VERBAL I -How to score well in critical reasoning.

I found critical reasoning as one of the easier part of the verbal ability section. My hit rate was about 80% which was truly OK compared to my hit rate in sentence correction and reading comprehension part. It becomes an important part of the VA section since I feel it is easy to score in critical reasoning than either in SC or RC. There will be approximately 11 critical reasoning(CR) question  that will come in your verbal ability section. CR is basically designed to test how clear a thinker your are. The passages in the critical reasoning are shorter, generally having 20-100 words. There are some set types of questions that are asked in it. We will talk about that in detail later. First let us see what things to look out for in the critical reasoning question.
Every critical reasoning question has three important things in it :

1) Premises - These are mainly facts or evidences that the author gives us to prove his conclusion.
2) Conclusion - What the author wants us to accept.
3) Assumptions - This is really important. They wont be present in the statement, you have to closely observe                                        to find out what the author is assuming to present his conclusion.

A typical critical writing statement is like "premise, premise, premise...conclusion".  But all these premises might not be sufficient to conclude what the author is concluding, you would need some assumptions as well.

For example.

In the past 10 years, advertising revenues for the magazine True Investor have fallen by 30%. The magazine has failed to attract new subscribers and newsstand sales are down to an all time low. Thus, sweeping editorial changes will be necessary if the magazine is to survive. [Source - princeton review]

If we read the statement closely and try to find out the premises they will be

1) In the past 10 years, advertising revenues for the magazine True Investor have fallen by 30%.
2) The magazine has failed to attract new subscribers and newsstand sales are down to an all time low. 

And the conclusion that the author provides is

Sweeping editorial changes will be necessary if the magazine is to survive.

Now you have to ask yourself whether the premises enough to get to the conclusion?? In this case they aren't.

The author is assuming that only editorial reasons are responsible for the low sales and less advertising revenues. But there might be some other reasons as well. For example nothing is mentioned about the price of the magazine and how it has fluctuated etc. You might get an option which talks about the price of the magazine and you might feel that the low sales were because of high price!

Therefore, for any critical reasoning questions look for assumptions very closely.

I believe one's common sense would be enough to find out the premises and conclusion in the statement but then too you can look out for some key words that signal a conclusion or a premise.

Words signalling conclusion in the statement can be

So, hence, therefore, thats why, this, implying, indicating etc..

Similarly you can look out for words signalling premises.

Because, since, as, given, as mentioned..etc.

Tips to do well in the critical reasoning part of the verbal section:

1) Understand the statement very clearly - This is really important. Read and re read the statement before jumping to the answer options. Unless you have a clear idea on what the statement means chances are you will mark the wrong option.

2) Paraphrase the statement in your own words - An extension of the first point. It helps in getting a logical picture in your head and also removing all the wordiness of the question. If you are a non native English speaker you can think about it in your own language in your head. It helped me a lot :)

3) Understand what the question is asking for and don't get confused - If the question asks for an option that weakens the argument then approach in the same way, crossing the options that strengthens the statement or those which have no impact. It seems pretty obvious but it helps to pay close attention, especially for questions that ask for "which one of the options do not strengthen/weaken the conclusion"

4) Play close attention to Premises, Assumptions and Conclusion - Try to find out these three parts of the question. Once you have dissected the question in that way it will be easier to find out the right option.


That much as of now. Common types of question in critical reasoning to be added later.

C yao!