I’ve been speaking with students lately who aren’t entirely sure how to approach Critical Reasoning (CR) questions when a new one first pops up on the screen. In particular, a lot of students do one thing they shouldn’t be doing: they read the argument too soon.

How can someone read the argument too soon?

It may seem kind of strange to say that someone reads the argument too soon. After all, isn’t that the first thing we do on a CR question? Actually, reading the argument is not the first thing we should do. The first thing we should do is read the question stem.

Then, we’re ready to read the argument, right?

Not so fast.

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