Critical Reasoning (CR) questions, which are sometimes called “paragraph argument” questions, are a type of GRE Reading Comprehension question that challenges your thinking skills across a wide range of situations that require critical analysis, logical reasoning, and attention to detail. In fact, some test-takers find Critical Reasoning GRE questions to be the trickiest questions in the GRE Verbal section. So, to master GRE CR, you must become skilled in analyzing arguments and handling answer choices that are cleverly worded to trick, trap, and confuse you.

Critical Reasoning (CR) questions are a type of GRE Reading Comprehension question that challenges your thinking skills across a wide range of situations that require critical analysis, logical reasoning, and attention to detail.

In this article, we’ll cover 6 key tips that you can use to master GRE Critical Reasoning. First, however, let’s review some Critical Reasoning basics and the different GRE CR question types.


First let’s get straight how many Critical Reasoning questions are on the GRE. Of the 40 Verbal Reasoning questions you see on the GRE, 3 to 4 will be Critical Reasoning questions. In addition, you will see a few Critical Reasoning-style questions asked about some of the more standard Reading Comprehension passages. So, CR-type questions will represent about one-sixth of the questions you see on the GRE verbal section. All of the Critical Reasoning questions that appear on the GRE are designed to test your skill in making and analyzing arguments and plans.

Each Critical Reasoning question starts with a stimulus, usually a short passage of about 70 words or fewer, followed by a question about the passage. Then, the answer choices will appear in one of two formats: you’ll see either 5 answer choices, of which 1 will be the correct answer to the question, or 3 answer choices, of which 1, 2, or 3 will correctly answer the question. Regardless of whether the answer choices are in the 5-choice format or the 3-choice format, your task will be essentially the same: to determine whether each choice you are faced with is logically related to the stimulus in the way defined by the question.

The passages in GRE Critical Reasoning questions discuss subjects such as business, science, government, and history, to name a few, but you don’t need to have any specialized knowledge of such subjects in order to answer CR questions. The only information you may need other than that presented by the passages will be information that is considered “common knowledge.” For example, to correctly answer a CR question, you might need to know that revenue is the money a company receives from customers, but you would not need to know what accelerated depreciation is. The first is common knowledge, while the second is specialized accounting knowledge.

Simply put, CR questions do not test your level of knowledge; they test your skill in logically analyzing information presented to you. So, what you need for correctly answering CR questions is skill in the use of logic, along with attention to detail and an ability to avoid mental traps.

Now that we know the basics of CR questions and what CR questions on the GRE test, let’s take a look at the various types of CR questions.


There are 7 major Critical Reasoning GRE question types:

1. Identify the Assumption: Questions of this type ask you to find the answer choice that states an assumption upon which the argument depends.
2. Weaken the Argument: Questions of this type ask you to find the answer choice that presents a fact that would weaken the argument or cast doubt on the conclusion.
3. Strengthen the Argument: Questions of this type ask you to find the answer choice that presents a fact that would strengthen the argument or support the conclusion.
4. Inference: Questions of this type ask you to find the answer choice that states a conclusion that follows from the information presented in the passage.
5. Resolve the Paradox: Questions of this type ask you to find the answer choice that presents a fact that would resolve or explain a situation that appears to be paradoxical.
6. Complete the Passage: Questions of this type ask you to find the answer choice that best completes an uncompleted passage.
7. Boldface: Questions of this type ask you to determine what roles parts of a passage play in an argument.

Of these 7 types of questions, the first 3 — Assumption, Weaken, and Strengthen — are the ones that appear most often on the GRE. However, you never know what mix of questions you’ll see on test day. So, it’s important to be prepared to handle questions of any of these types. The good news is that answering CR questions of any of these types takes the same basic set of skills: skill in analyzing arguments, skill in understanding what the questions are asking, and skill in telling the difference between tempting incorrect choices and correct answers.

Now, let’s take a look at some key GRE Critical Reasoning tips.


Many people wonder whether it’s best to read the passage first or the question stem first when answering a GRE Critical Reasoning question. My strong suggestion is that you read the passage first, and here’s why.

Understanding the passage of a GRE CR question is the foundation of correctly answering the question. If you don’t understand the passage, the probability that you’ll answer the question correctly is pretty slim. On the other hand, if you totally understand the passage, which answer choice is the best may be quite obvious. In fact, I’ve seen students’ Critical Reasoning performance improve radically just because they started making a point of fully understanding the passages. So, when you’re answering a CR question, complete understanding of the passage is a priority.

Accordingly, when you’re reading the passage, you don’t want to be distracted by anything, such as the question stem. However, if you read the question stem before reading the passage, you’ll be reading the passage with the question stem in mind, rather than simply doing your best to fully understand the passage. As a result, you may miss key details of the passage that you would have picked up on had you not had the question stem in mind as you read the passage, and here’s the thing.

You can read and understand a given argument perfectly well without reading the question first. After all, you don’t need to know that, to correctly answer the question, you’ll have to, for instance, weaken the argument, in order to recognize that you are reading an argument that works in a certain way.

Also, you may waste precious time by reading the question stem first because you will likely have to read the question stem again after you’ve read the passage in order to make sure that you’re answering the correct question as you go through the answer choices.

So, my advice is, for best results, when you’re answering a Critical Reasoning question, read the passage first.


Arguments are made up of the following key elements:

• evidence or premises, which are facts that form the foundation of the argument
• assumptions, which are unstated or unwritten facts on which the argument depends
• a conclusion, which is supported by the evidence
• A CR passage may also include some background information that provides context for the argument, for example, “In the nation of Centralia, cyclists outnumber automobile drivers ten to one.”

We can think of an argument as if it were a math equation:

(any background info) + Evidence + Assumption = Conclusion

Learning to identify these key parts of an argument in a passage can make a big difference in your Critical Reasoning performance because, by understanding which parts of the argument are which, you’ll put yourself in a better position to determine how the answer choices relate to the argument. For instance, if in order to correctly answer a question, you have to find a choice that strengthens the support for the conclusion of an argument, you’ll be in a much better position to find that choice if you understand exactly what the conclusion of the argument is than you will be if you only have a general idea of the point of the argument.

With that in mind, let’s discuss the elements of an argument in a bit more depth.


Most, though not all, Critical Reasoning passages will include some evidence, or premises. Premises are statements of fact that support the argument’s conclusion. They’re the reasons the author of the argument gives for believing that the conclusion is true.Now, a key thing to understand about the premises in Critical Reasoning arguments is the following. Unlike in the real world, in which we might question whether statements made by someone in support of a conclusion are true, in the world of CR, the premises are considered facts. In other words, we always consider the premises in a GRE Critical Reasoning argument true.