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1) Get mad at it.

When you read the stimulus, accept that the argument will be weak, and focus your attention on finding and exploiting that logical weakness. The word “critical” is the first word of the question name for a reason – a major part of your job is to criticize the argument. Be skeptical from the beginning and treat the exercise as though you’re cross-examining whomever created such a flimsy argument. Be aggressive.

2) Do more than half your “work” before you look at the answer choices.

Playoff basketball games are often won on the boards; critical reasoning problems are won on the stimulus. Hard problems use a handful of techniques to make the answer choices less than helpful. Answer choices include a lot of negation (the word “not” to make it hard to tell the exact direction of the sentence), or they start with what looks like an irrelevant lead-in to get you thinking “this isn’t even close”. If you are not in tune with the argument’s weakness, they’ll be able to hide the right answer from you with relative ease. Your job is to know what kind of gap in logic you’re either trying to fill (strengthen) or exploit (weaken). The better you can understand the parameters of the correct answer, the more effectively you can hunt it down and avoid distraction.

3) Be aggressive.

Most students skim the stimulus and answer choices looking for repeat language; surprisingly, few students really dive into the stimulus and get a handle on the argument and then truly analyze the answer choices. It’s like rebounding – students skim and hope the answer falls into their hands while they’re in the right position. To be a better critical reasoner, read arguments skeptically and aggressively. Criticize. Attack. Try going through a set of 20 CR questions without bothering with the answers until later – just poke holes in the logic as you read the paragraphs, training yourself to root out logical flaws.

Critical Reasoning is not a spectator sport. Be critical, be aggressive.