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How to Review a GMAT Critical Reasoning Problem

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Are you keeping an error log for your GMAT Verbal practice? If your goal is to get a certain overall score on the GMAT (say, a 700), don’t underestimate the value of Verbal. That’s true even if you’re scoring at a higher percentile in Verbal than you are in Quant. 

At first, you may find that tough Verbal problems—especially Critical Reasoning and Reading Comp—seem arbitrary and subjective. But, they’re less subjective than they seem. GMAT Verbal problems all go through an experimental stage, where they aren’t counted towards your score. A problem is only used on the real GMAT if, during that experimental stage, high scorers consistently get it right and low scorers consistently get it wrong.

That tells us that there’s a method to the madness. High scorers are people who have figured out what makes a right answer right. And the way you get there is by reviewing Verbal just as carefully as you review Quant. 

Reviewing Critical Reasoning

You should review most of the Critical Reasoning problems you do, even if you get them right. That’s because Critical Reasoning arguments use the same structures over and over, even though the content changes. The wrong answers also use the same traps repeatedly. If you get a problem right, analyze the wrong answers anyways. You might see very similar ones in a harder problem on test day.

The only problems you shouldn’t review (yet) are the ones that were unrealistically hard. Feel free to set those aside for later in your studies. Your time is best spent on the problems that will pay off most quickly.

Redoing a Critical Reasoning Problem

The first step of reviewing a CR problem is redoing it. Do this shortly after finishing a problem set, or during your next study session.

When you redo a CR problem, you don’t need to use a timer. You’re also welcome to look back at the notes you took (if any) when you first did the problem. When you try the problem a second time, with a clear head, three things can happen:

  • You convince yourself that your original answer was right.
  • You convince yourself that your original answer was wrong.
  • You’re still not sure. 

In the first two scenarios, go ahead and check out the explanation and then start taking notes on the problem. But, if you get stuck, don’t read the explanation immediately. 

Instead, just check what the right answer was. Try to come up with your own theories for why that answer was right, and for why the other answers were wrong. Then, you can read the explanation—to prove or disprove your own theories, or to add to them. 

If you can’t get anywhere at all with a CR problem unless you read the explanation, the problem might just be too hard to do at the moment. Or, you might need to review how to approach that type of CR problem (for instance, by using GMAT Interact) before doing more practice questions. 

Breaking down a Critical Reasoning problem

Let’s assume that you’ve tried the problem twice, and you now know what the right answer is and why it was right. You’re ready to learn. 

Before you keep reading, do this CR problem from GMATPrep. Use a 2-minute timer. Then, take a break for a couple of minutes, and try it again. 

Correctly measuring the productivity of service workers is complex. Consider, for example, postal workers: they are often said to be more productive if more letters are delivered per postal worker. But is this really true? What if more letters are lost or delayed per worker at the same time that more are delivered?

The objection implied above to the productivity measure described is based on doubts about the truth of which of the following statements?

  • (A) Postal workers are representative of service workers in general.
  • (B) The delivery of letters is the primary activity of the postal service.
  • (C) Productivity should be ascribed to categories of workers, not to individuals.
  • (D) The quality of services rendered can appropriately be ignored in computing productivity.
  • (E) The number of letters delivered is relevant to measuring the productivity of postal workers.

Then, check out this article by Stacey Koprince for the explanation. (But, try to figure out as much as you can about the problem on your own before you read the article! The right answer is (D)—if that’s not what you picked, return to the problem and come up with a theory for why (D) was right.)

Here’s what your review process will look like for a CR problem. There are four pieces of a CR problem, and you can take notes on any of them, depending on what was interesting about the problem. 

  • The question
  • The argument
  • The right answer
  • The four wrong answers

The problem above had a really unusual question, so you might choose to jot down some notes about it. Ideally, look for a big takeaway or two: lessons that could apply not just to this problem, but to the whole problem type, to all CR problems, or even to the GMAT in general. Here are some examples of students’ notes:

Student A: based on = assumption

Student B: if the question is complicated, focus on one piece at a time. “The objection to the measure” = letters might be delayed, so more letters doesn’t = more productivity. “Based on” = assumption required for this to be true. “Doubt about…” = the right answer will be negative, something that the person objecting DOESN’T believe. 

Your notes might look like either example, or, if nothing about the question confused or surprised you, you might take no notes at all. 

If you struggled to understand the argument, or if you picked the wrong answer because you misunderstood the argument, spend some time breaking it down carefully in your notes. You can also think about what answers you could have predicted, based on the argument itself. If you notice any patterns in the argument—for example, if the argument looked like a “tell me why” argument—you could note that as well. 

The most important part of reviewing a CR problem, however, is understanding the answer choices. 

Reviewing Critical Reasoning answer choices

A lot of the time, two or three of the answer choices in a CR problem will be easier to eliminate than the others. If your CR problem is like this, take a moment to make sure you do understand why those answer choices were wrong. 

The ones to really dive into, though, are the answer choices that weren’t obvious. If you got the CR question right, make sure you can answer these questions:

  • What made the right answer right?
  • If any of the wrong answers were difficult, confusing, or tempting, what ultimately made them wrong? 

If you got the question wrong, answer these questions instead:

  • What made the right answer right?
  • What made the answer I picked wrong? 
  • Why did I eliminate (or not choose) the right answer?
  • Why did I choose the answer I picked? 

The point of this exercise isn’t to beat yourself up for missing the problem! The point is to gather data about your own problem-solving process, and identify patterns or areas to review. 

Here are some examples of notes from students who missed the problem we worked on earlier: 

Student A picked (E):

  • eliminated (D) because I thought “quality of services rendered” was different from letters being delayed. But, that was a trick! It’s okay if the answer choice uses different exact wording in some cases. 
  • picked (E) because it matched my own thoughts when I was reading the argument
  • But, (E) was wrong because it’s too strong: the person doesn’t think that number of letters delivered isn’t relevant, they just think there are other issues that may also be relevant. 

Student B picked (C):

  • Picked (C), guessed randomly 
  • Didn’t pick (D) because I didn’t actually read it fully, got confused by “can appropriately be ignored” and decided not to waste time figuring out what that meant

Student C picked (A)

  • When I read the argument, I thought that you couldn’t go from “service workers” to talking about just postal workers.
  • The “objection” is actually just about postal workers specifically, so that’s okay
  • Focus on what the conclusion says specifically, not on random background statements in the argument!
  • Missed (D) because I didn’t really read the answer choices past (A) 🙁 Read all of the answer choices unless you’re in a huge hurry!

Your notes don’t need to be this detailed, but it’s great if they are. That’s not just because you’ll review them later. It’s also because writing down your thoughts on a problem forces you to slow down and articulate them in a way that makes sense. (And if you’re doing GMAT tutoring, it gives you information to share with your tutor!)

If there are other things you want to remember about a CR problem, edit your error log to include them! For instance, some of my students have used an extra column in their error log to write down how much time they spent on a problem, so they could go back and only redo the problems that took them too much time. Or you may want to take a note whenever you fall for a trap answer, so you avoid falling for the same ones over and over. A “general takeaways” column can also be useful! 

Finishing up

Now that you’ve redone the problem, understood the solution, and reflected on your own process, put the problem aside for a week or two. On your GMAT study calendar, schedule a couple of hours every other week to do nothing but redo old problems from your log. It doesn’t even matter whether you remember the right answer when you redo: all you’re doing is reminding your brain of the problem and the lessons you learned from it. 

You should also quickly read over your problem log at least once a week, maybe when you have a few minutes of spare time but not enough time for a full study session. There’s no need to redo any problems or take any more notes unless you want to! Just glance at your takeaways to keep them fresh in your mind. 

The secret to mastering Critical Reasoning is to get methodical. Understand the rules behind each problem type, and what they look like when they’re used in problems. Doing a lot of practice problems will expose you to these rules, but review is the way to truly understand them. 

Want some more GMAT review tips? Check out these posts.

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Chelsey CooleyChelsey Cooley Manhattan Prep GRE Instructor is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in Seattle, Washington. Chelsey always followed her heart when it came to her education. Luckily, her heart led her straight to the perfect background for GMAT and GRE teaching: she has undergraduate degrees in mathematics and history, a master’s degree in linguistics, a 790 on the GMAT, and a perfect 170Q/170V on the GRE. Check out Chelsey’s upcoming GMAT prep offerings here.