Mistakes to avoid in Critical Reasoning
Critical Reasoning. It’s not the easiest subject to study. On the one hand, it’s deceptively simple: ‘here are four sentences, answer a question about them'.CAT Critical Reasoning is usually just a game of spotting a few parts of an argument and answering the question logically.But while there are certain things that show up again and again—premise, conclusion, inferences, assumptions—there are a lot of different ways the CAT can construct the logic, and a lot of different ways they can make wrong answers seem tempting. There are little rules in Critical Reasoning you need to know. What follows are three tiny CAT Critical Reasoning mistakes you want to be aware of. Here are a few examples given with solutions for three common mistakes in CR-
1) It Talks about Amount When the Argument is Binary
Eg-People aren’t even aware of the amount of time they spend on their phones. Logitech has a feature that detects when your eyes are on the phone screen and a timer that keeps track of how long you’re looking at your screen during a 24 hour period. They predict that the technology will cause people to spend less time scrolling mindlessly and wasting time on their phones.
Which of the following, if true, most weakens the argument?
A) Some people have noticed the detection system causes the timer to count when people’s eyes are looking near, but not directly at, their screen.
B) Studies have shown that when people are reminded how much time they spend reinforcing bad habits, they only reduce the time spent on those habits by a few minutes.
SOLUTION:It says that the technology will cause people to spend less time on their phone. It never once specified how extreme the results would be—only that there would be results. In order to weaken, you need to show that people might not spend less time on their phone. Statement A gives people a reason to doubt the timer, so they might not spend less time overall looking at their phones.Statement B is written like a weakener, and boy does it sound like one. But it’s actually a strengthener. It gives reason to believe people will cut back on phone-time, even if only a little bit. ANSWER A
2) It Conflates the Meaning of Two Related but Actually Different Ideas
Eg-In order to get into a music festival, it is required that everybody purchase a ticket ahead of time. When the ticket is shown at the gate, a bracelet is put on a person’s right wrist. This was done so that it would be easy for security to see people who sneak into the festival and easily remove them.
Which of the following most weakens the argument?
A) After complaints last year from people who had trouble taking off the bracelets after the festival, the bracelet this year was made to be more easily removed.
B) A similar looking bracelet can be constructed out of construction paper and spit.
Solution-You’ve conflated two related but different meanings : making a bracelet more easily removable, as the argument said, is different than being easily removed. Not only that, being easily removed is not the same thing as easily falls off. Here, in this question, removed them is referred to the people and not the bracelets.Texts need to be read very literally and very specifically. Words mean exactly what they mean, and you’re not allowed to make connections from your own assumptions. ANSWER B
3) It Provides Explanations for the Premises
Eg-Steve and Bill need to purchase several computers to get the ball rolling on their tech startup. It will be a costly endeavor, but they have a decent amount of money saved between them, so it’s likely that they’ll be able to get started by the end of the year.
Which of the following, if true, strengthens my argument?
A) Steve won 100,000 dollars in the lottery earlier this year.
B) Bill and Steve paid off student loans five years ago.
SOLUTION- Read the problem carefully. What does the lottery win really do to the argument? It's already told they have money saved, so they’ll be able to start the company soon. All statement A does is tell where some of that money came from. It explains a premise. I don’t need to find something that gives them more detail or explains how they came to be. What you really need for this argument to work is to know that the guys are willing and able to spend the money they’ve saved—however they accrued it in the first place—to start their company. Statement B lets you know that they won’t be spending money paying for some other very expensive thing and thus are more likely to be able to afford what they need for the company. ANSWER B
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