Pattern of Reasoning Qs

Maritzaa

Does anyone have an attack strategy for these questions? I get bogged down every single time. So irritating!

Alex

@Mitzyyyy said:
Does anyone have an attack strategy for these questions? I get bogged down every single time. So irritating!

For these questions it really helps to focus on the overall structure of the argument rather than just comparing the conclusions like other prep companies teach. For these types of questions you want to focus on the argument form and look for an answer that parallels the argument in the stimulus best. So remember to parallel the form of the argument and be sure to avoid answer choices that talk about the same subject matter in the stim. For example, if the stim talks about skyscrapers, any question that talks about skyscrapers has a high probability of being incorrect. This is common trick to trap people who do not understand what they are supposed to parallel.

Not all of the parallel questions use conditional logic, but many do, so it is important to make sure you have a firm grasp of logic forms and conditional logic in general.

Another tip is to rely heavily on POE for these questions. There are usually 2-3 answers that are just absolutely wrong structure wise and easy to eliminate.

Laabradir33

I only use mechanistic approach for these questions. I never try to actually understand the underlying intuitive 'reasoning' or the 'flaw' until maybe the very end when i have 2 contenders cuz it's just too time consuming. So these questions are actually more like parallel "structuring" to me rather than reasoning.

I get rid of answer choices by comparing the premises and conclusions based on:
1. (is,are,must be) vs. (can be, most likely, probably)
2. all vs most vs (some,many,few)
3. Negation
4. logical structure(like A->B->C)

I always start out by comparing the conclusions first because cuz thats the easiest to spot and then move on to comparing the logical structure after that.

If everything above(1,2,3,4) are equal between stim and answer choice, but the question stem is 'flawed reasoning', read the argument again. If it sounds to good and smooth to be flawed, it's probably not flawed and therefore not a correct answer.

Some of my mistakes I wrote down in my note:

1. • Order of premise and conclusion don't have to be exactly the same as the stimulus.
2. • They try to trick u by switching around the element's order by saying 'B if A' into 'A only if B', vice versa. So it looks like the order is reversed, but the logic is still A->B.
3. • 'Since' is not always a sufficiency indicator, it could be used simply as a premise indicator.

Hope this helps