Published: August 5, 2011
GMAT Tips – Critical Reasoning Strategies
Today’s GMAT tip comes to us from Veritas Prep. In this article, they provide helpful strategies for answering critical reasoning questions on the GMAT. Read on to see what they have to say!
There may not be a more aptly named question type on the GMAT than “Critical Reasoning,” a question type that rewards critical thinking in a major way. Students are successful by reading critically and economically. Those who buy into the critical way of processing arguments can “click” with critical reasoning quite readily, quickly organizing information into actionable components and anticipating correct answers before even reading them.
We offer these three critical strategies for critical reasoning questions:
1) Know Your Role
Each CR question contains a stimulus (usually one paragraph of 3-5 sentences), a question stem, and five answer choices (four incorrect, one correct). For most questions, it is natural for the student to read by starting at the beginning. But the trick is this — each stimulus, necessarily, is about “something,” and that “something” tends to frame that you read about it. The human brain processes information by building links between known information and new information, so as you read, say, a stimulus about a mining excavation project, your mind will involuntarily try to link it to something you know — the Chilean miners and their underground plight; the city of Pittsburgh and its turnaround through healthcare and education; the fact that you hated your college geology class…
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