Start Here For CR: GMAT Ninja's Critical Reasoning Resource Collection

Start Here for CR:

GMAT Ninja's Critical Reasoning Resource Collection

So you're on the world's biggest and best GMAT website, and you're probably trying to figure out how to get better at critical reasoning. With the mountains and mountains of stuff on this website, where should you start with CR?

Well, how about here? This is our attempt to curate the literally millions(!) of words we've jammed into posts, articles, full explanations, and videos in our years as the GMAT Club verbal experts.

Part 1 of this post includes just the most basic starting points:

• General advice for improving your CR performance
• Where to find practice questions and exams
• Where to find a large pile of full CR explanations
• Resources for improving your underlying reading skills

Part 2 features CR resources by question type, including articles, videos, and complete explanations of a select group of our favorite CR questions. We're not huge fans of hyper-focusing on individual CR question types -- see part 2 below for a rant on that issue -- but if you want to see some examples of how to think through certain CR questions, we'll point you to some of our favorite examples for each of these types:

• Assumptions
• Strengthen & Weaken
• Complete the Argument & Fill-in-the-Blank
• Resolve the Paradox
• Boldface Questions
• Evaluate the Argument
• EXCEPT Questions
• Miscellaneous

Enjoy, and if there's anything you think we're missing, feel free to add a comment in the thread below.

Part 1: General GMAT CR Advice & Resources

Critical Reasoning: The Basics

Articles & Forum Posts

• Ultimate CR Guide for Beginners. This guide isn't ONLY for students who are new to the GMAT -- if you've been hitting your head against a wall on CR for a while now, the process outlined in this guide might help you get back on the right track.
• How to think about note-taking on CR
• What to do about timing on GMAT verbal

Videos

• The 7 Most Common GMAT CR & RC Mistakes
• How Cutting Corners Kills Your GMAT Score (on quant and verbal)
• All GMAT Ninja LIVE YouTube verbal videos

CR Questions & Practice Exam Resources

Articles

• Why you should use LSAT questions as GMAT CR practice
• How to create your own "fake" GMAT practice tests with real GMAT questions
• bb’s epic CR question directory by topic and difficulty
• carcass‘s incredible master directory to official verbal questions
• souvik101990‘s comprehensive collection of all official CRs

Excessive Quantities of Full CR Explanations, Organized by Question Source

• No really, this is excessive.

How to Become Better at Reading in General for the GMAT

This isn't what anybody wants to hear, but most GMAT CR errors are caused by an inability to catch the EXACT meaning of the passage, question stem, or answer choices -- not from any logical errors, or failure to study any particular question type. So if you're struggling consistently on CR -- and especially if you're struggling at least as much on RC -- then you might want to spend some time improving your overall reading skills.

Here are two articles that can help you get you started with improving your reading ability:

• GMAT Ninja’s Guide to Leisure Reading, Part 1: How Nonfiction Can Help Your GMAT Score
• GMAT Ninja’s Guide to Leisure Reading, Part 2: The Benefits of Reading Fiction to Improve Your GMAT Score

Part 2: GMAT CR Resources by Question Type

Apologies if you already read this above, but just in case you didn't: most GMAT CR errors are caused by an inability to catch the EXACT meaning of the passage, question stem, or answer choices -- not from any logical errors, or a failure to study any particular question type.

When we tutor our GMAT students, we never give long lectures about the logic behind assumption questions, or about ways to diagram paradox questions. Once our students have mastered a basic process for approaching CR questions (described in our beginner's guide to CR), we rarely see imbalanced results based on question types -- and when we do, it's usually caused by a relatively basic misunderstanding that can be remedied quickly and easily.

That's a long-winded way of saying that we don't recommend obsessively categorizing GMAT CR questions, and we don't even recommend focusing your studying around particular question types. But if you notice that you repeatedly miss certain types of questions, here are some resources that might get you back on track.

Assumption Questions

Videos

• GMAT Critical Reasoning 101: Strengthen, Weaken, & Assumption Questions. One of our favorite assumption questions appears toward the end of the video.

Negation Technique
Honestly, we're not fans of the negation technique. Sure, it's logically sound, but only if you actually negate the right thing. Figuring out the "perfect" negation is often more trouble than it's worth. This post and this post discuss the limitations of applying this technique in the context of this question.

And if you'd like to see how we approach assumption questions without using the negation technique...

Full Written Explanations

• Infotek, a computer manufacturer in Katrovia, has just introduced...
• Researchers hope to find clues about the A'mk peoples who lived...
• Archaeologists working in the Andes Mountains recently excavated...
• Many gardeners believe that the variety of clematis vine...

Strengthen/Weaken Questions

Videos

• GMAT Critical Reasoning 101: Strengthen, Weaken, & Assumption Questions. The first three questions are strengthen/weaken questions.

Full Written Explanations

• Weaken: Although the discount stores in Goreville's central shopping district...
• Weaken: Humans began to spread across North American around 12,000 years...
• Strengthen: Male bowerbirds construct elaborately decorated nests, or bowers...
• Strengthen: Trucking company owner: Theft of trucks containing valuable cargo...

Complete the Argument & Fill-in-the-Blank

Videos

• GMAT Ninja Series 3, Video 7: Conquering Fill-in-the-blank GMAT CR Questions
• GMAT Critical Reasoning 102: Beyond Strengthen, Weaken, & Assumption Questions. Start at 32:00 for two complete the argument questions.

Full Written Explanations

• United States politician: Although the amount of United States...
• Utrania was formerly a major petroleum exporter, but in recent decades...
• The irradiation of food kills bacteria and thus retards spoilage...

Resolve the Paradox

Full Written Explanations

• Automobile ownership was rare in Sabresia as recently as 30 years ago...
• The number of applications for teaching positions in Newtown’s...
• Advertising tends to have a greater influence on consumer preferences...

Boldface Questions

Videos

• GMAT Ninja Series 3, Video 3: An Intuitive Approach to GMAT Boldface CR Questions

Full Written Explanations

• Since it has become known that several of a bank's top executives...
• Historian: Newton developed mathematical concepts and techniques...
• A product that represents a clear technological advance over...

Evaluate the Argument

Video Examples

• GMAT Critical Reasoning 102: Beyond Strengthen, Weaken, & Assumption Questions. Start at 24:30 for an example of an evaluate the argument question.

Example Questions

• There is a great deal of geographical variation in the frequency...
• Community activist: If Morganville wants to keep its central shopping...
• Nandipa wishes to maintain her heart health, strictly follows a...

EXCEPT Questions

There's nothing particularly special or different about "except questions." This might sound silly, but the main thing to bear in mind when tackling these questions is to be completely clear about why you're crossing out an answer choice when working through the process of elimination. Otherwise, you'll risk getting twisted around, and crossing out the correct answer by accident. Sadly, that happens to test-takers all the (bleeping) time.

Full Written Explanations

• The tobacco industry is still profitable and projections are...
• A major film studio announced the release date of a movie based...
• In their search for Mayan ruins in the jungles of Guatemala...

Miscellaneous

Somewhere in the neighborhood of 20% of GMAT CR questions don't fit neatly into categories above, and here are full explanations of some of our favorite CR oddballs:

Full Written Explanations

• A question asking how the passage is vulnerable to criticism -- Psychologist: In a study, researchers gave 100 volunteers a...
• A thorough inference question explanation -- Cheever College offers several online courses via remote computer...
• An explanation of a more difficult inference question -- Transportation expenses accounted for a large portion of the total...
• A simple method of reasoning question -- Correctly measuring the productivity of service workers is complex...
• A tough method of reasoning question -- Environmentalist: The use of snowmobiles in the vast park north...
• A logical flaw explanation that shows the importance of close reading -- Airline Representative: The percentage of flight delays caused...