GRE Critical Reasoning Questions: Arguments in the Verbal Section

Most GRE verbal prep focuses on vocabulary, but a meaningful share of Reading Comprehension questions are argument-based: a short paragraph presents reasoning, and you are asked to strengthen it, weaken it, identify an assumption, or describe its structure.

These reward logical reading, not vocabulary. If you can find a conclusion and the gap beneath it, you can handle them — the same core skill the LSAT tests.

Read the short passage and identify the conclusion — the claim the author wants you to accept — and the evidence offered for it.

Conclusion indicators include therefore, thus, so, and clearly. But the conclusion may have no indicator at all, so ask which sentence the others are trying to support.

Every argument question turns on the gap between the evidence and the conclusion — the unstated leap the author makes.

Once you name the gap, the question type tells you what to do with it. Strengthen closes the gap; weaken widens it; an assumption question states a piece the argument needs; an evaluate question probes it.

Strengthen: choose the answer that makes the conclusion more likely, often by ruling out an alternative explanation.

Weaken: choose the answer that introduces a problem for the conclusion, often an alternative cause or a counterexample.

Assumption: choose the answer the argument must take for granted. Test it by negating it — if the negation breaks the argument, it is the assumption.

Method or structure: describe how the argument is built (it generalizes from an example, draws an analogy, rebuts a view) rather than evaluating it.

"A city installed new bike lanes last year, and cycling injuries fell. The lanes have clearly made cycling safer."

Conclusion: the lanes made cycling safer. Evidence: injuries fell after installation. Gap: maybe fewer people cycled, or a parallel safety campaign ran.

Weaken: "The number of cyclists dropped sharply last year after a major employer relocated." Fewer cyclists could explain fewer injuries without any safety improvement.

Strengthen: "The number of cyclists rose last year, yet total injuries still fell." That rules out the fewer-cyclists explanation and supports the safety conclusion.

The reasoning is the same family as LSAT Logical Reasoning, but GRE arguments are usually shorter and less intricate, and there are fewer of them.

If you have studied LSAT-style strengthen, weaken, and assumption questions, that skill transfers directly. The GRE simply embeds it in the verbal section rather than making it a dedicated section.

Q: How many argument questions are on the GRE? They are a subset of Reading Comprehension, so the count varies, but expect several across the verbal sections.

Q: Do I need outside knowledge? No. Answer only from the passage, exactly as on the LSAT.

Q: What is the single most useful skill? Finding the conclusion and naming the gap beneath it. Almost every argument question depends on it.

Verbloom's reasoning drills build the conclusion-and-gap skill that GRE argument questions reward, with explanations that show how each answer affects the argument.

Try it at verbloom.dev.