Beginner's Guide to GMAT Critical Reasoning
UPDATED FOR THE NEW GMAT IN 2024
In our lives as GMAT Club’s resident verbal experts, we’ve literally been asked this question hundreds of times: “How can I improve on GMAT critical reasoning?” (The next-most-common question has been “How can I improve on reading comprehension?” Check out our Beginner’s Guide to Reading Comprehension for a long-winded answer to that one. Or if you’d like to know how to improve on sentence correction, we’ve got a beginner’s guide to that, too.)
As always, we wish that there was a quick, easy way to fix everybody’s problems on GMAT CR, but as is usually the case on the GMAT, there are no magic bullets. Instead, here’s an honest, long(!), gimmick-free guide to improving on GMAT Critical Reasoning.
The real reason why you miss GMAT CR questions
In nearly every GMAT CR test-prep guide, a disproportionate chunk of the text focuses on specific question types. Test-prep companies spend much of their energy teaching you the logic behind, say, strengthen or “resolve the discrepancy” or assumption questions.
For many test-takers, studying specific question types can be helpful. But after tutoring thousands of students on GMAT CR, we’ve learned an unglamorous truth: logic isn’t usually the main problem. For example, you probably know exactly what it means to strengthen or weaken an argument, right? Sure, the logic itself could cause some trouble on some question types, but it’s rarely the key issue.
So what’s the real problem? Reading precision. If you misread or misinterpret the passage itself, you’re toast – no matter how good you are at understanding logic.
And I know: that doesn’t sound exciting. If you’re unhappy with your GMAT Critical Reasoning results, it’s possible that memorizing logical structures or “approaches” to specific questions could help, but it probably isn’t going to solve all of your CR problems. Improving your reading precision might be the biggest thing that will make a difference.
Improving your GMAT reading precision
So what the heck do we mean when we talk about “reading precision” on GMAT CR? Consider the following passage:
City planner: Our city center will not be adequately revitalized simply by building high-priced condominiums. We need to build a vibrant neighborhood filled with local businesses, not just condominiums. The best solution is to offer financial incentives to draw local businesses to the city center.
Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the argument?
Let’s start by taking a look at that conclusion: “The best solution is to offer financial incentives to draw local businesses to the city center.”
Now, imagine that you (very slightly) misread the conclusion. Here are a few plausible ways you might have warped the conclusion:
1) The only solution is to offer financial incentives to draw local businesses to the city center.
2) A good solution is to offer financial incentives to draw local businesses to the city center.
3) The easiest solution is to offer financial incentives to draw local businesses to the city center.
And we could go on and on. The important thing is: if you change just one or two words, you might completely change the logic of the passage. The question asks you to weaken the argument, but weakening the actual conclusion (“the best solution…”) would be completely different than weakening that first “misread” conclusion (“the only solution…”) or the second (“a good solution…”) or the third (“the easiest solution…”).
Those tiny turns of phrase – any little modifier that tweaks scope, strength, number or magnitude in some way – are at the heart of GMAT CR. And if you’re struggling on CR, we’ll bet that you’re missing those little modifiers more often than you’d like.
It’s all about the modifiers on GMAT Critical Reasoning
So what, exactly, do we mean by “modifiers”?
You’re probably very aware of certain modifiers that indicate “extreme” language: all, nothing, never, only, or always, for example. You might also be pretty good at noticing other, similar modifiers that indicate “less-extreme” language: some, usually, a lot, a few, or sometimes. Those are all pretty obvious, right?
Hopefully, you’re also noticing any language that would indicate a comparison: for example, if something is described as “the best” or “the easiest” or “a better” solution to a problem, that should catch your eye.
But English is a gloriously rich language, offering a limitless variety of potential modifiers: any little adjective or adverb (“unforeseen” or “insurmountable” or “correspondingly” or “economical”) might tweak the meaning of the passage just enough to make a huge difference.
But again, there are no magic bullets here: in the long run, your goal is to develop habits of mind that make you better at noticing the author’s EXACT language in each GMAT CR passage. So before you move on to the answer choices on a CR question, just keep asking yourself: am I paying attention to the author’s EXACT word choice, or am I putting words in the author’s mouth?
How structural thinking can help with GMAT CR
If you’re 100% disciplined about paying attention to the logical structure of each GMAT CR passage, that might help you catch the key details of the author’s language. For example, if there’s a conclusion, you’ll want to be 100% clear about the author’s EXACT language. If you miss a modifier or two in the conclusion, odds are really good that you’ll miss the question.
So we recommend asking yourself the following questions whenever you do GMAT CR exercises:
1) What’s the heart of the passage? If there’s a conclusion, what is it?
2) What’s the author’s logic? If there’s a conclusion, how exactly does the author reach that conclusion?
3) Am I really thinking about the argument – and especially the conclusion – in the author’s EXACT words, or am I putting words in the author’s mouth? Is there anything I should notice about the author’s word choice? Are there any modifiers that should jump off the page at me?
As GMAT tutors, we completely understand that this isn’t anywhere near as satisfying as a nice mathematical formula. But if you stay 100% engaged in this process over the long haul, you’ll ultimately get much better at understanding the author’s precise logic and word choice.
What about note-taking on GMAT Critical Reasoning?
We’ve offered similar advice for GMAT Reading Comprehension, but there is no single, correct way to take notes on GMAT CR. Everybody is different. Some people read more precisely when they take tons of notes, because the physical act of writing something down helps them engage in the material (“kinesthetic learners”, if you like jargon). Other people disengage when they start taking notes, and they actually get worse at reading.
So there’s no one-size-fits-all answer here. Different strokes for different folks.
The thing that matters: if you’re going to take notes, make sure that they’re rooted in the structure of the GMAT CR passage. If you’re blindly rewriting the passage without actually engaging in the logic and EXACT phrasing of the argument, your notes probably won’t be helpful.
For some people, it can be useful to write down the conclusion exactly as it's stated in each GMAT CR passage. Hopefully, the act of writing down the conclusion will help you to be 100% clear about the structure of the argument, and it will help you to catch any little modifiers that might tweak the conclusion.
And if an argument doesn’t have a conclusion, try to root yourself in the heart of the passage. If a GMAT CR passage asks you to resolve a paradox, then maybe writing down the EXACT paradox will help. If the question asks you to evaluate a researcher’s hypothesis, then maybe it’ll be useful to write the EXACT language of that hypothesis. Again, this might help you catch those little details of language that can make all the difference.
If that doesn’t seem to help, then you might be one of those individuals who doesn’t actually benefit from note-taking. Or you can try one of the many other note-taking formats out there, to see if it helps.
For what it’s worth, the act of taking notes – as long as you’re not blindly writing down tons of useless stuff – doesn’t necessarily eat all that much time. So if note-taking improves your accuracy on GMAT CR questions, then it’s worth spending those extra few seconds on each passage.
But again: the key is that everybody is different.
Don’t fall in love on GMAT Critical Reasoning
Whenever you do anything on the GMAT verbal section, you should always look for four wrong answers – not one right answer. If you try to take shortcuts with this process, we can promise that you’ll make mistakes, especially on relatively difficult verbal questions.
The easiest mistake to make on GMAT CR is this: you read the question, and an answer pops into your head, perhaps because you’ve done some “pre-thinking.” You immediately notice that, say, answer choice (B) sounds like whatever you were thinking. So you choose (B), and you don’t really read (C), (D), or (E).
Meanwhile, there’s some little tiny modifier in answer choice (B) that makes it wrong. One word can completely change the meaning of a GMAT Critical Reasoning answer choice, right? But if you fall in love with (B) immediately – and fail to be disciplined with the process of elimination – you can easily make a careless error. And careless errors on easy questions can quickly ruin your day on an adaptive test like the GMAT.
So we’ll say it again: don’t fall in love. Instead, always make sure that you’ve found four wrong answers on every GMAT verbal question, not one right answer. And yes, you’ll have to read every answer choice if you want to eliminate four of them. But on an adaptive test, that’s an investment that you absolutely need to make, on every single verbal question.
Yes, GMAT Critical Reasoning is about reading skill, too
If you’ve read our GMAT Reading Comprehension Guide for Beginners, you already know that strong reading skills are a prerequisite for an elite GMAT RC score. The same is true for Critical Reasoning. If you struggle to understand EXACTLY what GMAT CR passages are saying, then all of the test-prep strategies in the world won’t help much.
So if your underlying reading skills need improvement, be honest with yourself about it!
Stick to official GMAT (and LSAT) CR practice questions
You’ve probably heard this before, too: the GMAT spends between $1500 and $3000 developing every official question, and even the very best test-prep companies (or tutors) simply can’t compete with that investment.
So when you’re doing practice questions, please keep in mind the question source. And if you’re worried about running out of official GMAT CR questions, you might consider using LSAT tests as a supplement to your GMAT studies.
Extra hope for non-native speakers on Critical reasoning!
We’ve said similar things in our GMAT Reading Comprehension Guide for Beginners, but if you’re a non-native speaker, you might have extra room for improvement, particularly when it comes to your reading abilities in English. And that’s a good thing! The most jaw-dropping GMAT verbal improvements overwhelmingly belong to non-native speakers.
So keep at it!
Want more?
For an in-depth look at critical reasoning questions, check out our CR video series.
To learn about our approach to other GMAT verbal questions, check out our beginner’s guides to Reading Comprehension and Sentence Correction.