Need help with strategies for Tough CR Questions!

Question

Hi All, First of all, thank you all for the wealth of information that you share on this forum. I’ve gotten invaluable insights and strategies from this forum - straegies that have helped me gain grounds in this GMAT journey. I'm a non-native but all my education from kindergarten has been in British English. As such, I would say that apart from my accent, I could qualify as a native english speaker. So far, i have been able to ‘contain’ SC and RC. At medium and low difficulty, my SC accuracy is about 100%. At high difficulty, it’s still about 100%. When it goes really ballistic (as I came to finally see on GMATPrep Question Pack 2 and Exam Pack 2), it could drop to 95% but not below 90%. I am content with that. RC has always come naturally. Without writing anything (i.e. no jotting keywords or summarizing paragraphs) during my mock tests, I have always gotten every single RC question right - at most only one wrong. Kinda surprises me but then I’m happy about that

I'm stating this so that my potential helpers can understand that grammar aint my problem . . .

Now to my main problem. CR at high difficulty! At low and medium difficulty, I fare well on the CR (above 90% accuracy). But once i filter the OG questions to Hard (OG 2015 online access allows you to do that), my accuracy drops to between 40% and 50%

. Simply put, I can’t seem to get around the really tough CR questions that involve indirect connections. This problem seems to span across the different types of CR Question (except maybe Bold Face questions which to me are like CR). I dug deeper and noticed that this usually happened to me when the answer requires what i have dubbed ‘multi-layer’ reasoning i.e. making one deduction, and connecting it to another deduction before connecting it to the logic of the question. To make you understand what i mean, I will show an example of a typical question that knocks me off. OG13 CR#115 Guidebook writer: I have visited hotels throughout the country and have noticed that in those built before 1930 the quality of the original carpentry work is generally superior to that in hotels built afterward. Clearly carpenters working on hotels before 1930 typically worked with more skill, care, and effort than carpenters who have worked on hotels built subsequently. Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the guidebook writer’s argument? (A) The quality of original carpentry in hotels is generally far superior to the quality of original carpentry in other structures, such as houses and stores. (B) Hotels built since 1930 can generally accommodate more guests than those built before 1930. (C) The materials available to carpenters working before 1930 were not significantly different in quality from the materials available to carpenters working after 1930. (D) The better the quality of original carpentry in a building, the less likely that building is to fall into disuse and be demolished. (E) The average length of apprenticeship for carpenters has declined significantly since 1930. The OA to this question is D. The explanation is that of all the buildings built in the 1930s, we have some with good woodwork and some with bad woodwork. But since the ones with bad woodwork have been demolished (as per answer choice D), the only buildings that were available, which the guidebook writer used as a representative sample of all 1930 buildings, were the ones with good woodwork. How on earth do you just make such connections out of nowhere? This is my main concern. Even if you manage to, will it fly without GMAC saying that we are not sure about blah blah blah based on what we have from the prompt. It almost looks like trying to twist the answer to fit the question. Again, I know that GMAC is ALWAYS right but then . . . . . At some point, it began to appear that GMAC dismisses any answer they do not like with the usual ‘we can not support this answer with the information in the prompt’ while making similar far reaching connections when justifying the correct answer. I kinda wondered why these far reaching connections that disqualified the attractive wrong answer seem to ‘work’ on the correct answer.....hahahahah.... Okay. I know I’m being a bit sarcastic here but I hope you all understand what I mean . I know that these questions are standardized and GMAC is ALWAYS correct and this is why I am asking for any strategy that can help to demystify these problems and make the same far-reaching conclusions that GMAC likes :-D :-D I have learnt the Assumption Negation and Variance Tests and they have been helpful but at times they seem to work on two answers and then GMAC picks one, ‘justifies’ it and discards the other! Sometimes it even seems like the question has no answer. . . . lol. Can anyone help with some really deep explanation that can ‘open my eyes’ to what exactly I am missing? Here is another example of a typical question that I failed to answer correctly.

OG13 CR#88 Businesses are suffering because of a lack of money available for development loans. To help businesses, the government plans to modify the income-tax structure in order to induce individual taxpayers to put a larger portion of their incomes into retirement savings accounts, because as more money is deposited in such accounts, more money becomes available to borrowers. Which of the following, if true, raises the most serious doubt regarding the effectiveness of the government’s plan to increase the amount of money available for development loans for businesses? (A) When levels of personal retirement savings increase, consumer borrowing always increases correspondingly. (B) The increased tax revenue the government would receive as a result of business expansion would not offset the loss in revenue from personal income taxes during the first year of the plan. (C) Even with tax incentives, some people will choose not to increase their levels of retirement savings. (D) Bankers generally will not continue to lend money to businesses whose prospective earnings are insufficient to meet their loan repayment schedules. (E) The modified tax structure would give all taxpayers, regardless of their incomes, the same tax savings for a given increase in their retirement savings. Shamefully, I could not even zero in on an answer for this one. I think I picked randomly. Again, Can anyone help with some really deep explanation that can ‘open my eyes’ to what exactly I am missing? I’m not asking for answers to the questions posted above. I kinda need a systematic way to lock down these nasty CRs!!!

fireinbelly · Answer

I would highly recommend you powerscore CR bible if you have already not gone through it....please go through each and every question type in that book and you will surely get the kind of insights you are looking for -

As for the question you have posted, I don't feel the connection was too far-fetched.....I might have thought the way you are thinking may be but probably after going through powerscore I know how GMAC thinking works....Infact in the below question it is simple....the data author is talking about does not represent right data (as most of the buildings with bad quality carpentary have already got demolished).....so author is taking partial data from past and comparing with current data....

Power score will give you tips to handle WEAKENING questions....and one of them is that An answer choice which suggests that there is some fault with the data presented then that will be right answer choice.

I hope it helps.

apolo · Answer

Hey Anthonio,

About OG13, CR 115 
Have you ever heard of survival bias?!

This question is an example of the survival bias.

Let me explain the idea: Suppose you examine ONLY the existing population of any objects and find a fact. However, this fact cannot be generalized for all members of that population, because you have not had access to those members of the population which have already 'disappeared'.

Suppose this example: A scientist examines all the EXISTING firms and observes that the most successful firms are those which apply a special management practice, system A. He concludes that since firms which apply system A are on average more successful than firms which do not apply this, hence system A can make firms more successful. 
However, another scientist observes that, firms that have applied system A, during the last ten years, have been either the most successful ones (less than 10 percent of the firms that have applied this system) or the least successful ones, i.e. those which went bankrupt and do not exist anymore now(90 percent of the firms that have applied the system A during the past ten years)!

So, what had the first scientist neglected? He had neglected that there might have been many very unsuccessful firms with system A, which do not exist anymore now, because they wen bankrupt.

Another example: One might examine ancient buildings and conclude that in those times buildings were made from materials far more stronger than materials that are used in modern buildings because the ancient buildings have survived through centuries, while modern buildings cannot age that much long!
What's the problem with this conclusion?
This person has forgotten that there have been many ancient building that do not exist anymore, so the existing ancient buildings IS NOT A REPRESENTATIVE sample of that population. He has only examined the survived one.

I hope this has helped.

apolo · Answer

Moreover, verbal questions are different from quant ones. In quant questions, there is a 100% correct answer. It is math.
In verbal questions, sometimes, if not always, it is a matter of less or more correct.
You have to choose the best choice, not the only correct one, as in quant questions.

Best choice versus (the only) Correct choice

In many SC correction questions as well as some CR questions, or even RC ones, it is not a matter of ONE-RIGHT answer; it is the answer which seems BEST.

That said, I have analyzed many CR questions. Though there are some common patterns, but every question has its specific information. Add to this the different answer choices, i.e. even if the logic and structure in two CR question might be similar, the answer choices might have quite different logic.

Some questions are quite straightforward. Some are less obvious, at least at first look. I have not yet understood few of them, see OG 15, CR 120:
"Codex Berinensis, a Florentine copy of an ancient Roman medical treatise, is undated but contains clues ..."
I think the logic behind the answer is quite weak. That's it.
So you see, here is not the absolute world of YES or NO. Here is a world of better or worse. I have even seen questions in RC section, that the expalantion given in OG is not convincing. However, this is the way it is.

Some CR questions are quite tricky. I have no easy way that would solve all CR questions. The ultimate answer would be 'think'. Think about the logic, about the choices, etc. Be a free-thinker!
And isn't this quite fun?!

fireinbelly · Answer

very well explained and smartly put Apolo! +1 to you!

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear  apolo ,

Since you mentioned not understanding OG15 CR120, I thought I would discuss it here. 
 Codex Berinensis, a Florentine copy of an ancient Roman medical treatise, is undated but contains clues to when it was produced. Its first eighty pages are by a single copyist, but the remaining twenty pages are by three different copyists, which indicates some significant disruption. Since a letter in handwriting identified as that of the fourth copyist mentions a plague that killed many people in Florence in 1148, Codex Berinensis was probably produced in that year.

Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the hypothesis that Codex Berinensis was produced in 1148?

(A) Other than Codex Berinensis, there are no known samples of the handwriting of the first three copyists 
(B) According to the account by the fourth copyist, the plague went on for ten months. 
(C) A scribe would be able to copy a page of text the size and style of Codex Berinensis in a day. 
(D) There was only on outbreak of plague in Florence in the 1100s 
(E) The number of pages of Codex Berinensis produced by a single scribe becomes smaller with each successive change of copyist

So, we want to strengthen the hypothesis: in 1148, and not earlier or later. What narrows this down to that year in particular?

(A) Hmm. If we had other copies of their handwriting, what, if anything, would that show?

(B) Was this 10 month all inside calendar year 1148? Did it start in 1147 and go to the next year? or start in 1148 and go to the next year? All this is unclear, and it is unclear what implications it would have for the hypothesis.

(C) Well, knowing that a page doesn't take a year helps us narrow down to a particular year, but whether a single page takes one day, half a day, or three days, really doesn't seem to make a difference to the hypothesis.

(D) Interesting. If there were more than one plague, then this situation may raise the possibility that the scribe was referring to the wrong plague, or that the writer had mentioned the 1148 plague while experiencing a later differing one. This one definitely does indicate something special and unique about the year 1148 in particular.

(E) Unclear what this would have to do with determining a particular year.

Yes, the other four answers are clearly irrelevant, and  (D)  does something to isolate 1148 as unique, so it is the best answer. It's not a perfect answer, but it's the best answer.

The harder GMAT CR questions are about making our best determination in a situation in which a lot is uncertain. Think about that situation: making our best determination in a situation in which a lot is uncertain. That describes over 95% of the decisions a manager has to make. In the business world, almost nothing is a sure thing: almost everything involves risk and uncertainty. The ability to act with confidence and conviction in an environment in which not everything is certain---- that's one of the abilities that define the folks who are wildly successful in the business.

Everything about the GMAT makes more sense if you think less about where you've been (school, books) and more about where you going (management in the business world).

Does this make sense?
Mike

apolo · Answer

Hey Mike! I have not yet read your explanation for the mentioedn question. I will do so later. Just wanted to say you are, simply, so nice :-D

Thanks Apolo

apolo · Answer

One interesting and noteworthy point is that in this question GMAC uses ' which  '  to refer to a whole clause, something that it considers 100% wrong in its SC questions:

"Its first eighty pages are by a single copyist, but the remaining twenty pages are by three different copyists,  which    indicates some significant disruption."

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear apolo , Yes, I know, my friend. :-)

This is a maddening thing about GMAC. There are multiple instances of grammatical structures in the CR prompts and RC passages that do not conform to the SC standards. You see, GMAC is a large company, and the folks working on one question are not working on the others. They write thousands of questions, rigorously testing each one, and then the questions that are used on the GMAT (and eventually released in GMAT Prep & OGs) are the ones that statistically perform well. When they are testing, say, a CR question, they are merely testing how well it distinguishes high performers from low performers. Most students answering this CR questions will not notice that grammatical mistake, and even for those who do, the grammar mistake will not prevent them from answering the question correctly. Thus, GMAC's algorithms tags this as a high performing CR question, and no one ever does a thorough SC-level check on it. The folks who do that high level grammar checking in the SC department are in another part of the building: they are never called to review a CR question according to their standards. Thus, we get CR questions, such as this one, and RC passages, that contain questionable grammatical structures that absolutely would not fly on the GMAT SC. In the big picture, it's one of the less troubling forms of inane bureaucratic self-contradiction in our modern world. Mike :-)

sudhirmadaan · Answer

OG13 CR#88

falsifying the assumption is a way to weaken or make conclusion less believable.
Govt. is assuming that once bank receives money it well be given as loan.
ok, what if bank has money and still can not be given as loan. A successfully make it less believable.
If more loan provided to consumers then still it will be less available for business.

no other choice suffice the need.

Need help with strategies for Tough CR Questions!

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