One category of CR questions tested on the GMAT is “Assumption” questions. An assumption is essentially an unstated premise – i.e., what is missing in the argument as the author goes from the premise to the conclusion. As assumption is a bit of information which is mandatory for the argument to be valid, but which the author does not explicitly put down on paper – rather, he “assumes” it. Let us understand this with a simple illustration –
David eats bananas everyday. Therefore, David must have a superior IQ.
In this case, the author states that because David eats bananas everyday – a healthy habit, of course 🙂 – he must have a superior IQ. So, a basic assumption made by the author is that “eating bananas everyday = superior IQ”.
Now, note that this also implies that if “eating bananas everyday” DID NOT correspond to an “improved IQ”, the argument would fall apart. In other words, if the assumption were to be negated, the argument would be destroyed. This is the essence of the negation strategy – since an assumption MUST BE TRUE for the argument, if we negate the assumption, the argument will be negated.
Using the negation strategy on the assumption questions on the GMAT is a time-effective and foolproof way to arrive at the correct answer. Because the wording of the options on the GMAT CR questions is not very “direct”, this method ensures that you have a higher probability of selecting the correct answer. Negate the 2 options that you have narrowed it down to – usually, 3 out of 5 options are easily eliminated for various reasons such as out of scope, etc – and negate each. The correct answer is the one, which when negated, destroys the argument.
- HOW TO NEGATE –
- negate EITHER one of the main verb OR a quantifier in an option (based on whichever is easier to comprehend; DO NOT negate both the main verb and the quantifier – since this will bring us back to the original sentence). For example,
The negation of “David does not go the office” will be “David DOES go to the office” – we negate the main verb.
The negation of “Bananas are a primary component in David’s diet” will be “Bananas are unimportant – we negate “primary” – in David’s diet”
- In sentences where subordinate conjunctions – if, since, because, while, whereas, although, even though, though, as, unless, etc. – are present, always negate the independent clause. For example, the negation of “If David eats bananas, he will have a better IQ”, will be “If David eats bananas, he will NOT have a better IQ”.
We DO NOT negate the dependent clause in such cases – i.e., the negation of the above statement will not be “if David does not bananas, he will have a better IQ”.
- Be careful when negating adverbs (usually words ending with “-ly”) in a sentence option – negating the adverb can have different results from what one would usually expect, and is quite often used in trap/incorrect options on the GMAT. To understand this idea, let us look at the following two sentences:
- a) John’s income has increased – Negated, this option reads “John’s income HAS NOT increased”; In other words, John’s income has either decreased or remained the same.
- b) John’s income has not increased significantly – Negated, this option reads “John’s income HAS NOT INCREASED SIGNIFICANTLY”. In other words, John’s income has still increased (maybe by 0.5% or 1% or some statistically insignificant amount as such) – just that it has not increased in any substantive manner.
Adverbial negations are among the trickier negations on the GMAT to master. In general, adverbs, because they usually act as quantifiers, play a significant role in the difference between a trap option and the correct option, especially in Inference and Assumption question types on CR and RC.
Hope this post was useful and happy prepping for the GMAT!
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