Reasoning prompts are the shortest type of reading comprehension text, and they come with just one question. In a typical set of 20 verbal questions, you’ll usually see only one reasoning prompt.
Reasoning prompts are different from other reading comprehension prompts because they always include:
The question usually asks you to evaluate the argument - for example, by identifying what would strengthen or weaken it, or by finding an assumption the argument depends on.
Let’s practice with a very short example.
There are too many students in the university. Therefore, the school should hire more teachers.
In most reasoning prompts, the argument (conclusion) appears at the end. The facts come before it. The assumptions are the logical gaps between the facts and the conclusion.
What might weaken this argument?
The claim that there are too many students doesn’t automatically mean there aren’t enough teachers. The real problem could be something else - for example, not enough chairs or not enough classrooms. If space is the issue, hiring more teachers wouldn’t solve the problem. Instead, the school might need to buy more chairs.
What might strengthen the argument?
If there are an unreasonable number of students per teacher, then hiring more teachers would directly address the problem. That kind of information supports the conclusion.
There aren’t many shortcuts for this question type. The best approach is to:
Use what you’ve learned to approach this GRE reasoning prompt.
Salubrious Insurance, a local health insurance company, has experienced a sharp increase in claims in recent months. These claims range from accidental injuries, medical emergencies, chronic issues, and a small percentage of fraudulent claims. Fraudulent claims are rarely processed successfully, resulting in no significant loss to the company. Nonetheless, this relative increase in claims has become an issue for the company’s profits. Because the insurance company must pay more to their policyholders, the CEO has no choice but to raise the monthly costs to the customers. By raising the insurance rates, the company will be able to mitigate its payout losses and stay profitable.
Which of the following, if true, would weaken the argument?
A. The total amount gained from raising the rates is more than enough to counter their losses
B. Claims usually go up this time of year
C. There was a recent natural disaster that injured many people
D. Raising the rate could result in some customers seeking other insurance companies
E. The insurance company sometimes fulfills fraudulent claims, and thus, loses extra money when paying out those claims
Before you look at the answer choices, identify the argument. Here, the argument is the final sentence:
“By raising the insurance rates, the company will be able to mitigate their payout losses and stay profitable.”
Now evaluate the choices one by one. A simple method is to write A, B, C, D, E on a piece of paper and mark them as you go:
When you’re ready, read the explanation for each answer choice below.
A. This answer clearly strengthens the argument because it indicates that raising the rate will actually give the company more money than required to counterbalance the losses.
B. This answer does not specifically address the argument. Although it may be the case that rates usually rise this time of year, there is still the problem of profitability.
C. This answer seems like it could be correct at first. If there were a recent disaster that injured many people, it would make sense that there are more claims being made recently. However, this only gives an answer to the question of why the claims increased. The disaster, even if rare, still resulted in a loss for the company. This new information does not put into question the idea that raising the rates will help profits.
D. The argument assumes that all the current customers would still pay the increased rates. If the company were to lose customers, the total revenue gained might decrease, even if the per-customer rates increase. If the company lost half its clients because of the rate hikes, that would certainly have a negative effect on profits. This is the correct answer choice.
E. This information is already presented in the prompt. It also is irrelevant to the matter of raising the rates.
Reasoning prompts often include trap choices. A statement can be true and still fail to weaken (or strengthen) the argument. Make sure your choice directly affects whether the conclusion follows from the facts.