Tips for GMAT Critical Reasoning: Inference vs. Assumption

Critical reasoning section of GMAT is much complicated and it will not be wrong to claim that the most difficult part of GMAT Verbal reasoning is the Critical Reasoning. Around one-third of the GMAT verbal consist of questions from this genre and by understanding inference and assumption, it becomes easier to answer the questions here.

Inference in GMAT Critical Reasoning

Inference is a piece of information that can be logically deduced or conclude from a single statement or a combination of two or more statements.

It often appears that inference is about making a wise and reasonable guess. But, GMAT inference is the process to obtain logical consequences based on assumed premises.

Example:

Statement: Everyone who reads this article will be more informed about Inference and Assumption. Rohan read this article.

Inference: Rohan is more informed about Inference and Assumption.

Here, two or more statements are combined to produce the correct answer. In this example, the first statement is the general rule, which applies to the second premise that logically supplied the inference.

Assumption in GMAT Critical Reasoning

Assumption is a process of finding the missing links between the premises to get the conclusion. In GMAT CR, the connection is often hidden or unstated or unclearly stated.

As the connection is hidden anything cannot be logically derived from existing information easily and there are higher chances of making mistakes. Candidate sometimes forgets that they don’t need to assume – rather, they need to derive the answer logically from existing information.

In order to figure out the right answer in assumption-based questions, the candidate must figure out the main thrust of the given argument. The correct answer choice will have to be true for the argument to be logical. Remaining answers choices will be possibly true, but not necessary to prove the validity of the argument.

Example

Statement: Everyone who reads this article will be more informed about Inference and Assumption. Rohan received this article in his email. Hence, Rohan is more informed about Inference and Assumption.

Assumption: Rohan has read every mail that he has received so far.

The statement of the assumption is the missing link that the information provided in the question. Here the 1st and the second statements don’t validate the 3rd one – rather, the assumption does.

Critical Difference between Inference and Assumption in GMAT

In GMAT, inference and assumption questions often confuse the candidates, as they appear similar. The following difference can help them to distinguish:

As these questions are way too critical than anyone can imagine, candidates need to make some strategies. GMAT Critical Reasoning strategies for inference and assumption questions are mentioned in the next sections.

Tips for GMAT Inference Questions

The following tips can help the test-takers to answer inference questions:

• Draw conclusions only from the given information.
• Review the words like ‘any,’ ‘best,’ ‘worst,’ ‘only,’ ‘all,’ or ‘none,’ as these are often overly general and can’t be verified by the limited information in the passage.
• Choices with leaps are unverified and these mislead from finding the right answer.
• Use odd one out to find the incorrect answer choices
• The extreme answer options are often incorrect.
• Off-topic answer choices or the ones addressing some tangential might be a red flag.

Tips for GMAT Assumption Questions

Assumption questions are more difficult compared to the inference questions, so proper practice of GMAT Assumption based practice questions is necessary. To answer the assumption based GMAT critical reasoning questions, the following tips can help:

• Search for keywords to gain reliability.
• Before proceeding, understand the premises, assumptions, and conclusions clearly.
• Check whether premises logically support a conclusion.
• One or more assumptions have to be true to validate the conclusion based on it.

GMAT critical reasoning: Inference and Assumptions is pretty complex, but proper understanding and thorough practice with the GMAT Verbal practice papers are the keys to answer these questions accurately, that too using less time. Altogether, these GMAT critical reasoning tips will help the candidates to secure a higher score in GMAT.