Hi guys! I am Priyam….I belong to that category of unfortunate students who have always found Logical Reasoning, Critical Reasoning and verbal reasoning, massively elusive. Not only would I be confused between answer options, sometimes I would arrive at the conclusion that the question itself was wrongly framed. Due to my weakness in this section my score was dropping pretty badly; until the time I decided that it was high time. I needed to do a reality check instead of ignoring my faults and expecting them to take care of themselves on their own. But when I actually did analyze my faults I discovered that most of my errors were silly mistakes and could be rectified by following some simple guidelines. And trust me I didn’t need to put in any rocket science logic.
To start with, let us go back to the basics….
1. Read slowly, read carefully.
Most of us are always in such a hurry to finish reading the extract, that we miss out important words like only and if and only if, etc, which can totally alter the meaning of the sentences. So read slowly but read attentively. Why would they want to check your logical aptitude? To check if you are logical in your thought patterns or not, right? If you miss out crucial details while reading you will invariably arrive at the wrong conclusions.
2. Avoid repetitive reading of the same lines. From my experience, if you can correct this problem you can easily shoot up your accuracy rates by a good margin. Run a pencil or a pen underneath the lines you are reading. This will ensure you do not loose track. Do not go back to a line as soon as you have finished reading it. If you keep on doing that, it would result in thorough confusion. net result, you have t5o go back to line 1, and start reading again. When you keep over reading a particular part of the extract, your mind seems to get stuck to a point. So keep reading even if you think you do not fully comprehend the facts. Finish one reading of the full passage first. This will give you a general idea of what the passage is talking about. Underline words or phrases you don’t understand. Go back to them later.
3. Eliminate irrelevant answer options. This is the best way to arrive at an accurate answer out of all that are available. You will generally have two out of five options which you may eliminate right away (if you are lucky it may even be 3). After this look for similarity in reasoning structure, like cause +effect =conclusion or is it that you need to derive the cause from the effect given the conclusion. This should help you narrow down your choices to the last two (again if you are lucky, as you are in most cases this should give you the right answer itself). Between the last two look out for similarity in words and phrases used. You will get your answer.
4. Stick to the information provided within the paragraph. Do not go beyond it. Even if it deviates from the general idea that you may have about a topic, stick to what is given in the extract. Moving beyond it is the biggest mistake of all.
5. Pay attention to single word differentiators used in the question. Things like ‘except’, ‘but’, ‘doesn’t ‘, etc. can change the whole answer options. Also in options which have all of the above, check only two and tick it. No need to individually check all. But yes, if along with all of the above, there is another option that says either a or c, or only a and b, then you do need to check all of them.
This is enough gyan to start with.
Till next time,
Take care!
Al izzzzzzzz wel!