Reasoning: Argument, Evidence and Inference
What the Reasoning task tests
The GAT reasoning questions test your ability to evaluate arguments, draw valid inferences and recognise patterns, without requiring specialist knowledge. Key concepts are conclusion versus evidence (what is claimed versus what supports it), assumption (an unstated premise the argument needs), validity versus truth (whether a conclusion follows versus whether the premises are actually correct), correlation and causation, and deductive patterns such as if-then reasoning and syllogism.
Traps to watch
- Attacking the person, not the argument. A claim's merit does not depend on who makes it.
- Confusing correlation with cause. Ice-cream sales and drowning deaths rise together, but heat causes both.
- Reversing a conditional. "If it rains, the ground is wet" does not mean "if the ground is wet, it rained."
- Hasty generalisation. A small or unrepresentative sample cannot support a broad conclusion.
- Irrelevant evidence. Statistics can be accurate yet say nothing about the conclusion.
Worked example
Consider: "Students who eat breakfast score higher on tests, so schools should provide breakfast to raise results." The conclusion is that providing breakfast will raise results. The evidence is a correlation between eating breakfast and test scores. The hidden assumption is that breakfast causes the higher scores rather than, say, that well-resourced families provide both breakfast and tutoring. A strong evaluation names that assumption and asks whether it holds.
Rule of thumb
For any argument, write down the conclusion in one sentence, list the evidence, then ask: what must be true for this evidence to support this conclusion? That missing link is usually the assumption a question targets. Eliminate options that are true but irrelevant, and prefer the answer that engages the reasoning rather than the topic.