Strategies for Parallel Reasoning Questions

i.a.tomesch

Does anyone have any strategies for answering parallel reasoning/flaw questions more quickly? These questions consistently take, in my opinion, far more time than they should for me.

My method has been:
1. Read stimulus
2. Diagram stimulus if necessary
3. Go through answer choices and use process of elimination: if the stimulus contained conditional language, eliminate answer choices that don't, etc.
4. Review remaining answer choices.

Does anyone else have any useful strategies?

The main issue for me seems to be how time consuming these questions can be. In the explanation videos, there is the luxury of answering a question in 8 or more minutes, but on the exam this amount of time is obviously not feasible.

Thanks!

Alex

I basically do the same, although practice has made me noticeably quicker. I unfortunately don't have any special tips or strategies.

I also am VERY likely to skip these if I don't see the answer pretty quickly. Skipping these helps me keep momentum and get to any easier questions. Then when I come back, I know I have some time in the bank.

NotMyName

You may considering prioritizing which ACs to look at first based on the conclusions. For example, if the stimulus conclusion says "Therefore, dogs are good pets", in what order would you choose to review the following AC (only showing hypothetical conclusions)?

A) Most plants are good to have in your house.
If you're over 5' tall, then you're not a good friend.
C) All Subaru's are good cars.
D) John gets a haircut.
E) If you're not a good student, then you're not from Smallville.

I would be immediately drawn to C then E because these conclusions match our stimulus (C better than E). A doesn't seem like a strong match because it contains a "most" statement, Bs not great because it concludes a negative idea and the conclusion includes a conditional, and D just doesn't seem to match (probably because it's missing a value statements).

It's important to note than I would not eliminate AC based on this exercise. It is only used to prioritize which AC we look at first.

TheMikey

Everything you do is fine, but what got my parallel questions accuracy and speed up was eliminating at least 1 or 2 answer choices due to their conclusions only. If the conclusions don't really match up, I get rid of it and then I would only have to fully read 3 or so ACs.

danielznelson

I agree with @TheMikey. Start from the conclusion and work backwards, not only to identify conclusion that don't match up (different quantifiers, prescriptive vs. not, relative vs. absolute, probabilistic or absolute, et cetera). Not only this, starting from the conclusion can prevent you from messing up the arrangement of the argument.

Cant Get Right

Also, don't feel like you need to work through every answer choice. "This doesn't seem right," needs to be good enough, at least on your first attempt at the question. I usually get rid of three answer choices this way with the remaining two as "maybes." From there, I pick whichever of the two feels like my best contender and try to confirm it. If I confirm it, great. I'm done. If I disconfirm it, I choose the other "maybe" and move on. Sure this leaves you open to error, but you've got to be okay with missing this question if it's going to take you several minutes to answer with high confidence. Just get through it quickly, then if there's time at the end, you can return to it and work it to higher confidence. If there's not time at the end, then that means you put that time to better use.

i.a.tomesch

Thanks for the advice! In my last practice test, I narrowing my focus by initially looking at the conclusions, and it definitely helped! I tend to save these questions for the end as well.