Product Description

The Critical Reasoning guide provides a highly organized and structured approach to the variety of questions in this verbal content area. The guide teaches students to analyze arguments by illustrating innovative diagramming techniques designed to increase comprehension and improve accuracy on both the major and minor critical reasoning question types that appear on the GMAT. For the trickiest of problems, the guide explains how to understand the nature of wrong answer choices, rendering them far less tempting. The guide also includes online access to 6 full-length Computer Adaptive Practice Exams on ManhattanGMAT's website.

Each chapter builds comprehensive content understanding by providing rules, strategies and in-depth examples of how the GMAT tests a given topic and how you can respond accurately and quickly. The Guide contains a total of 70 "In-Action" problems of increasing difficulty with detailed answer explanations.

Special Features

Purchase of this book includes one year of access to ManhattanGMAT's online Critical Reasoning Question Bank (accessible by inputting a unique code in the back of each book).

Manhattan GMAT has categorized all the Critical Reasoning problems in The Official Guides by question type. These categorized problems have been organized into problem lists that appear in the Critical Reasoning Strategy Guide.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #409693 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 191 pages

From the Publisher
About the ManhattanGMAT Strategy Guides

The ManhattanGMAT Strategy Guides offer students a unique balance between two competing emphases: test-taking strategies and in-depth content understanding. Most prep courses focus on the strategic portion of the GMAT - timing, shortcuts, etc. However, we believe that unless a student has a solid understanding of the content, the tricks won't be of any use. Therefore, we include practice problem sets that build specific foundational skills in each topic as well as advanced content that many other prep books ignore.

About the Author
Manhattan GMAT's 8 preparation guides were developed by Manhattan GMAT's talented staff of real teachers, all of whom have scored in the 99th percentile on the official GMAT. As the company focuses solely on the GMAT (no other tests), it continually updates the guides to reflect the GMAT's most current trends. ManhattanGMAT's guides offer students a unique balance between two competing emphases: test-taking strategies and in-depth content understanding. Most prep courses focus on the strategic portion of the GMAT - timing, shortcuts, etc. However, we believe that unless a student has a solid understanding of the content, the tricks won't be of any use. Therefore, we include practice problem sets that build specific foundational skills in each topic as well as advanced content that many other prep books ignore.

The nation's largest GMAT-exclusive preparation provider, Manhattan GMAT was founded by Zeke Vanderhoek. A Yale graduate, Zeke taught as a member of Teach for America at New York City public junior-high school, earned a Masters in Philosophy & Education from Columbia University's Teachers College, and supplemented his day-job by tutoring individuals in various subjects at all educational levels. Word-of-mouth referrals soon brought in a remarkably high number of GMAT test-takers, and thus Manhattan GMAT and its prep guides were born.

Manhattan GMAT's 8 preparation guides were developed by Manhattan GMAT's talented staff of real teachers, all of whom have scored in the 99th percentile on the official GMAT. As the company focuses solely on the GMAT (no other tests), it continually updates the guides to reflect the GMAT's most current trends. ManhattanGMAT's guides offer students a unique balance between two competing emphases: test-taking strategies and in-depth content understanding. Most prep courses focus on the strategic portion of the GMAT - timing, shortcuts, etc. However, we believe that unless a student has a solid understanding of the content, the tricks won't be of any use. Therefore, we include practice problem sets that build specific foundational skills in each topic as well as advanced content that many other prep books ignore.

The nation's largest GMAT-exclusive preparation provider, Manhattan GMAT was founded by Zeke Vanderhoek. A Yale graduate, Zeke taught as a member of Teach for America at New York City public junior-high school, earned a Masters in Philosophy & Education from Columbia University's Teachers College, and supplemented his day-job by tutoring individuals in various subjects at all educational levels. Word-of-mouth referrals soon brought in a remarkably high number of GMAT test-takers, and thus Manhattan GMAT and its prep guides were born.

Customer Reviews

Not the finest of the bunch
As one who teaches the GMAT for a living, has written around 250 Critical Reasoning practice questions and is presently working on a Critical Reasoning manual, one thing that I have found remarkable about the GMAT Critical Reasoning section is the lack of good guides or practice materials.

Part of this is due, I suppose, to laziness: GMAT test prep companies cater largely to the Anglo-American market, which is largely not worried about the Verbal portion. The Verbal section encompasses far more than simply language, however--this is not the TOEFL--and in order to break the 700 ceiling a firm mastery of Critical Reasoning is absolutely essential.

Manhattan GMAT's Critical Reasoning guide, like nearly every other one on the market, appears eager to reassure students that "no knowledge of formal logic is necessary" to ace the Critical Reasoning questions. That is true but unhelpful information: most people of whatever nationality are simply SLOPPY thinkers and sloppy readers and need a serious recalibration. Perhaps no questions hinge on your knowledge of the terms "modus ponens," "modus tollens," "affirmation of the consequent," or "denial of the antecedent," but most people do not realize just how many arguments contain serious flaws and accept them without thinking critically, rendering themselves unable to dig out the problem when faced with it.

Furthermore, the refusal to structure the lessons along the lines of deduction and formal logic lead Manhattan to ignore the widely accepted mathematical conventions for diagraming arguments and suggest a great many vague and confusing symbols to that end. Diagramming arguments is useful in some situations, but only if you recognize what a valid argument (modus ponens or modus tollens) should look like.

The classification of questions is okay, but the excessive focus on GMAT content at the expense of developing logical skill sets severely mars this book, as well as a great many others. Sadly, at the moment it is the best of the major prep books on the market. Clearly, the amount invested in pedagoigical development has not kept pace with the great salaries Manhattan GMAT teachers receive.

Detailed and Concise
The Critical Reasoning section of GMAT has become more difficult over the years. The Official Guides are no longer reflective of the more difficult questions the real GMAT will give you.

This book does a credible job of covering all the CR question types. In my opinion, the GMAT CR is more difficult than LSAT CR (yes I have studied LSAT as well). In tougher GMAT CR problems, there is only 2 obvious wrong answers. The rest of the 3 answers are at least partially correct. It takes high level analysis and fine tuning of the passages to find the right answer.

The book provides a fine guideline on how to determine the right answers to all CR problems. I do not like nor recommend, however, this book's advocacy on writing out the logic of the passages on paper. You will be too pressed for time if you do so.

Overall, this is a worthy purchase and worthy of your precious GMAT study time.

Just what you need to study for the GMAT
This and all the other Manhattan GMAT guides were really helpful in helping me prep for the GMAT. My colleagues had recommended them over other guides and I continue to do the same after getting the score I needed on my first try.