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CR REVIEW

A CEO of a major company noted a serious decline in worker productivity during the

previous five years. According to a report done by an outside consultant, productivity

dropped by 35% by the end of that period. The CEO has therefore initiated a plan to

boost productivity by giving employees shares of the company as part of their paypackage.

We can use the text above to show the four different parts of a Critical Reasoning text.

Conclusion/Main Idea - Most problems have a central idea or thesis. This is almostalways located in the sentence at the beginning of the text, or in the sentence at the very

end. In this case, it is at the end of the passage:

The CEO has therefore initiated a plan to boost productivity by giving employeesshares of the company as part of their pay package.

Notice the word therefore in that sentence. Words like therefore, thus, hence, and sousually tell us that this is the conclusion or the main idea. Let these words lead you to the

main idea.

Conclusion Indicators

hence

so

thus

follows that

conclude that

as a result

therefore

accordingly

consequently

shows that

implies

means that

Most often the conclusion of an argument is put in the form of a statement.Sometimes, however, the conclusion is given as a command or obligation.

Example:

"All things considered, you ought to vote."

Here, the author implies that you are obliged to vote.

The conclusion can even be put in the form of a question. This rhetorical technique is

quite effective in convincing people that a certain position is correct. We are more likely

to believe something if we feel that we concluded it on our own, or at least if we feel that

we were not told to believe it. A conclusion put in question form can have this result.

Example:

"The Nanuuts believe that they should not take from Nature anything

She cannot replenish during their lifetime. This assures that future

generations can enjoy the same riches of Nature that they have. At the

current rate of destruction, the rain forests will disappear during our

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lifetime. Do we have an obligation to future generations to prevent this

result?"

Here the author trusts that the power of her argument will persuade the reader to

answer the question affirmatively.

Taking this rhetorical technique one step further, the writer may build up to theconclusion but leave it unstated. This allows the reader to make up his own mind. If the

build-up is done skillfully, the reader will be more likely to agree with the author, without

feeling manipulated.

Example:

"He who is without sin should cast the first stone. There is no one here

who does not have a skeleton in his closet."

The unstated but obvious conclusion here is that none of the people has the rightto cast the first stone.

When determining the conclusion's scope be careful not to read any more or less into itthan the author states. GMAT writers often create wrong answer-choices by slightlyoverstating or understating the author's claim. Certain words limit the scope of a

statement. These words are called quantifiers--pay close attention to them. Following is a

list of the most important quantifiers:

Quantifiers

all

some

only

never

probably

except

most

could

always

must

likely

many

no

everywhere

alone

Example:

"Whether the world is Euclidean or non-Euclidean is still an open

question. However, if a star's position is predicted based on non-

Euclidean geometry, then when a telescope is pointed to where the star

should be it will be there. Whereas, if the star's position is predicted

based on Euclidean geometry, then when a telescope is pointed to wherethe star should be it won't be there. This strongly indicates that the

world is non-Euclidean."

Which one of the following best expresses the main idea of the

passage?

A. The world may or may not be Euclidean.

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B. The world is probably non-Euclidean.

C. The world is non-Euclidean.

D. The world is Euclidean.

E. The world is neither Euclidean nor non-Euclidean.

Choice (A) understates the main idea. Although the opening to the passage states thatwe don't know whether the world is non-Euclidean, the author goes on to give

evidence that it is non-Euclidean. Choice (C) overstates the main idea. The author

doesn't say that the world is non-Euclidean, just that evidence strongly indicates

that it is. In choice (B), the word "probably" properly limits the scope of the mainidea, namely, that the world is probably non-Euclidean, but we can't yet state so

definitively. The answer is (B).

Premise - Premises are the facts or evidence that support or lead to the conclusion.

Unlike assumptions, they are explicit. Here is an example from the text:

A CEO of a major company noted a serious decline in worker productivity during

the previous five years.

This premise helps the author lead to the conclusion or main idea of the text.

Once you've found the conclusion, most often everything else in the argument will be

either premises or "noise". The premises provide evidence for the conclusion; they formthe foundation or infrastructure upon which the conclusion depends. To determine

whether a statement is a premise, ask yourself whether it supports the conclusion. If so,

it's a premise. Earlier we saw that writers use certain words to flag conclusions; likewisewriters use certain words to flag premises. Following is a partial list of the most commonpremise indicators:

Premise Indicators

because

since

if

as

suppose

assume

for

is evident that

in that

owing to

inasmuch as

may be derived from

Assumption- Assumptions are the facts that support the conclusion, like the premise

does, but unlike the conclusion and premises they are not stated in the text: they areimplicit. Here is what would be an example of an assumption for this particular Critical

Reasoning problem:

Owning something or part of something obliges you work harder to make itsucceed.

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Note that this line is not in the text: it cannotbe in the text if it is an assumption of the

author. But it does give the argument as a whole some sense, and also supports the

conclusion.

Supporting Information- Like a premise, this is stated and explicit information

embedded in the text, but unlike a premise, it does not support the conclusion. At best itsupports a premise or provides further detail or information regarding a premise. From

the text:

According to a report done by an outside consultant, productivity dropped by35% by the end of that period.

This sentence supports the first sentence, the premise that notes that productivity has

dropped. Supporting Information does not support the Conclusion or Main Idea, rather, itsupports information that is already in the text.

The following strategies should help you with all the Critical Reasoning questions.

1. KISS - Remember the old saying, Keep It Simple Stupid i.e. KISS? It also appliesto Critical Reasoning. The key to Critical Reasoning is to focus on what the

question is asking you to do, finding an answer choice that best answers the

question. THAT'S ALL YOU SHOULD DO. Some books tell you to think of the'scope' or 'parameters' of the argument. That's valid too it is basically saying the

same thing. Just answer the question, do not read too much into it or let your own

knowledge of a subject lead you to pick the wrong answer. KISS.

2. Patterns - Look for particular types of questions, and then use the strategies

appropriate for that type of question to choose the right answer. We will be

looking at different types of Critical Reasoning Questions in the next section.

3. Identify the Argument - Sounds obvious? Nonetheless, many forget or do notknow the importance of carrying out this absolutely essential task. In order to do

this, imagine what would satisfy the question. After you have imagined what

could satisfy the question, look for it down below in the five answer choices. Is it

right there, or very similar to it, in answer choice B, for example? If so, then Bprobably is the answer. Read the other answer choices quickly, but this is

probably the right answer. This strategy saves you some valuable time.

Of course, this strategy does not apply to Supply the Conclusion questions, but it

does especially matter forWeaken, Strengthen, Continue the Idea and

ASSUMPTION questions.

4. Silly Answer Choices - There are ridiculous or nonsensical answer choices in

many questions. If an answer choice seems against common sense, or makes nosense if the main idea is true, then you can probably eliminate it.

5. "2 OUT OF 5" RULE

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Creating a good but incorrect answer-choice is much harder than developing the

correct answer. For this reason, usually only one attractive wrong answer-choice

is presented. This is called the "2 out of 5" rule. That is, only two of the fiveanswer-choices will have any real merit. Hence, even if you don't fully understand

an argument, you probably can still eliminate the three fluff choices, thereby

greatly increasing your odds of answering the question correctly.

Eliminate! - Rather than making a choice immediately, it is almost always better toeliminate down to one or two answers. Eliminate the ones you know do not make sense.

So if you are left with two answer choices, and cannot decide between them, guess. At

least you have eliminated it down to 50-50 odds. That's better than Las Vegas.

There are four types of questions that account for the majority of the questions in Critical

Reasoning. You MUST know how to deal with these types of questions.1. Weaken the Argument

2. Strengthen the Argument

3. Supply the Conclusion4. Supply the Assumption

5. Paradox

6. Evaluation

7. Inference

These are the strategies that apply to all Critical Reasoning questions.

1. KISS. Keep things clear and simple.2. Look for particular types of questions (for example Weaken the Argument), and

then use the strategies appropriate for that type of question to choose the right

answer.3. Identify the Argument.

4. Eliminate silly or nonsensical answers.

5. Eliminate answer choices that do not answer the question.

For specific question types

Strategies for each different type of question.

Weaken the Argument questions

1. Identify the argument. Remember that that's usually in the first or last line.

2. Anticipate what will be the answer, if possible. Imagine what would satisfy thequestion- what would strengthen the argument. Then look for it in the answer

choices.3. Eliminate answer choices that do not weaken the argument.

4. If there are two or three answer choices left after the process of elimination, thenchoose!

Strengthen the Argument questions

1. Identify the argument. Remember, that's usually in the first or last line.

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2. Anticipate what will be the answer, if possible. Imagine what would satisfy the

question- what would strengthen the argument. Then look for it in the answer

choices.3. Eliminate answer choices that do not strengthen the argument.

4. If there are two or three answer choices left after the process of elimination, then

choose!Supply the Conclusion

1. Identify the premises of the argument.2. Assume all the premises are true. Try to combine or link those premises. Is there

an obvious conclusion that could be made from these premises?

3. Eliminate answer choices that don't deal with or are supported by ALL of the

premises, or that don't make sense from the information given.4. If there are two or three answer choices left after the process of elimination, then:

choose!

Supply the Assumption questions

1. Identify the premises of the argument.2. Identify the conclusion. Remember, that's usually in the first or last sentence of

the text.

3. Identify the gap in the logic of the argument. What's missing or needed to make

this argument convincing?4. What's the new element or factor in the conclusion? The assumption will probably

introduce it.

5. Go through each answer choice. Does it strengthen the conclusion? If not, then

eliminate it. Eliminate silly or nonsensical answer choices.6. Choose! Don't waste time!

There are three types of Arguments:

1.AnalogyArgument uses evidence about X to reach a conclusion about Y.

Sugar to rats Rat became activeHumans who want to be active should have sugar.

To strengthen rats and Humans have similar effect of Sugar

To weaken rats and Humans have dissimilar effect of Sugar

2. Sampling or StatisticalArguments reach a conclusion about a group of people based on evidence

about some subset of that group.

A survey of airline passengers indicated that 85 % of them would eat

chocolate if it were offered as a midflight snack. Clearly most airline

passengers would njoy popcorn as a midflight snack.

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To strengthen: Subset is the right representation of the group.

To weaken: Subset is the wrong representation of the group. So we can saythat the ppl who were surveyed were the staff of a chocolate company.

3. Causal ArgumentIt uses evidences that X and Y occur together to reach the conclusion that X

causes Y.

Example: Increase in Dollar will increase InflationAssumption: Increase in Inflation does not increase Dollar

Rule:If A then B

If not A then not B (wrong)If not B then not A (right)