The 7 CR Question Types You Need to Know

for the GMAT

www.gmatpill.com
 Understand the range of CR Question types you might see on the GMAT

 Learn to identify the type of question based on how the question stem is
worded

 Increase speed and efficiency by quickly identifying the question type and
the corresponding framework strategy associated with that question type
GMAT Pill Analyzed Critical Reasoning Question Types in The
Official Guide (OG13)…
Of the 124 available CR questions from the Official Guide 13th edition (excluding
questions from the diagnostic section), GMAT Pill has identified 79 of the 124
questions (52%) that test you on how to strengthen an argument.

At GMAT Pill, we noticed that “strengthens” questions tested the same types of
logic over and over and that they all fall under a core set of five frameworks. That
means, if you learn the relevant 5 frameworks for “strengthens” questions, you’ll
have learned the strategies to answer more than half of the CR questions on the
GMAT.

We also noticed that “strengthens” questions tended to be worded in a similar

way. The question stems tended to repeat so we categorized “strengthens”
questions into 3 subcategories:

 General Strengthens (30%)

 Helps Explain (12%)

 Assumption / Argument Depends (10%)

The “helps explain” question stem is typically worded as: “Which of the following
most helps explain the discrepancy observed above?”

The “assumption / argument depends” question stem is typically worded as:

“Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?”

These two question stems are variations off of a “strengthens” question and
come up quite frequently in the OG13. As a result, we created separate categories
for them. All other “strengthens” questions fall under the “general strengthens”
category.
These are the official guide questions with the “general strengthens” concept in
action.

#1, 5, 7, 11, 12, 14, 17 19, 21, 23, 30, 31, 33, 35, 40, 45, 50, 52, 53, 55, 56, 59, 64,
65, 67, 69, 74, 80, 81, 95, 101, 102, 103, 108, 111, 118, 120, 121

You’ll find a more detailed listing of the relevant OG13 questions by GMAT Pill CR
Question Type in the table further below.

Overall Breakdown of OG13 CR Question Types

Here is a more complete breakdown of the GMAT Pill categorizations for the CR Questions in
the OG13.
 Strengthens (52%)
o General Strengthens (30%)
o Helps Explain (12%)
o Assumption / Argument Depends (10%)
 Weaken (20%)
 Evaluate (10%)
 Boldface (10%)
 Inference (8%)
 Question Type
Strengthen (30%)
From OG13:
#1, 5, 7, 11, 12, 14, 17 19, 23,
30, 31, 33, 35, 40, 45, 50, 52,
53, 55, 56, 59, 64, 65, 67, 69,
74, 80, 81, 95, 101, 102, 103,
108, 111, 118, 120, 121
Helps Explain (12%)
From OG13
#3, 6, 9, 13, 16, 22, 24, 44, 49,
57, 61, 86, 92, 94, 99
Assumption (10%)
From OG13:
#21, 39, 41, 46, 48, 75, 77, 83, “argument relies on which of the following assumptions..”
93, 96, 106, 109, 113
“which of the following is required for X to occur”
Question Stem
“does most to justify the expectation that…”
“[argument], since _____”
“most strongly supports the argument…”
“most strongly supports the hypothesis that …”
“provides the strongest grounds that…”
“…provides the best reason for the expectation that [argument]...”
“…would provide most support for the prediction that…”
“conclusion would be more reasonably drawn if which of the
following were true”
“…most helps explain…”
“… does most to help explain…”
“… best accounts for…”
“… is least helpful in explaining…”
“[Assumption] on which argument depends”
“[conclusion] drawn is based on the [assumption] that…”
“…assumes that…”
“…an assumption that supports drawing the conclusion above”
“… depends on which one of the following assumptions…”
“assumption made in drawing the conclusion above”
“…based on the assumption that…"
“…argument must be true assuming that ____”
“conclusion is properly drawn if which of the following is assumed"
Weaken (20%) “Argument is flawed because…”

From OG13: “…does not support…”

# 2, 4, 8, 20, 25, 32, 37, 43, “…most seriously weakens...”

51, 58, 62, 71, 73, 79, 82, 87,
88, 90, 100, 107, 112, 115, “…following criticism…”
117, 119, 122 “…basis for arguing against…”

“…would cast serious doubt…”

“…undermines the argument”

“…counters the objection…”

Evaluate (10%) “The answer to which of the following would be most useful for
evaluating the reasoning provided?”
From OG13:
“For which of the following would it be most useful to establish in
#10, 15, 27, 36, 42, 47, 68, 70,
evaluating the argument”
72, 110, 114, 124
“…which of the following must be studied in order to evaluate the
argument”

“For purposes of evaluating the argument, it would be most useful

to establish which of the following?”

“…which would be most useful to know in determining whether…”

“…which would be most important to determine in order to evaluate

the argument?”

Inference (8%) “if … then [inferred statement] must also be true”

From OG13: “…can most properly be drawn from the information...”

#26, 29, 38, 54, 60, 66, 91, 97, “…can logically be expected to…”
104, 105
“If the statements above are true, which of the following must be
true”

“If the facts stated in the passage above are true, then…”

“Which of the following conclusions is best supported by the

passage?”

“The statements, if true, best support which of the following as a

 conclusion?”

“which of the following, if it occurred, would constitute X described

above?”

“…the statements above, if true, best support which of the following

assertions?”

“The considerations given best serve as part of an argument that …”

Bold (10%) Something is bolded or question asks about structure

From OG13: “…the [bolded portion plays / two-boldfaced portions play] which of
the following roles…”
#18, 28, 34, 63, 76, 78, 84, 85,
89, 98, 116, 123 “…develops the argument by…”

“Person A responds to Person B by…”

“…describes the role played by the bolded portion…”

On your GMAT, you’ll only see around 14 or so CR questions out of the

41 verbal questions. As such, it’s possible you might not get a question
in each of the categories defined above. You may do a practice test at
home, then take the real GMAT and suddenly discover that the
questions were not familiar to you. You may have gotten a question
type that you didn’t see in your practice test.

So it’s no guarantee that you’ll see all 7 CR question types on the GMAT
exam that YOU take. But you should definitely be prepared to tackle all
of these types of CR questions by test day.
GMAT Pill CR Frameworks

GMAT Pill utilizes a core set of 10 frameworks to approach the CR

question types.

At the core is the 52% of CR questions covered by Frameworks #1-5.

These are the “strengthens” questions. Here again, are the
"Strengthens" questions that represent 52% fo CR questions:
Strengthens (52%)
General Strengthens (30%)
Helps Explain (12%)
Assumption / Argument Depends (10%)

And here are the GMATPill Framework Strategies to attack these

"Strengthens" questions:

Strategy for "Strengthens": General Visualization

Strategy for "Strengthens": Framework #1: Before/After
Strategy for "Strengthens": Framework #2: Linked Chains
Strategy for "Strengthens": Framework #3: Expectation vs Actuality
Strategy for "Strengthens": Framework #4: Negation (Regular and
Exclusive)
Strategy for "Strengthens": Framework #5: Sample Generalization

Note here that there are 3 subcategories to “strengthens” questions.

 General Strengthens: Utilizes any of Frameworks #1-5 + General
Visualization
 Helps Explain: Utilizes Framework #3
 Assumption / Argument Depends: Utilizes Frameworks #1, 2, 4, 5
+ General Visualization

The remaining 48% of CR questions are covered by Frameworks #6-10

Framework #6: Weakens and Defends
Framework #7: Evaluate
Framework #8: Inference
Framework #9: Bold-faced
Framework #10: Circular Reasoning

The corresponding framework for the remaining CR question types are

more simple to remember. “Weakens” questions use the “weakens”
framework; “evaluate” questions use the “evaluate” framework;
“inference” use the “inference” framework; and “bold-faced” questions
use the “bold-faced” framework. The last one, Framework #10 Circular
Reasoning, is more of a miscellaneous framework which actually is a
form of “strengthens” but is very rare to see on the GMAT.

While we won’t go into detail about these 10 Core CR Frameworks, it’s

good to see that there is some organization and structure towards the
approach to CR questions. That’s key. When you prepare, it’s more
important to understand the general concepts of what is being tested,
rather than the specifics of a question. Otherwise, if you simply modify
the question a little bit (something the GMAT folks do), you’ll be
stumped. Something you answered correctly before suddenly becomes
foreign to you and you get it wrong. You want to avoid that by focusing
your studies on the core logic that is being tested. Master the core and
you’ll be on your way to mastering the GMAT.
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