Eliminating Bad Answer Choices will help to save you time and give you better odds at guessing, but bad answer choices are fewer and further between on the more difficult end of the GMAT. Even the correct answer might, at first glance, look irrelevant to the conclusion. Oftentimes on difficult CR questions, students can get down to two or three plausible answer choices, but are forced to guess because they aren’t 100% confident in their answer. And while this is often a good thing” remember the test is adaptive and tough questions often mean that you are doing well” it’s important to have a strategy to help better your chances when you are trying to make that final decision.

One of my favorite TV shows, Pardon the Interruption, used to have a regular feature called Good Cop, Bad Cop. The two hosts would choose an issue in sports and pick sides- will Tiger Woods win the golf tournament this weekend? The good cop would make arguments for why Tiger would win the tournament while the bad cop would make arguments for why he wouldn’t. The set-up was farcical and the hosts would choose sides arbitrarily, but I loved it because you would hear reasoning for both sides of an issue. Neither person argued for the side they truly believed in 100% of the time, but they pretended they cared deeply about one side of an issue, made a case for their side, and would preemptively rebut the argument that they knew the other host would make. That’s how I approach Critical Reasoning on the GMAT- on one question I’m the project manager for Hotco Oil Burners (OG #97) and the next I’m President of Country Z (#66). But no matter what role I’m playing, I am constantly asking myself what would help and hurt my argument. Let’s try a problem out to see how this works:

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This week, we’re going to discuss one of the most common critical reasoning problem types: Strengthen the Conclusion. Strengthen questions belong to the Assumption Family of questions; we’ll talk more about that later.

If you haven’t yet, read this article before we try our GMATPrep problem. Then set your timer for 2 minutes and go!

In many corporations, employees are being replaced by automated equipment in order to save money. However, many workers who lose their jobs to automation will need government assistance to survive, and the same corporations that are laying people off will eventually pay for that assistance through increased taxes and unemployment insurance payments.

Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the author’s argument?

(A) Many workers who have already lost their jobs to automation have been unable to find new jobs.

(B) Many corporations that have failed to automate have seen their profits decline.

(C) Taxes and unemployment insurance are paid also by corporations that are not automating.

(D) Most of the new jobs created by automation pay less than the jobs eliminated by automation did.

(E) The initial investment in machinery for automation is often greater than the short-term savings in labor costs.

Okay, now that you’ve got an answer, let’s use our 4-step CR process.

Step 1: Identify the Question

First, we read the question stem: Read more

GMAT topics generally fall into one of two categories: things that people know and things that people don’t. When the average adult doesn’t know much about a topic, it’s easy to make a GMAT question. Exponents, triangles inscribed in circles, proper usage of the present perfect tense, and pretty much every Data Sufficiency question fall into this category. These questions don’t have to be especially tricky to be difficult.

But when the GMAT takes a topic that people do have some familiarity with- basic algebra or subject-verb agreement, for example- the GMAT needs a way to complicate the problem, oftentimes by preying upon the simple mistakes we all make. This is exactly what I see with Critical Reasoning questions. We make illogical arguments in our daily lives and refute other people’s illogical arguments with illogical rebuttals. I went to Notre Dame and therefore know that the University of Southern California will not win a national championship in football this year. Why? Because I hate USC. Is this logic sound? Probably not. My liking for USC’s football team doesn’t mean much when it comes to whether or not they will be successful this year. In the real world, we look for whether a fellow football fan likes or dislikes our favorite team before deciding whether they make a good argument. We look for a (D) or an (R) at the bottom of CSPAN before deciding whether a politician sounds intelligent. But if we can ignore these irrelevant items and focus on the point an argument is trying to make, we will be much more likely to spot bad answer choices in Critical Reasoning arguments and be able to quickly eliminate them on the GMAT. Read more

Editor’s Note: We’re pleased to introduce Manhattan GMAT instructor Andrea Pawliczek as a writer on our blog (even though she is a New England Patriots fan)! This is Part 1 of her two-part first post. Give Andrea a warm welcome in the comments!

Success on the GMAT demands many efforts: learning new skills, sharpening existing skills, and in some cases forgetting or setting aside some of the skills that we use in real-life. It is this last demand that often proves the most challenging, as a GMAT test taker must veer away from the type of thinking that has served her well to this point in life.

One such case occurs in data sufficiency problems, which ask us not to solve a problem but rather to identify when we have enough information to solve a problem. In both my professional and personal life I have been asked to solve problems on many occasions (How much will the new project cost? How many gallons of paint do I need to buy to paint the living room?). I cannot think of a real life occasion when I have specifically been asked when I have enough data to answer a question. Read more

This week, we’re going to discuss one of the most common critical reasoning problem types: Inference. (Note: our current materials call these questions Draw A Conclusion, but we’re changing the name next month!) If you haven’t yet, read this article before we try our GMATPrep problem. Then set your timer for 2 minutes and go!

* When a polygraph test is judged inconclusive, this is no reflection on the examinee. Rather, such a judgment means that the test has failed to show whether the examinee was truthful or untruthful. Nevertheless, employers will sometimes refuse to hire a job applicant because of an inconclusive polygraph test result.

Which of the following conclusions can most properly be drawn from the information above?

(A) Most examinees with inconclusive polygraph test results are in fact untruthful.

(B) Polygraph tests should not be used by employers in the consideration of job applicants.

(C) An inconclusive polygraph test result is sometimes unfairly held against the examinee.

(D) A polygraph test indicating that an examinee is untruthful can sometimes be mistaken.

(E) Some employers have refused to consider the results of polygraph tests when evaluating job applicants.

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This week, we’re going to discuss one of the most common critical reasoning problem types: Weaken the Conclusion. If you haven’t yet, read this article before we try our GMATPrep problem. Then set your timer for 2 minutes and go!

* Tiger sharks are common in the waters surrounding Tenare Island. Usually tiger sharks feed on smaller sharks, but sometimes they have attacked tourists swimming and surfing at Tenare’s beaches. This has hurt Tenare’s tourism industry, which is second only to its fishing industry in annual revenues. In order to help the economy, therefore, the mayor of the island has proposed an ongoing program to kill any tiger sharks within a mile of the beaches.

Which of the following, if true, most strongly calls into question the likelihood that implementation of the mayor’s proposal will have the desired consequences?
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This week, we’re going to discuss Evaluate critical reasoning problems. Evaluate what? We’re trying to evaluate an assumption the author uses to draw a conclusion, so these Evaluate questions are a subset of the Assumption Family of questions.

Let’s say we’re given this argument:

In order to increase its profits, MillCo plans to reduce costs by laying off any non-essential employees.

Does that sound like a good plan? Profits equal revenues minus costs. What’s MillCo assuming in claiming that laying off non-essential employees will result in increased profits? For one thing, MillCo is assuming that revenues won’t drop as much as or more than the expected cost savings; if that occurred, MillCo’s profits wouldn’t increase.

An Evaluate question might say something like what would be most useful to know in order to evaluate MillCo’s plan? A correct answer might read:

Whether revenues will be affected adversely enough to threaten MillCo’s profit structure.

Let’s say that answer is no: MillCo’s revenues won’t be affected adversely enough. In that case, MillCo’s argument is strengthened. If, on the other hand, the answer is yes, MillCo’s revenues will be affected adversely enough, then MillCo’s argument is weakened. This answer, then, is designed to test the assumption; it helps to determine whether the assumption is valid. It does not tell us, however, that the assumption definitely is, or is not, valid.

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Last week, we discussed the general process for tackling Critical Reasoning problems. This week, let’s go through a specific problem together using our process.

First, a reminder. Our 4-step process is:

• Step 1: Identify the question.
• Step 2: Deconstruct the argument.
• Step 3: State the Goal.
• Step 4: Work from wrong to right.

Okay, set your timer for 2 minutes and try this GMATPrep problem:

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I’ve been in full-on writing mode lately as we update our Strategy Guides (look for the 5th edition in 2012, in time to start prepping for the Next Generation GMAT!). A couple of our teachers have been doing extensive research on every available official Critical Reasoning problem, and now we’re synthesizing everything. Although we’re still in development mode, I want to share some of our take-aways with you so that you can start to benefit from them right away! Read more

In this post, we’re going to analyze a challenging GMATPrep Critical Reasoning question.

First, set your timer for 2 minutes and try the problem!

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