galvin is the Director of Academic Programs at Veritas Prep, where he oversees all of the company’s GMAT preparation courses.
Boldfaced Critical Reasoning questions have taken on an identity as being difficult questions. This perceived difficulty only serves to fuel the fire, as students actively look for the “trick” embedded within the question, often eliminating answer choices simply because they may “seem too obvious.” These questions then become self-fulfilling prophecies, difficult not because they are difficult, but because they’re supposed to be.
With that in mind, recognize that the authors of the GMAT, while incredibly clever, are bound by the rules of the game. Each question must have four incorrect answers and one correct one, and on boldfaced questions the descriptions must exactly match the portions that they describe. If you can find a fatal flaw in an answer choice, it’s incorrect. Once you’ve eliminated the four flawed choices, even if the remaining answer seems “obvious” or even bland, it must be correct.
Consider the question:
The amount of energy used by a typical household in the northeastern United States is more than twice that used by a comparable household in southeast, southwest, and west coast regions of the country. The difference is explained by the heating requirements of homes in the northeast. In general air conditioners used to cool homes are much cheaper to operate than heating systems. Up to 65% of the total energy usage of a household in the northeastern U.S. is required to heat the home through the winter: only 5% is needed for air conditioning throughout the whole summer. However, global warming is changing the equation. Winters in the northeast are getting warmer, requiring less heat per day and shortening the heating season. Temperatures in the across the U.S. are getting hotter so that the cost of cooling homes is rising. In years to come the energy requirements across the country will be far more uniform.
The portions in boldface play which of the following roles?
A) The first is a subsidiary conclusion of the argument that is used as a premise to support the main conclusion; the second is a fact that directly contradicts the first.
B) The first is a paradox that must be resolved later in the argument; the second is the key evidence used to resolve that paradox.
C) The first is a fact that is directly contradicted later in the argument; the second is the evidence used for that contradiction.
D) The first is a fact that the argument explains and then predicts will not hold true over time; the second is used as evidence that the first fact will change.
E) The first is a phenomenon that contributes to the explanation of another phenomenon discussed later in the argument; the second is the phenomenon that the argument explains.
This question has quite a bit going on, but remembering that the correct answer must be absolutely correct, and that the incorrect answers can be eliminated for just one flaw, you can certainly navigate it.
Choice A is incorrect because the first portion is not a conclusion, but rather a fact, and the second portion does not directly contradict the first (it merely helps to demonstrate that the first may change).
Choice B is incorrect because the first is not a paradox, but rather a fact.
Choice C is incorrect (although tempting) because a fact cannot be contradicted – it’s simply a fact. As stated in the description for A, the second doesn’t directly contradict the first, either, but the mere fact that facts cannot be contradicted allows you to eliminate this choice.
Choice E is incorrect because the first is not a phenomenon, but, again, a fact.
Choice D, then, is left standing – the first is a fact, and the second is evidence of the conclusion that the first fact may change over time.
On questions like these, students often feel that the correct answer choice is somehow lacking that “extra” quality that they want, but as long as it’s a correct description it must be a correct answer. Choices like C, which is only slightly off, tend to tempt examinees by being extra clever, but remember that the novelty factor of the answer choice doesn’t count for anything – it’s only asking you whether it’s accurate or not. The correct answer must be a true description, so don’t be swayed by a boldfaced description that’s a baldfaced (albeit clever) lie!
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