Showing posts with label GMAT CR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GMAT CR. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

How to prepare for GMAT logical reasoning?

How to prepare for GRE, GMAT logical reasoning?

Let’s face reality. Few college books prepare you to think critically. But critical thinking skills are extensively tested in both GRE and GMAT. Critical reasoning (referred to also as logical reasoning or analytical reasoning) constitute an array of thinking skills that involve, analysis, synthesis and evaluation of numerical, verbal or non-verbal data. Numerical reasoning questions measures your ability to apply reasoning in a math setting whereas non-verbal reasoning involves interpreting symbols and pictures, the latter skills hardly tested in higher order aptitude tests. A majority of reasoning questions tested in these exams are text-based
(verbal reasoning).

Logic is the science of correct reasoning. It is integral to mathematics and philosophy. There are many logic concepts that originate from the above disciplines and applied in GRE and GMAT tests. The common test areas, viz.  critical reasoning (short passages that present arguments), argument essay and integrated reasoning draw immensely from philosophy and logic. These questions requires you to analyze issues, reason logically, and argue effectively. These skills are essential to succeed in higher studies as well as in careers.


How to build reasoning skills

1.    Using test prep resources

A common practice among test aspirants is to seek help from coaches, preparatory test guides and online discussion forums in order to learn tips and strategies to crack reasoning questions. No doubt some of these are useful sources to make you motivated and test ready. However exercise caution; desist from using these indiscriminately; do quality check.

2.    Reading varied texts
Those who are habituated to reading will over time become critical thinkers, and thereby succeed in many areas of aptitude tests. It is to be noted that the question stimulus in reasoning tests are drawn from everyday knowledge rather than from academic disciplines. Being well-read will make you familiar with the content of these problems.

3.     From principles of  logic
A third and highly productive way to build your logical reasoning is to master elementary logic theory. What is logic theory?

 Here’s a basic concept in logic.
Statement : Whenever Sara goes to the supermarket, she buys cookies.
You saw Sara this morning carrying a jar of cookies. Can you then infer that Sara has gone to the super market?
 No. this is wrong reasoning, because the supermarket is not the only place where Sara buys cookies from.
Let’s consider the scenario:  Sara did not buy cookies, can we infer that she did not go to the supermarket? Yes, we can.

In logic theory terms, the original statement can be expressed as,
If A, then B; If not B, then not A. This expression can be applied to a class of problems. Many such formulae  can be learnt and applied to logical reasoning. Merely common sense will not work.

There are many books on elementary logic suitable for beginners  that can give you solid foundation in  critical thinking. You may make use of such sources for your test preparation.

A good book on critical reasoning
One book I would recommend is Critical thinking: A Student’s Introduction by  Gregory Basham, William Irwin et al.  Online edition of this book is also available.

This book provides all basics consistent with the reasoning historically assessed in tests of reasoning and aligned with the content areas covered in  global admission examinations. Hence a good reference source for aptitude trainers too. The real-world examples and proven step- by- step approach to answering questions that this book provides can significantly improve the way you look at reasoning  problems.  The concepts that you need are; structure  and components of arguments, inductive and deductive arguments, method of evaluating arguments and  ways to spot common errors in arguments.
Let your preparation involve understanding the logic behind problems and not merely seeking solutions.

Becoming a critical thinker is both an adventure and  hard work.   Practice. Make mistakes. Learn from them. Improve. In the coming  test season, be equipped with a workable set of thinking tools.

Contributed by
Dr. Vijayakumari
Instructor  at semantics, Chennai

Email: vijaya@semanticslearning.com

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

GMAT critical reasoning - Bold face arguments


Standard arguments comprises a set of supporting statements followed by a conclusion.

A bold face arguments is more complex
It can have
Evidence-conclusion- counter evidence-supporting statement
Evidence-conclusion-more evidence- final conclusion.....


Thursday, October 11, 2012

GMAT critical reasoning tips- Bold face arguments


GMAT bold face arguments

Take each statement independently and see how it is related to the entire argument, including the other bold face.
Do not take only the relationship between the statements in bold.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

GMAT verbal rules in a capsule ( critical reasoning ) - 4

Some common flaws in arguments
1.faulty comparison (analogy)
2.Unrepresentative statistics
3.ignoring other casual factors
4.questionable cause
5.limited evidences.

Build on CR vocabulary

Thursday, August 11, 2011

GMAT critical reasoning concepts

Are you feeling the heat while preparing for GMAT critical reasoning? You are not alone, there are 1000’s of GMAT aspirants who are struggling with GMAT CR. Do you want to know why?

Plain simple, they have not studied the concepts.

For algebra there are concepts, for geometry there are concepts so why not for GMAT Critical reasoning.

Let me take you through one concept in Critical reasoning

Concept: Inference vs assumption
What is an inference? What is an assumption….
Test aspirants get confused with these two terms.

Lets take an example and clear the confusion
If A>B and B>C ….what can you conclude?…. Yes A>C
A>C is a conclusion.

Now what is an inference.
If A>;B you can infer B….. This is an inference.
You need more than one statement(CR term-premises) to arrive at a conclusion. You can arrive at an inference with one statement.

Lets take a CR case
In film and videotape, it is possible to induce viewers to project their feeling on to characters on screen. In one study, when a camera shot of a woman’s face was preceded by a shot of a baby in a crib, the audience thought that the woman’s face was registering happiness. When the same shot of the woman’s face was preceded by a shot of a lion running toward the camera, the audience thought that the woman’s face was registering fear.


Find out the inference……..common give it a shot….
First look out for a premise….
“when a camera shot of a woman’s face was preceded by a shot of a baby in a crib, the audience thought that the woman’s face was registering happiness.”

When the audience saw the picture of the baby, they thought the woman washappy,but in actuallity it was the audience
itself that was happy.

So you can infer –
 A camera shot of a baby in a crib provoked feelings of happiness in the audience.

Similarly since there is one more evidence there can be one more inference.

 A camera shot of a lion running towards camera provoked feelings of fear in the audience.

Simple…… Yes CR is as simple as this if you know concepts…mail me if you want more info….



Bookmark this on Delicious

Friday, April 23, 2010

Wow strategies for GMAT critical reasoning

Now some critical thoughts

Most people find the weaken/strengthen critical reasoning questions tough to crack.
Here’s good news!

If the question is weaken/ strengthen the logic is inductive. i.e. a conclusion is drawn
•from examples,
•from analogies(comparing two things)
•from cause effect relationship(causal logic)
•or from statistics( numbers, ratio, percentages)

To weaken argument from examples – choose counter example from options
To weaken analogy – choose the option that shows non- comparability
To weaken causal –choose alternative causes from option
To weaken statistics- choose option that shows unrepresentativeness

Reverse these m you are ready for strengthen.
How write strategy like the above for each logic type for strengthen question
Now work on 10 weaken/10 strengthen questions from OG. Voila! You’ve bloomed to be a logician (does that exist??)

Let me know if it works.


Delicious Bookmark this on Delicious

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Know your critical reasoning concept for GMAT – 1

There are two types of arguments commonly asked in the GMAT CR. Lets discuss them
  • What is an inductive argument?
  • What is a deductive argument?
An inductive argument is an argument where the conclusion is derived from the given premises only. The GMAT CR arguments are mostly of this type. This argument is weak because when the argument is critically analyzed it can be concluded that the conclusion cannot be derived from only the given premises.
Few examples of inductive arguments are given below.

Example 1:
Recently Algie Corporation has recruited a clever CEO to manage its operations and found its operational costs reduce by 30 percent ever since. A similar decision helped Beta Ltd to cut down operational costs by 33 percent. This shows that corporations can reduce operational costs considerably by recruiting astute CEOs.

The argument is weak because it cannot be concluded that the reduction of ops cost cannot be attributed to CEO only, it could be because of some other external factors.

Example 2
A few students of Joe School joined Luke College for liberal arts course. Mary is a student of Joe School. Therefore, Mary is most likely to join Luke College for liberal arts course.

The argument is weak because it cannot be concluded that Mary belonged to that group of students that joined Joe School

A deductive argument is an argument where the conclusion is claimed to follow necessarily from the given premises. Specific conclusions can be derived from universal premises. This argument is strong.
Few example of deductive arguments are as follows

Example 1:
All plants are green
Rose is a plant
Rose is green.

Example 2
All chemical factories in North America have effluent treatment plants within the factory premises. Fertilizer Max is a chemical factory in North America. Hence, it must have an effluent treatment plant in its premises.

Now why don’t you submit three inductive and deductive arguments . Let me check them.
You can also email your comments to urmentor@semanticslearning.com




Delicious
Bookmark this on Delicious