Reasoning prompt
Reasoning prompts are the shortest of any reading comprehension texts and are accompanied by just one question. You will likely only see one reasoning prompt and question in any given set of 20 verbal questions.
Reasoning prompts are unique to general reading comprehension prompts because they always involve some facts and an argument. The questions generally ask how an argument can be strengthened or weakened, or, the question may ask about an assumption the argument is making. Let’s practice with a very short version of a question to get a sense of this question type.
There are too many students in the university. Therefore, the school should hire more teachers.
The argument generally comes at the very end of a reasoning prompt. The facts are the information presented just before the argument, and the assumptions are the logical gaps between the facts and the argument.
What might weaken this argument?
The idea that there are too many students does not necessarily mean that there are not enough teachers. Even if there were enough teachers, there might be too many students for the number of chairs or the number of classrooms in the school. This would counter the argument that the school should hire more teachers. Instead, the school might just need to buy more chairs.
What might strengthen the argument?
Clearly, if there were an unreasonable number of students per teacher, it would be necessary to hire more teachers.
For better or worse, there aren’t many tips or tricks for this section. It’s mostly about taking it slow, thinking critically about the passage and question, eliminating bad choices, and trying to find the answer that is the best fit.
Example verbal reasoning question
Try using what you have 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 answering the question, make sure that you have identified the argument. In this prompt, the argument is the final sentence “By raising the insurance rates, the company will be able to mitigate their payout losses and stay profitable.”
Write A, B, C, D, E on a piece of paper and go through the choices one by one. Cross off the answers you don’t like, put a question mark next to the answers you aren’t sure about, and star the answers that seem like good choices.
When you’re ready, continue reading our explanation below for each answer choice.
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.
Did you get it right? Like most questions on the GRE, reasoning prompts often have trap choices. Just because a statement is true doesn’t mean it is the correct answer - be sure your choice actually answers the question!