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23 May 2020, 06:33
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Hi Fellow GMAT Aspirants,
I am Vamshi. To give you an introduction, I am a GMAT aspirant and I improved my score from 570 to 680 already and today I’m sharing my experience of scoring a 97 percentile on GMAT CR from being an amateur at CR. I’m still working on improving my score to get to 720+, but I’m sure my experience in CR is going to help other students like me who are struggling with CR.
I started my GMAT preparation around December 2018. I took a classroom coaching, learned the concepts, solved the questions of their material and did OG thoroughly. That’s about it. This was how I did my study without any study plan or any strategy. I would get a few questions right and few of them wrong. It was mostly a hit and miss kind of case. I used to simply read the question and directly jump to the options.
I prepared for about 6-7 months and I finally took the test and scored a mere 570 with a V26. CR was bad obviously. The accuracy was very low be it easy, medium or hard questions. I was always confused with two close choices.
I realized that it is not just about the preparation, but it is all about the right way of going about it. I signed up for GMATWhiz this time even though it was fairly new back then. I liked the fact that the course was very well organized and structured.
This time, I started focusing on not just the CR concepts but their application. I understood I needed a few strategies to make sure I score well. I understood the mistakes I was making while solving those questions previously. I looked at every solution in depth and used to note down the differences between my approach and the approach suggested in the solution. I realized that a lot needs to be done before jumping to options. In fact, if you focus you’ll realize that there is a certain framework to solve CR questions.
To begin with, CR questions on GMAT have a particular way of approaching them. There’s some pre-analysis to be done before you start eliminating the answer choices. The good thing is that this pre-analysis can be done easily if you know the framework for each and every type of question be it assumption, inference or evaluate.
I learnt about the Frameworks from the GMATWhiz course. They taught me how to pre-think for each of the four common frameworks. Most of the questions can be solved if we understand how to apply these frameworks. They are:
To help you learn, I’ll give you a rough idea of how causality framework works. If there is a cause (X) and effect (Y) relationship in the argument, the three things you have to keep in mind for the assumption to hold true are :
By sticking to these three guidelines, you can easily eliminate the wrong choices and finally select the right one.
When it comes to eliminating answer choices, I didn’t follow any strategy before my first attempt. I would often get confused between two close answer choices and end up marking the wrong one. There are many traps set by the test makers and it is important to have the right strategies in order to identify and mark the right answer at the end. I have to say GMATWhiz helped me a lot with those strategies. I didn’t even have an idea that there were certain common set of traps in each option, and if you know them, you can easily eliminate them.
For example, I learnt how an answer choice can be irrelevant when I started thinking within the scope of the argument. To give a clear understanding, if the conclusion is about the environmental advantage of using paper bags instead of plastic bags, any option talking about the economical advantage would be irrelevant in this case. I would often get confused between two close answer choices. I finally understood that one of the two close answer choices is a partial truth or distortion and can be straight away eliminated. By partial truth, I mean an assumption which does not hold true during all the conditions.
The GMATWhiz course had very detailed explanations of each choice and the main error behind them. Over a period of time, as I solved these questions I developed an idea of how to identify these traps.
Finally, the concept booster and practice quizzes helped me get comfortable with the framework and strategies. The wide variety questions available made me understand the way to solve all the kind of questions I could face on an actual GMAT test.
Once I learned all the concepts and strategies to solve CR, I kept taking quizzes. Based on the results, I spent a considerable amount of time analyzing them and identifying my weaker areas. Then I would get back to going through the concepts of my weaker areas and practise those kind of questions.
Though I would get a few questions wrong during my practice, I always knew I was approaching them the right way and it was just a matter of time I mastered it. Finally, the result was evident. I scored a 97 percentile on GMAT CR and I could not help but thank GMATWhiz for my success. Their dedicated mentorship really helped me a lot and I’m still working with my mentor to improve my score to 720+. Will share my entire journey in detail once I reach the 720 mark. All the best to me and everyone else for their GMAT Preparation!
I am Vamshi. To give you an introduction, I am a GMAT aspirant and I improved my score from 570 to 680 already and today I’m sharing my experience of scoring a 97 percentile on GMAT CR from being an amateur at CR. I’m still working on improving my score to get to 720+, but I’m sure my experience in CR is going to help other students like me who are struggling with CR.
The story before the 570 attempt
I started my GMAT preparation around December 2018. I took a classroom coaching, learned the concepts, solved the questions of their material and did OG thoroughly. That’s about it. This was how I did my study without any study plan or any strategy. I would get a few questions right and few of them wrong. It was mostly a hit and miss kind of case. I used to simply read the question and directly jump to the options.
I prepared for about 6-7 months and I finally took the test and scored a mere 570 with a V26. CR was bad obviously. The accuracy was very low be it easy, medium or hard questions. I was always confused with two close choices.
The story after 570
I realized that it is not just about the preparation, but it is all about the right way of going about it. I signed up for GMATWhiz this time even though it was fairly new back then. I liked the fact that the course was very well organized and structured.
This time, I started focusing on not just the CR concepts but their application. I understood I needed a few strategies to make sure I score well. I understood the mistakes I was making while solving those questions previously. I looked at every solution in depth and used to note down the differences between my approach and the approach suggested in the solution. I realized that a lot needs to be done before jumping to options. In fact, if you focus you’ll realize that there is a certain framework to solve CR questions.
Learning the Framework to solve CR questions
To begin with, CR questions on GMAT have a particular way of approaching them. There’s some pre-analysis to be done before you start eliminating the answer choices. The good thing is that this pre-analysis can be done easily if you know the framework for each and every type of question be it assumption, inference or evaluate.
I learnt about the Frameworks from the GMATWhiz course. They taught me how to pre-think for each of the four common frameworks. Most of the questions can be solved if we understand how to apply these frameworks. They are:
• Plan-goal
• Comparison
• Causality
• Quants
To help you learn, I’ll give you a rough idea of how causality framework works. If there is a cause (X) and effect (Y) relationship in the argument, the three things you have to keep in mind for the assumption to hold true are :
- • X happened before Y
• There are no causes other than X for Y to happen
• No reverse causality exists that is Y did not lead to X
By sticking to these three guidelines, you can easily eliminate the wrong choices and finally select the right one.
Strategy behind eliminating answer choices
When it comes to eliminating answer choices, I didn’t follow any strategy before my first attempt. I would often get confused between two close answer choices and end up marking the wrong one. There are many traps set by the test makers and it is important to have the right strategies in order to identify and mark the right answer at the end. I have to say GMATWhiz helped me a lot with those strategies. I didn’t even have an idea that there were certain common set of traps in each option, and if you know them, you can easily eliminate them.
For example, I learnt how an answer choice can be irrelevant when I started thinking within the scope of the argument. To give a clear understanding, if the conclusion is about the environmental advantage of using paper bags instead of plastic bags, any option talking about the economical advantage would be irrelevant in this case. I would often get confused between two close answer choices. I finally understood that one of the two close answer choices is a partial truth or distortion and can be straight away eliminated. By partial truth, I mean an assumption which does not hold true during all the conditions.
The GMATWhiz course had very detailed explanations of each choice and the main error behind them. Over a period of time, as I solved these questions I developed an idea of how to identify these traps.
The advantage of concept booster and quizzes
Finally, the concept booster and practice quizzes helped me get comfortable with the framework and strategies. The wide variety questions available made me understand the way to solve all the kind of questions I could face on an actual GMAT test.
Once I learned all the concepts and strategies to solve CR, I kept taking quizzes. Based on the results, I spent a considerable amount of time analyzing them and identifying my weaker areas. Then I would get back to going through the concepts of my weaker areas and practise those kind of questions.
Though I would get a few questions wrong during my practice, I always knew I was approaching them the right way and it was just a matter of time I mastered it. Finally, the result was evident. I scored a 97 percentile on GMAT CR and I could not help but thank GMATWhiz for my success. Their dedicated mentorship really helped me a lot and I’m still working with my mentor to improve my score to 720+. Will share my entire journey in detail once I reach the 720 mark. All the best to me and everyone else for their GMAT Preparation!
Shrinkhla21
Joined: 07 Dec 2019
Last visit: 14 Jul 2021
Posts: 52
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Concentration: Social Entrepreneurship, Technology
Schools: (A) Babson '22 (A$) Sauder '22 (II)
GMAT 1: 630 Q45 V32
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23 May 2020, 07:11
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Thank you Vamshi. Great insights on CR! 
I am sure this will help a lot of GMAT takers.
Posted from my mobile device
I am sure this will help a lot of GMAT takers.
Posted from my mobile device
TheUltimateWinner
Joined: 23 Feb 2015
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Schools: Harvard '24 Judge '23 LBS '24 McCombs '24 Mendoza Tepper '24 Ross '24 Cox Marshall '24 Fisher Kelley '24 Jones McDonough '24 Owen '24 Terry BU Simon '24 Katz GWU Mason Babson Gabelli Foster '24 Goizueta '24 Scheller Stern '23 CBS '23 Booth '23 Haas '25 Wharton '25 Stanford '26 Johnson'23 Fuqua '23 Kellogg '23 Kenan-Flagler'23 INSEAD Aug 22 intake Olin '23 Said '23 Sloan '23 Carey Arizona "22 Yale '23 UC Davis Madison '23 Anderson '23 Carroll Carlson '23 Darden '23
Posts: 2,489
23 May 2020, 09:20
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vamshikaithi
vamshikaithi
Thanks for writing something on CR. Could you share your approach on some CR (i.e., boldface, strengthen and weaken, must be true, etc..) specially from official questions?
