Verbal weakness areas in CR-Help needed

Question

Hi

I have referred Veritas prep for CR and still while doing the problems in OG 13th edition. I find the following weak areas
 
1. Strengthening/Weakening Q- Not able to find the logical gap between premises or premise and conclusion precisely. Hence spending more time to figure out the ans and invariably end up in wrong ans

Another problem I face sometimes is the confusion or mistaking between strengthen ans and weaken ans.
 
2. Method of reasoning - Bold faced Questions. -Mostly turns out to be incorrect since the wordings of ans are quite tricky to decipher

3. Questions most helpful to Evaluate the Argument- Not sure how to tackle these Q

Can someone please instruct and advise oh how best to tackle this problem or my concept

egmat · Answer

Hi, Strengthen, Weaken and Evaluate questions - all belong to the same Assumption family of questions. It seems you are facing problems with these family of questions. I think you need to learn the approach to tackle these questions. We, at e-GMAT, are offering a free session on handling Assumption questions this weekend. It may help you in getting the right approach and ultimately, get better accuracy in these questions. You can register for the session at the following link: https://e-gmat.com/critical-reasoning/? ... event&id=1 For Bold Face questions, you may refer to our article on Bold Face questions and a couple of our solutions to the official bold face questions. Here's the link: list-of-free-e-gmat-cr-resources-156073.html#p1246727 Please feel free to ask if you have any questions.

Thanks, Chiranjeev

KarishmaB · Answer

I can understand that problems you might have in Boldface questions (due to the technical language they use) and to some extent Evaluate the argument too since they are an advanced type of Strengthen/Weaken questions but the straightforward strengthen/weaken questions should not be trouble at all. The most crucial step of these questions is this: "FIND THE CONCLUSION". The conclusion is what we need to strengthen/weaken. The option we choose as the correct answer makes our CONCLUSION most likely or less likely. Evaluate the argument again affects the conclusion. Evaluate the argument options are usually in the form of questions. Depending on how the question is answered, if our conclusion becomes more/less likely, the option is the answer. Boldface questions: https://www.gmatclub.com/forum/veritas-prep-resource-links-no-longer-available-399979.html#/2014/01 ... questions/ https://www.gmatclub.com/forum/veritas-prep-resource-links-no-longer-available-399979.html#/2013/03 ... -the-gmat/ Strengthen/Weaken questions: https://www.gmatclub.com/forum/veritas-prep-resource-links-no-longer-available-399979.html#/2013/09 ... -the-gmat/ https://www.gmatclub.com/forum/veritas-prep-resource-links-no-longer-available-399979.html#/2013/05 ... reasoning/ Evaluate an argument: https://www.gmatclub.com/forum/veritas-prep-resource-links-no-longer-available-399979.html#/2012/11 ... onclusion/ Point out the questions where you are facing problems and I can point out how to sort them out.

gameboy11887 · Answer

Hi karishma

Thanks for those inputs

For str/weaken Q is it okay to go to the ans choices ven though you are not able to identify the logical gap.Bcos sometimes if find it slightly difficult to spot the gap after the conclusion is identified?

KarishmaB · Answer

Absolutely! There needn't be obvious gaps. Assumption questions usually will have gaps and they are easy to identify. But strengthen and weaken questions may not have any obvious ones. CR questions are real life questions and hence are not air tight. This means that if you provide more data, you can strengthen or weaken any opinion. It is usually not deductive logic such as: A is B. B is C. So A is C.

Don't waste time trying to pre-think if nothing comes to mind. After all, the options are there and once you read them, you will be able to figure out. Keep one eye on the conclusion while evaluating each option.

gameboy11887 · Answer

Hi Karishma

Thanks again. 
Can you pleas advice how can u tackle the question ending with a fill up the blanks

eg: question stem ends in since.......

Which is the category of Q here?

Also when there looks like there are multiple conclusions which conclusion would you give importance to str/weaken?

KarishmaB · Answer

'Fill in the blank' questions can be any type of CR questions. The entire question stem will guide you but don't depend on a single word:

"The argument is flawed since ..."
"From the argument, we can infer that ..."
"The plan is unlikely to work because ..."
etc

The argument will have a single major conclusion. If you do feel that there are multiple conclusions, they will obviously be related. Assume they are combined together in a single sentence such 'A and B' and your options should strengthen the sentence. It could strengthen A or B or both.

Verbal weakness areas in CR-Help needed

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