Here are the answers to the questions you considered above.
Over 70 percent of Critical Reasoning questions are based on arguments, so understanding what they are and how they work will be of great help on Test Day.
When the GMAT refers to an argument, it doesn’t mean a conversation in which two people shout at each other. An argument in Critical Reasoning means any piece of text in which an author puts forth a set of ideas or a point of view and attempts to support it. A statement such as “Small dogs make better pets than large dogs” is not an argument—it’s just an opinion. An argument must make some attempt to persuade. For instance, if this opinion statement included a reason or two to support its point of view, then it would become a simple argument: “Small dogs make better pets than large dogs, because small dogs are easier to clean up after and generally have longer life spans than do large dogs.” Later in this chapter, you will learn to refer to these main parts of the argument as the conclusion (the author’s main point) and the evidence (the support for that point).
In everyday life, the verb to assume is used to mean “to take for granted” or “to presume” that something is the case. Likewise, to depend on something is to “need” or “rely on” that thing. Fortunately, the meaning of the word assumption in the context of a GMAT argument is much the same. Critical Reasoning questions that ask for an argument’s assumption could be paraphrased as follows: “What important fact does the author of the argument take for granted but not directly state?” or “What else would need to be true in order for this argument to hold?” Throughout this chapter, you will see how identifying the central assumption is key to answering Critical Reasoning questions that involve arguments.
It might be your natural instinct to start reading from the beginning of the paragraph, but the most efficient approach is to read the question (which we call the question stem) before the paragraph that precedes it (which we call the stimulus). By starting with the question stem and identifying the task it poses, you will be able to read the stimulus strategically—targeting the information you need to answer the question without wasting time rereading.
As you may have surmised from the previous paragraphs, Critical Reasoning questions are full of rewards for test takers with a firm handle on all four Core Competencies—the bedrock analytical skills that the GMAT measures. Critical Thinking will enable you to analyze the structure of arguments, such as the one at the beginning of this chapter, and identify any gaps or errors in the author’s logic. Your Pattern Recognition skills will help you take advantage of patterns of argumentation that come up again and again, as well as enable you to spot common wrong answer types quickly. Paraphrasing is essential to untangling tough text, such as the description of study results in this stimulus, by putting it in your own words. Finally, Attention to the Right Detail will let you zero in on the most important parts of Critical Reasoning stimuli, often signaled by key words, and determine which facts are crucial to the correct answer. In this and the following chapters, you will learn how to apply these skills to every type of Critical Reasoning question you may see on Test Day.