How many Critical Reasoning questions are on the GMAT?

The Verbal section has 23 questions in 45 minutes, split between Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension. GMAC doesn't publish a fixed count for each type, but Critical Reasoning makes up roughly half of the section.

Which Critical Reasoning skill matters most?

Finding the gap between an argument's evidence and its conclusion. Assumption, strengthen, weaken and evaluate questions all turn on that same gap, so once you can name it quickly, most of the section gets easier.

Do I need outside knowledge for GMAT Critical Reasoning?

No. Every argument contains what you need. The topics range from business to science to public policy, but the right answer never depends on knowing anything about the subject. Treat the facts in the argument as true and judge only the reasoning.

Is Sentence Correction still part of GMAT Verbal?

No. Sentence Correction was removed when the GMAT Focus Edition launched in November 2023. Verbal now tests only Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension.

GMAT Critical Reasoning Questions: Types and Method

Q: How long should a Critical Reasoning question take?

The Verbal section gives you just under two minutes per question on average (45 minutes for 23 questions), and Reading Comprehension passages need extra time for reading, so aim to finish most Critical Reasoning questions in about two minutes.

GMAT Critical Reasoning questions give you a short argument, usually one paragraph, and ask you to analyze its logic: find the assumption it depends on, strengthen or weaken it, decide what would help evaluate it, resolve a paradox, or infer what must be true. They share the 45-minute Verbal section with Reading Comprehension, and they reward reading for structure rather than any outside knowledge.

What Is GMAT Critical Reasoning?

Critical Reasoning (CR) is one of the two question types in Verbal Reasoning on the GMAT Focus Edition. Verbal has 23 questions in 45 minutes. GMAC doesn't publish a fixed split, but Critical Reasoning makes up roughly half of the section, with Reading Comprehension passages and their question sets making up the rest. Verbal counts for a third of your 205-805 total, the same as Quant and Data Insights.

Each Critical Reasoning question has three parts:

The stimulus: a short argument, a plan, or a set of facts.
The question stem: the task, such as "Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?"
Five answer choices, exactly one of which does the job the stem asks for.

Since the Focus Edition dropped Sentence Correction, Critical Reasoning is the part of Verbal you can study most directly: the question types repeat, and each one has a method. There is more on that change in what happened to Sentence Correction.

What Are the GMAT Critical Reasoning Question Types?

Prep books name and group the types slightly differently, but these are the families you will meet. The first four all depend on the same thing: the gap between the evidence and the conclusion.

Question type	What the stem asks	What the right answer does
Assumption	"The argument depends on which of the following assumptions?"	States something the argument needs but never says. Negated, it breaks the argument.
Strengthen	"Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument?"	Closes the gap or rules out a rival explanation.
Weaken	"Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?"	Opens the gap: an alternative cause, a flawed comparison, an unrepresentative sample.
Evaluate	"Which of the following would be most useful to know in evaluating the argument?"	Names a question whose answer, one way, helps the argument and, the other way, hurts it.
Inference	"Which of the following must be true / is most strongly supported?"	Follows from the facts given, with nothing added. Often modest in wording.
Paradox	"Which of the following most helps to explain the discrepancy?"	Shows how two facts that seem to conflict can both be true.
Flaw	"The reasoning is flawed because it..."	Describes the logical error in general terms.
Role of a statement	"The two portions in boldface play which of the following roles?"	Labels each portion: conclusion, evidence, a position the author opposes, and so on.
Plan	"Which of the following would most help the plan succeed / cast doubt on it?"	A strengthen or weaken question aimed at a proposal instead of a claim.

How Do You Solve a Critical Reasoning Question?

Use the same four steps on every question, then adjust step three for the type.

Read the question stem first. Knowing whether you need to weaken, strengthen or infer tells you what to look for in the argument.
Break the argument down. Find the conclusion (often after "so", "therefore", "thus" or "clearly"), then the evidence offered for it. Ask what the author takes for granted to get from one to the other. That gap is usually where the answer lives.
Predict before you read the choices. For a weaken question, think "what else could explain this?" For an assumption question, think "what must be true for this to work?" A rough prediction makes the right answer easier to spot and the traps easier to resist.
Eliminate, then test what is left. Cross out choices that are off topic, point the wrong way, or go further than the argument. For assumption questions, negate the survivors: the correct answer, negated, makes the argument fall apart.

Worked Example: An Assumption Question

In March, the city installed brighter streetlights along Elm Street. Over the following six months, reported car break-ins on Elm Street fell by 30 percent compared with the same months a year earlier. The city council concluded that brighter streetlights deter car break-ins and plans to install them citywide.
The council's conclusion depends on which of the following assumptions?
(A) The brighter streetlights cost less to run than the lights they replaced.
(B) The fall in break-ins on Elm Street was not caused mainly by some other change made there during the same period.
(C) Most residents of Elm Street park their cars on the street.
(D) Car break-ins are the most common crime in the city.
(E) Every street in the city will see break-ins fall by 30 percent once the new lights are installed.

Conclusion: brighter lights deter break-ins. Evidence: break-ins fell after the lights went in. Gap: the council assumes the lights, and not something else, caused the drop.

The answer is (B). Negate it ("the fall was caused mainly by some other change, such as new police patrols") and the conclusion collapses. (E) is the classic trap: it sounds like something the council believes, but the conclusion only needs the lights to help. It doesn't need them to deliver the same 30 percent everywhere, so (E) is stronger than the argument requires. (A), (C) and (D) are about cost, parking and crime rankings, none of which bears on whether the lights caused the drop.

Worked Example: A Weaken Question

A company found that employees who used its on-site gym took, on average, three fewer sick days last year than employees who did not. The company concluded that using the gym makes employees less likely to get sick.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the company's conclusion?

Predict first: the gym users chose to use the gym. What if they were healthier to begin with? A choice such as "Employees who signed up for the gym were, before it opened, already taking fewer sick days than their colleagues" weakens the argument by offering a rival explanation: the healthy chose the gym, rather than the gym making them healthy. Watch for the reverse trap, a choice that strengthens the argument (for example, that gym users' sick days fell after they joined), which is the right answer to a different question.

Which Wrong Answers Show Up Most Often?

Wrong answers in Critical Reasoning fall into a few patterns. Learn to name them and elimination gets faster.

Out of scope: on topic, but about something the conclusion doesn't depend on (cost, popularity, other cities).
Wrong direction: strengthens when you were asked to weaken, or the other way round.
Too extreme: "always", "every", "only" or "never" when the argument needs much less.
Restates a premise: repeats evidence already in the argument, which adds nothing.
True but irrelevant: a fact you would accept that doesn't touch the gap.

When you review a miss, write down which of these you fell for. Most test takers find the same one or two patterns behind most of their Critical Reasoning errors.

How Long Should a Critical Reasoning Question Take?

Verbal gives you 45 minutes for 23 questions, just under two minutes each on average. Reading Comprehension needs extra time to read each passage, so aim to finish most Critical Reasoning questions in about two minutes. If one runs past three, pick your best remaining choice, bookmark it, and move on: the Focus Edition lets you review your bookmarked questions and change up to three answers per section before the section ends. The GMAT Focus Edition guide has more on how review-and-edit works.

How Should You Practice GMAT Critical Reasoning?

Start with one question type at a time until the method feels automatic, beginning with assumption, strengthen and weaken, since they share the gap. Then mix types in timed sets, because the real section gives no warning which type comes next. Review every question, including the ones you got right, and keep an error log of the trap you fell for each time you miss.

To try real ones, our free GMAT practice questions include an assumption question and a weaken question with full explanations of every choice. For a full study schedule, see how to study for the GMAT. When you are ready for more, the free 7-day trial opens with a 12-question diagnostic that includes Verbal and shows which section to work on first.