Attacking GMAT Critical Reasoning Problems Part 2: Role Playing with Critical Reasoning

Eliminating Bad Answer Choices will help to save you time and give you better odds at guessing, but bad answer choices are fewer and further between on the more difficult end of the GMAT. Even the correct answer might, at first glance, look irrelevant to the conclusion. Oftentimes on difficult CR questions, students can get down to two or three plausible answer choices, but are forced to guess because they aren’t 100% confident in their answer. And while this is often a good thing— remember the test is adaptive and tough questions often mean that you are doing well— it’s important to have a strategy to help better your chances when you are trying to make that final decision.

One of my favorite TV shows, Pardon the Interruption, used to have a regular feature called Good Cop, Bad Cop. The two hosts would choose an issue in sports and pick sides- will Tiger Woods win the golf tournament this weekend? The good cop would make arguments for why Tiger would win the tournament while the bad cop would make arguments for why he wouldn’t. The set-up was farcical and the hosts would choose sides arbitrarily, but I loved it because you would hear reasoning for both sides of an issue. Neither person argued for the side they truly believed in 100% of the time, but they pretended they cared deeply about one side of an issue, made a case for their side, and would preemptively rebut the argument that they knew the other host would make. That’s how I approach Critical Reasoning on the GMAT- on one question I’m the project manager for Hotco Oil Burners (OG #97) and the next I’m President of Country Z (#66). But no matter what role I’m playing, I am constantly asking myself what would help and hurt my argument. Let’s try a problem out to see how this works:

Question #121 in the Official Guide Critical Reasoning Section:

The spacing of the four holes on a fragment of a bone flute excavated at a Neanderthal campsite is just what is required to play the third through sixth notes of the diatonic scale— the seven-note musical scale used in much of Western music since the Renaissance. Musicologists therefore hypothesize that the diatonic musical scale was developed and used thousands of years before it was adopted by Western musicians.

Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the hypothesis?

Now that I have my Musicologist hat on, I find the hypothesis that I am supposed to defend: the diatonic music scale was developed and used thousand of years before it was adopted by Western musicians. So far, my evidence is that a bone flute at a Neanderthal campsite was discovered. That’s a pretty weak link between a bone flute and a diatonic music scale being developed. The other important part about the flute is that the four holes on this flute is just what is required to play the third through sixth notes of the seven-note diatonic scale.

Now before I even look at the answer choices, I play a little Good Musicologist, Bad Musicologist. Since I’m trying to support this hypothesis, I’m the Good Musicologist, but I’m also imagining what the Bad Musicologist is going to say: the diatonic scale was first adopted by Western musicians during the Renaissance. What arguments might the Bad Musicologist come up with? Maybe that the bone wasn’t used for music but for some other purpose. Maybe they would show the logic gap between some holes on a flute and the development of a full diatonic scale. The Bad Musicologist would have to take the extreme stance that no one had developed the diatonic scale before the Western musicians of the Renaissance era. So if I, the Good Musicologist, can find anything that would refute this, I’ve strengthened my hypothesis.

With this mindset, I can look at the answer choices in two, equally valid ways. First off, which of the five answer choices would best strengthen my argument? Time travelers have gone back in time and watched Neanderthals play the bone flute on a full diatonic scale. This would be a great way to strengthen the argument, but it also is true because if the opposite of it were true— time travelers have gone back in time and watched Neanderthals use the bone for some other purpose or to play only two notes with the flute— it would provide helpful information for the Bad Musicologist. Whenever I get stuck on a strengthen problem, I play Good Cop looking for what would strengthen the argument and Bad Cop looking for what, if the opposite were true, would weaken the argument. Let’s try it out with the answer choices:

The spacing of the four holes on a fragment of a bone flute excavated at a Neanderthal campsite is just what is required to play the third through sixth notes of the diatonic scale— the seven-note musical scale used in much of Western music since the Renaissance. Musicologists therefore hypothesize that the diatonic musical scale was developed and used thousands of years before it was adopted by Western musicians.

Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the hypothesis?

(A) Bone flutes were probably the only musical instrument made by Neanderthals.

(B) No musical instrument that is known to have used a diatonic scale is of an earlier date than the flute found at the Neanderthal campsite.

(C) The flute was made from a cave-bear bone and the campsite at which the flute fragment was excavated was in a cave that also contained skeletal remains of cave bears.

(D) Flutes are the simplest wind instrument that can be constructed to allow playing a diatonic scale.

(E) The cave-bear leg bone used to make the Neanderthal flute would have been long enough to make a flute capable of playing a complete diatonic scale.

Good Musicologist might look at these five answer choices and think nothing is especially helpful to strengthen their argument. The presence of other instruments (A), older instruments (B), or simpler instruments (D); the presence of cave-bear skeletons (C); or the length of cave-bear legs (E) might not seem like great evidence to present at the annual Musicology-Anthropology convention. So let’s say the opposite of each statement were true and think about which piece of evidence Bad Musicologist would like most:

(A) Bone flutes weren’t the only musical instrument made by Neanderthals.

(B) Older musical instruments that used the diatonic scale have been discovered.

(C) The flute was made of something other than cave-bear bones.

(D) There are simpler instruments that can play the full diatonic scale.

(E) The cave-bear leg bone was too short to play a complete diatonic scale.

Most of these things are irrelevant to both sides of the issue. Answer choice (B) would even harm the Bad Musicologist’s argument by saying that there are other, older groups of people who used the diatonic scale. Only (E) would provide a point of contention- if the leg bone was too short to play a complete diatonic scale, this means that the bone flute would not be good evidence that the complete diatonic scale was developed by Neanderthals. If the enemy of my enemy is my friend, then the opposite of evidence for my enemy is my evidence. Since the opposite of (E) would be helpful for Bad Musicologist, then (E) being true is helpful for Good Musicologist.

This reasoning also works in Weakening or Assumption type questions. If my job is to weaken the conclusion, then I want to find evidence that would strengthen the conclusion and then prove that this is not true.

Remember that an argument is a two-sided affair. Whenever you get stuck looking at one side of an argument, think about the other side. And whether you are defending Hotco Oil Burners, Country Z, or even yourself (from the accusation that it’s your turn to do the dishes), remember that there’s another way to look at the evidence. Your GMAT score will thank you for it, even if your significant other won’t.

* GMATPrep® and Official Guide® quotes courtesy of the Graduate Management Admissions Council. Usage of these quotes does not imply endorsement by GMAC.