Critical Reasoning Timing Issues

[dsayed81]

I am having serious issues with my timing for Critical Reasoning questions. It typically takes me around 3 minutes to finish these problems, which is killing my time. I can immediately recognize the type of CR problem and jot down the conclusion in about 20 secs, but by the time it take me to diagram 2-3 premises (not even any assumptions), I'm typically around 70-75 secs into the problem! The book recommends being at 30-60secs at this stage- is this realistic? I've been working on my diagramming and abbreviating techniques and although I've improved them dramatically, I admit that I could probably shave off more time writing less. However, even if I were to shave off on average an additional 15-20 secs, I still feel like I'm always taking too much time diagramming on the CR problems and that I leave myself no time for the elimination/selection phase of analyzing the answer choices. Maybe I'm spending too much time reading and eliminating the answer choices?

Similar to SC problems, I read every answer choice and try to eliminate all of them until I have one qualified answer remaining. Should I scratch this technique and base my CR approach on a different technique or simply pick an answer choice that immediately works? Also, what is the standard breakdown of recommended timing for the stages in CR problems? Specifically, can you put an average time for where we need to be for each of the following stages:

1)Read question/Recognize/T chart/Jot down Conclusion
2) Read argument
2a)Diagram Premises
2b)Diagram Assumptions
3)Read Answer Choices
4)Eliminate Answer choices based on diagram/conclusion/premise/assumption logic
5)Select Answer choice

Thanks in advance for your feedback - I love these forums - they have been incredibly helpful and have significantly contributed to the recent success and progress I've been seeing in my performance.

[RonPurewal]

I am having serious issues with my timing for Critical Reasoning questions. It typically takes me around 3 minutes to finish these problems, which is killing my time. I can immediately recognize the type of CR problem and jot down the conclusion in about 20 secs, but by the time it take me to diagram 2-3 premises (not even any assumptions), I'm typically around 70-75 secs into the problem! The book recommends being at 30-60secs at this stage- is this realistic? I've been working on my diagramming and abbreviating techniques and although I've improved them dramatically, I admit that I could probably shave off more time writing less. However, even if I were to shave off on average an additional 15-20 secs, I still feel like I'm always taking too much time diagramming on the CR problems and that I leave myself no time for the elimination/selection phase of analyzing the answer choices. Maybe I'm spending too much time reading and eliminating the answer choices?

Similar to SC problems, I read every answer choice and try to eliminate all of them until I have one qualified answer remaining. Should I scratch this technique and base my CR approach on a different technique or simply pick an answer choice that immediately works? Also, what is the standard breakdown of recommended timing for the stages in CR problems? Specifically, can you put an average time for where we need to be for each of the following stages:

1)Read question/Recognize/T chart/Jot down Conclusion
2) Read argument
2a)Diagram Premises
2b)Diagram Assumptions
3)Read Answer Choices
4)Eliminate Answer choices based on diagram/conclusion/premise/assumption logic
5)Select Answer choice

Thanks in advance for your feedback - I love these forums - they have been incredibly helpful and have significantly contributed to the recent success and progress I've been seeing in my performance.

hi -

i am loath to give an average time, because, as you surely know, CR problems vary wildly in length. there are some CR problems that are fully 4 times the length of other CR problems.

you may want to try the following:
don't diagram every problem.

from your text, it seems as though you're actually diagramming EVERY critical reasoning problem. frankly, that strategy just isn't reasonable, unless you can read and write at incredibly fast speeds.

instead, try the following:

* ASSESS YOUR STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES among CR problems. in other words, figure out the PROBLEM TYPES on which you usually have the most and least success.

* ASSESS THE PROBLEM TYPES ON WHICH DIAGRAMMING MAKES THE MOST DIFFERENCE FOR YOU.
a common experience among my students is that diagramming tends to be CRUCIAL for "analyze argument structure", and almost useless for "draw the conclusion". this makes sense, since the diagram reveals the structure of the argument; "analyze structure" problems concentrate only on that structure, which is normally more complicated for those problems than for other types. by contrast, the passages for "draw the conclusion" usually consist of nothing more than a series of factual statements (i.e., there is little or no logical flow to speak of), with no conclusion given, so a diagram really doesn't help all that much.
most other problem types are in between.

if you're diagramming every single problem, i'm sure you've found that many of the diagrams just haven't helped you very much, and that select others have. my point is that you should notice which problem types fall into which of these categories, and make future decisions about whether to diagram accordingly.

then:
* DIAGRAM ONLY THOSE PROBLEM TYPES ON WHICH YOU DON'T TEND TO DO WELL, OR ON WHICH DIAGRAMMING IS CLEARLY A BIG HELP.

if you do this, you'll probably find that it's easier to stay on time. in fact, this may be all that you have to do.