Week 1 - Jan 2 - Kaplan Practice Questions & Error Review

What I did

• 10 Practice Questions from Kaplan
• Review Errors (7 out of 10 correct, 3 slow)

I analyzed my errors using the method Kaplan has in the answers section as well as this article by Beat the Gmat.

Find your weaknesses

Roadblocks
1. Question Stem
• Identify the question type
• Forgot what strategies to employ

2. Stimulus
• Unable to digest the dense language
• Struggle to identify the assumption
• Unable to Form a confident prephrase
• Misread the scope

3. Answer Choices
• Did no answer seem correct?
• Did more than one answer seem correct?
• Misread the scope of the stimulus?
• Struggled to connect the ideas in the answer choices to the ideas in the stimulus?

Blindspots
• What you thought you were doing right?
• What you were doing wrong?
• What happened?

Reinforce your strengths

• Read explanations you got right

Week 1, Jan 1 - Kaplan Critical Reasoning Concept & Strategy Review

The 7 basic principles of critical reasoning
1. Study the question & figure out the question type
2. Understand structure of argument/stimulus

• Evidence
• Conclusion

3. Paraphrase the argument
4. Look for potential problems in the argument (read critically)

• Shift of scope
• Confusing correlation for causation
• Plans and predictions

5. Answer the question being asked
6. Prephrase the answer
7. Keep the scope of argument in mind (match the author’s ideas? Out of context? Too extreme?)

Types of questions
1. Assumption
a. Missing link between evidence and conclusion
b. Technique
i. prephrase answer
ii. denial test (negate answer choices and if argument falls apart, means it is a necessary assumption)
2. Strengthen/Weaken

a. Find new evidence in answers (not in stimulus) to weaken the connection between evidence & conclusion

b. Technique
i. Find the assumption

ii. Weaken/Strengthen the assumption
3. Inference
a. Conclusion that must be true based on evidence, MUST be true
b. Technique
i. Denial test
ii. Eliminate wrong answers
4. Explain questions
a. Explain discrepancy in facts
b. Technique
i. Look for contradictory evidence by keywords (nonetheless)
5. Flaw questions
a. What is already wrong?
b. Reasoning errors