GMAT Verbal: Reading Comprehension & Critical Reasoning

The big picture

• GMAT Verbal (23 Qs, 45 min)
  • Reading Comprehension — Passages + detail/inference/purpose questions
  • Critical Reasoning — Evaluate a short argument
  • No Sentence Correction — Grammar item type removed in Focus
  • Logic over grammar — Reasoning is the whole game

Grammar's gone — it's reasoning now

GMAT Focus Verbal has just two question types: Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning. Sentence Correction was removed, so pure grammar drills no longer help — the section is entirely about understanding and evaluating arguments.

Critical Reasoning — find the argument's skeleton

You read a short argument and answer a question: strengthen it, weaken it, find the assumption, or spot the flaw. The key skill is separating the conclusion from the evidence, then seeing the assumption that links them.

Reading Comprehension — map, don't memorise

Passages are dense but short. Read for structure — main point, how each paragraph functions, the author's tone — rather than memorising details. Then return to the text to answer specific questions; every answer must be supported by the passage.

Pace: about two minutes each

23 questions in 45 minutes is roughly under two minutes each, and Reading Comprehension passages serve several questions, so time spent understanding a passage pays back across its question set. It's adaptive — steady accuracy beats rushing.

Test yourself before you move on

Re-reading a note feels like learning and produces almost none. The retrieval below is what actually builds the memory, so cover the map above and answer these from memory — out loud or written down, not in your head, because "I know this" is the feeling that fails under exam pressure.

1. Without looking: what is Reading Comprehension, and how does it connect to GMAT Verbal (23 Qs, 45 min)?
2. Without looking: what is Critical Reasoning, and how does it connect to GMAT Verbal (23 Qs, 45 min)?
3. Without looking: what is No Sentence Correction, and how does it connect to GMAT Verbal (23 Qs, 45 min)?
4. Without looking: what is Logic over grammar, and how does it connect to GMAT Verbal (23 Qs, 45 min)?

Anything you could not produce is the part of this note you have not learned yet — regardless of how familiar it felt while reading. Re-read only that node, then re-test the whole set. Testing the whole set matters: recalling one idea in isolation is easier than recalling it among 4 competing ones, which is the situation the exam actually puts you in.

When to come back to this note

Spacing is not a scheduling detail, it is the mechanism. Meeting this material again just as it starts to fade forces the effortful retrieval that consolidates it, which is why a note reviewed four times across three weeks outlasts the same note read four times in one evening. The built-in scheduler resurfaces these questions at widening intervals for exactly that reason — the prompt arriving when you feel you have half-forgotten is the system working, not failing.

A practical rhythm for GMAT Verbal (23 Qs, 45 min): today, again tomorrow, then after three days, then after a week. If you fail a review, shorten the next interval rather than re-reading the note end to end — the failure identifies the gap precisely, and re-reading everything wastes the diagnosis.

Then apply it under pressure. Knowing a concept in isolation and using it in a timed paper are different skills, and only the second is examined. There are 90 free GMAT practice tests here covering 1,920 questions — counted from the test files, not estimated. Take a full timed GMAT mock →