Common prompts for Proceed by:

? The argument proceeds by . . .
? The professor derives her conclusion by . . .
? The method of reasoning the argument employs is to . . .
? The response to the director’s argumentation is . . .

Before you look at the answer:

1. Pinpoint the main conclusion in the passage. (Read my previous Main Point post.)
2. Separate the premises from everything else. After you find the main point, don’t assume that all the other statements are premises; they might include opposing viewpoints, background information, and concessions.
3. Then, in your own words, describe how the argument unfolds: “the author presents a recent study and then refutes the same study by showing that its sample is unrepresentative.” Avoid looking att he answers until you have forced yourself to describe the overall structure of the argument.

Now look for the answer that most accurately describes what you just described.

1. Focus on the active clause of each answer to help yourself move through the maze of the answer choices quickly.
2. The correct answer must describe exactly what’s happening in the passage. Make sure every word of that answer correlates with some part of the passage. In other words, translate the abstract terms into concrete terms from the passage. 
If you pay attention to my previous posts, you might have a feeling of Déjà vu. That means you did pay attention to my discussions. Congratulations.The above steps are almost a verbatim copy of the “Role/Boldface” post. Why?Because all arguments are the same and both posts deal with the ways to present an argument. Once you know what is the premise, what is the main conclusion, and how to get from the premise to the conclusion, you pretty much understand the whole argument. GMAT CR questions are walk in the park once you figure out the logical path therein using your brain power and laser-sharp eyes.
The following are some sample questions which you might want to take a look at:

1) Whittaker: There can be no such thing as the number of medical school students who drop out before their second year, because if they drop out, they never have a second year.
Hudson: By your reasoning I cannot help but become rich, because there is similarly no such thing as my dying before my first million dollars is in the bank.

Hudson responds to Whittaker by

(A) showing that a relevantly analogous argument leads to an untenable conclusion
(B) citing a specific example to counter Whittaker’s general claim
(C) pointing out that Whittaker mistakes a necessary situation for a possible situation
(D) claiming that what Whittaker says cannot be true because Whittaker acts as if it were false
(E) showing that Whittaker’s argument relies on analyzing an extreme and unrepresentative case

2) Some people have been promoting a new herbal mixture as a remedy for the common cold. The mixture contains, among other things, extracts of the plants purple cone-flower and goldenseal. A cold sufferer, skeptical of the claim that the mixture is an effective cold remedy, argued, “Suppose that the mixture were an effective cold remedy. Since most people with colds wish to recover quickly, it follows that almost everybody with a cold would be using it. Therefore, since there are many people who have colds but do not use the mixture, it is obviously not effective.”

Which one of the following most accurately describes the method of reasoning the cold sufferer uses to reach the conclusion of the argument?

(A) finding a claim to be false on the grounds that it would, if true, have consequences that are false
(B) accepting a claim on the basis of public opinion of the claim
(C) showing that conditions necessary to establish the truth of a claim are met
(D) basing a generalization on a representative group of instances
(E) showing that a measure claimed to be effective in achieving a certain effect would actually make achieving the effect more difficult


3) Many plant varieties used in industrially developed nations to improve cultivated crops come from less developed nations. No compensation is paid on the grounds that the plants used are "the common heritage of humanity." Such reasoning is, however, flawed. After all, no one suggests that coal, oil, and ores should be extracted without payment.

Which of the following best describes an aspect of the method used by the author in the argument above？

(A) The author proceeds from a number of specific observations to a tentative generalization.
(B) The author applies to the case under discussion facts about phenomena assumed to be similar in some relevant respect.
(C) A position is strengthened by showing that the opposite of that position would have logically absurd consequences.
(D) A line of reasoning is called into question on the grounds that it confuses cause and effect in a causal relation.
(E) An argument is analyzed by separating statements of fact from individual value judgments.


4) Garbage in this neighborhood probably will not be collected until Thursday this week. Garbage is usually collected here on Wednesdays, and the garbage collectors in this city are extremely reliable. However, Monday was a public holiday, and after a public holiday that falls on a Monday, garbage throughout the city is supposed to be collected one day later than usual.

The argument proceeds by

(A) treating several pieces of irrelevant evidence as though they provide support for the conclusion.
(B) indirectly establishing that one thing is likely to occur by directly ruling out all of the alternative possibilities
(C) providing information that allows application of a general rule to a specific case.
(D) generalizing about all actions of a certain kind on the basis of a description of one such action
(E) treating something that is probable as though it were inevitable


5) Recently discovered fossil evidence casts doubt on the evolutionary theory that dinosaurs are more closely related to reptiles than to other classes of animals. Fossils show that some dinosaurs had hollow bones-a feature found today only in warm blooded creatures, such as birds, that have a high metabolic rates. Dinosaurs had well-developed senses of sight and hearing, which is not true of present-day cold blooded creatures like reptiles. The highly arched mouth roof of some dinosaurs would have permitted them to breathe while eating, as fast as breathing animals, such as birds, need to do.Today all fast-breathing animals are warm blooded. Finally, fossils reveal that many dinosaurs had a pattern of growth typical of warm-blooded animals.

The argument in the passage proceeds by

(A) Attempting to justify one position by demonstrating that an opposition is based on erroneous information.
(B)Establishing a general principle that it then uses to draw a conclusion about a particular case
(C)Dismissing a claim made about the present on the basis of historical evidence
(D Assuming that if all members of a category have a certain property then all things with that property belong to the category
(E)Presenting evidence that a past phenomenon is more similar to one than the other of two present day phenomena