GMAT Verbal: GMAT Critical Reasoning Practice Questions
Test yourself on GMAT Critical Reasoning with 12 original GMAT practice questions. Pick an answer to see instant feedback and a full explanation.
Free original practice questions for study purposes. Open Exam Prep is an independent study resource and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the makers of GMAT.
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Answer the questions below — you get instant feedback and a full explanation for each.
1. A retailer reports that stores with longer weekend hours earn 18% more revenue than stores with shorter weekend hours. The retailer concludes that extending weekend hours will increase revenue at all of its stores. Which statement, if true, most weakens the conclusion?
Explanation. The conclusion treats longer hours as the cause of higher revenue. If the longer-hour stores are also in high-traffic districts, location may explain the revenue difference. That alternative cause weakens the claim that extending hours alone will raise revenue everywhere.
2. A city installed new bike lanes on three major streets. Bicycle counts on those streets rose by 25% the next month, so city leaders claim the lanes caused many residents to start biking. Which question is most useful in evaluating the claim?
Explanation. To evaluate causation, we need to know whether the increase was specific to streets with new lanes or part of a broader trend. If nearby streets also rose, weather, seasonality, or another citywide factor may explain the increase.
3. A manufacturer claims that its new packaging reduces shipping damage because damage reports fell from 4% of shipments to 2% after the packaging was introduced. Which assumption does the argument require?
Explanation. The evidence compares damage rates before and after the change. The argument assumes the rates are comparable and not distorted by a major shift in shipment mix or volume. The other choices may matter to business decisions but are not required for the damage-reduction conclusion.
4. A software company found that teams using daily stand-up meetings fixed bugs faster than teams that met only once per week. Therefore, daily stand-ups should be required for every engineering team. Which statement most strengthens the argument?
Explanation. Random assignment reduces the chance that higher-performing teams simply chose daily meetings. That makes the meeting frequency itself a more plausible cause of faster bug fixing.
5. A restaurant owner argues: 'Our lunch sales declined after a new cafe opened across the street. The cafe must be taking our customers.' Which statement offers the strongest alternative explanation?
Explanation. If a nearby office building closed, there may have been fewer lunch customers in the area overall. That could explain the sales decline without assuming the new cafe took the restaurant's customers.
6. A researcher concludes that a new study app improves test scores because students who used it scored higher than students who did not. Which flaw is most apparent in the reasoning?
Explanation. The argument compares self-selected groups. More motivated students may be both more likely to use the app and more likely to score higher, so motivation is a confounding factor.
7. A warehouse manager says: 'When we added a second quality inspection, customer returns decreased. Therefore, adding a third inspection will decrease returns even further.' Which answer choice identifies the main weakness?
Explanation. The argument assumes that because one added inspection helped, another added inspection will help similarly. But the first extra inspection may have captured most preventable defects, leaving little marginal benefit for a third inspection.
8. A town reduced bus fares by 20%, and bus ridership increased by 12%. The transit agency concludes that the fare reduction increased total fare revenue. Which additional fact is most important for evaluating the conclusion?
Explanation. Total fare revenue depends on price per ride times number of rides. A 12% ridership increase may not offset a 20% price cut, so this fact is central to evaluating the revenue conclusion.
9. A nutrition label redesign made calorie counts larger and easier to see. Six months later, sales of high-calorie snacks fell at participating stores. The company claims the redesign caused shoppers to choose lower-calorie items. Which statement would most strengthen the claim?
Explanation. A comparison group helps isolate the label redesign. If similar stores without redesigned labels did not experience the decline, the redesign becomes a more plausible explanation.
10. An airline notes that flights using a new boarding process departed late less often than flights using the old process. It concludes that the new boarding process should be adopted on all routes. Which assumption is most necessary?
Explanation. The argument assumes the lower delay rate is due to the boarding process, not easier routes, less congested airports, or other route-specific factors. Without that assumption, the recommendation is much weaker.
11. A local newspaper argues that because online subscriptions rose after it added a weekly crossword puzzle, the crossword was responsible for the increase. Which piece of evidence would most weaken the argument?
Explanation. A simultaneous discount is a strong alternative cause for subscription growth. If the discount attracted subscribers, the crossword may not be responsible for the increase.
12. A company concludes that remote work improves productivity because departments with more remote employees completed more projects last quarter. Which answer choice best describes the evidence needed to make the conclusion more reliable?
Explanation. The current evidence is only a cross-department comparison and may be confounded by department type, staffing, or project difficulty. A before-and-after comparison among otherwise similar departments would better isolate the effect of remote work.
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FAQ
What does GMAT Critical Reasoning test?
It tests whether you can analyze short arguments: identify conclusions and evidence, find assumptions, evaluate cause-and-effect claims, strengthen or weaken reasoning, and spot common flaws such as alternative causes, sampling problems, and overgeneralization.
How should I approach a Critical Reasoning question?
First identify the conclusion, then ask what evidence is being used to support it. Before reading the choices, predict the logical gap. For strengthen and weaken questions, focus on the link between evidence and conclusion rather than on facts that are merely related to the topic.
What are common traps in GMAT Critical Reasoning?
Common traps include choices that discuss the same subject but not the argument's logic, extreme language, facts that support only the background, and answers that reverse the direction of causality. For causal arguments, always check for alternative explanations and comparison-group issues.