So could we think of the weakening answers this way. Essentially the conclusion of the stimulus is a hypothesis that could be true. But the answer choice is another hypothesis or (conclusion) that could be true. BUT because when know the answer choice is true, it makes the support stronger for the answer choice hence weakening the conclusion in the stimulus?
It looks like the answer they pick destroys the conclusion and not doing anything with the support, plus isn't support the same thing as the premise? Premise supports the conclusion right?
But the point of an argument is to input a conclusion, whether its a hypothesis, or an actual properly drawn conclusion, when the question asks you to weaken you should instantly look for anything that disprovers the conclusion. Disproving the premise will not weaken the argument (tbh it can, but it would have to be a premise-conclusion that leads to another main conclusion).
This took a while for me too, I think because I kept 'reversing' the logic which put my mind into a loop. But to break it down... Premise: Of the interviews shown, those conducted with people against the new freeway outnumbered those conducted with people for it 2:1.
Conclusion: The television program is therefore biased against the proposed freeway.
A. Nothing in the stimulus indicates that the viewers (NOT interviewees) being aware of the freeway controversy = affects => how biased the TV program is against the proposed freeway. Cross this out
B. Again, nothing in the stimulus indicates that viewers’ expectation of bias has a relationship with the bias of a TV program. OUT
C. Okay, we’re getting closer, but if this was true, this would support the argument, not weaken it. We can keep this in reserve and see if there’s another answer that is better.
D. Better than C, so we can strike it out. The fact that there were 2x as many people before the program aired indicates that the ratio of those against the freeway versus those for was not because the TV program had a bias/selectively chose their interviewees. This greatly weakens the argument.
E. If true, would support the argument. If the TV has a fiscal interest that would be harmed by the freeway construction, they would naturally be biased against it, which supports the argument.
In this question, I got confused by the previous lesson which mentioned that for causal logic weakening questions, we can find an alternative hypothesis in the answers to weaken the argument.
I found that it helped, in this instance, to forget about an alternative hypothesis (the answer just did not seem like one to me). Instead, it helped to just focus on weakening the support (that is, what supports the tv program being biased) on a more intuitive level.
@Super_Cookie my favorite way to eliminate answer options is if I can just say "who cares?" I can cross it off and move on.
I'll be honest, I saw "Most viewers" and moved on. Didnt even read the rest. Why read it. Its asking for us to weaken the conclusion about the station being biased due to the amount of interviews. How would viewers affect any of that? Maybe there's some way, but its not likely and I can come back if nothing else pops out as correct sooner.
I don't know if I recommend doing that, but just sharing how I approach a lot of these.
The answer choice C would definitely have been a great answer choice that strengthens the stimulus' choice. Despite not being 100% certain that there is a direct causal relationship between evoking emotions and bias, we can reasonably deduce that those who oppose the freeway can simply appeal to people's emotions to reinforce their points instead of providing legitimate, practical, and logical reasons why building a freeway would not be a good thing.
@PennJoon2025 Yeah I had C & D both sitting there, but C requires the (admittedly reasonable) assumption that the station really just cares about views, and emotion gets more views. D requires maybe an assumption that the station did NOT fairly distribute interviewees beforehand based on opinion, but an assumption of action compared to disaction would require much more reasonableness to be on par, and I just don't think we have that here. Both are reasonable, and disaction is simpler to assume than explicit action. Never assume malice when incompetence will suffice.
Got it right - the part in the stem where it mentions that people against the freeway were 2 to 1 has to be explained - D explains this because it tells us that twice as many people were already against the highway.
@MRod Hmm its worse than that. Lets say "emotional strength of argument = outnumbering = program bias" were true. That would make it even more wrong. That would strengthen the conclusion, not weaken it.
@meepmeep You'll get better with practice! I really wasn't a fan of RRE questions but practice helps. I went from gettin 0/5 to 3/5 (not the best, but better), practice, practice, practice! Goodluck!
#feedback Originally, I was frustrated with the amount of time JY put into alternating the ACs/Question types to show how the question could work given different scenarios. It just seemed too confusing and a waste of time. After reviewing this question, I now see why its important to view the questions in different ways. Understanding the unity in logical reasoning questions makes for better overall understanding. All of the question types are linked in terms of thought process in some way shape or form. It may seem confusing at first, but once it clicks--it clicks, and you likely will start relying less on identifying question types and simply just applying, well--logical reasoning!
@legallyhaya The conclusion is that the TV program is biased because of the ratio of the interviews of people for:against, so the path of least resistance would be to explain the ratio without the program's involvement.
So, if the ratio was already there before the program aired and they match, then the TV program is actually not biased in portraying that ratio, ergo the hypothesis is weakened.
@legallyhaya The conclusion is the last sentence. D is similar to a part of the premise. D is correct based on the phrase "before the program aired" because it predates the news coverage, suggesting that more people were opposed to the freeway than in favor of it before the news conducted interviews.
like seriously, please bring the "all AC at once" back, cause i understood why D was correct (somewhat) and now going through other AC, i forget what was the reasoning for D? like come on mannn, i am so mad. since they started doing that, i am not learning anything
I dislike this question. Interpreting bias in this way seems a bit thick. Just because one side of an issue enjoys more support does not allow a news provider to cover or give exposure to that one side of the issue disproportionately and remain bias free. Imagine a panel debate with 4 on one side and 1 on the other of an issue. Even if these numbers were representative of the public, surely no reasonable person could conclude that the debate structure is unbiased. Bias relates to the evenhandedness of the coverage of any given topic, and a reasonable evaluation of its support, not how many supporters it touts. An argument is no less if true if it has 1 or 1 million supporters. The grand leap of an assumption that this question requires to reason that proportionally being similar or larger in the general population than in the interviews is any sort of weakener to the claim of bias is absurd. This question stupidly equates bias and representativeness. D is still correct, as all others are worse, but it is a bad question pure and simple.
In the end I chose D but doesn't C seem like a potential explanation too? Maybe the news station aired more interviews with people against the new freeway because those people gave more emotional interviews, which made for better TV. So C does weaken the argument. However, D is right because it weakens the argument more.
The way I have explained it to myself is AC C requires a greater assumption 'leap' than AC D does.
AC C requires we assume more emotional = better TV; What if both groups (for and against the freeway) were very emotional, the people against were just a little bit more emotional? Technically they would still be 'more emotional' but if both groups are emotional, both interviews would have been emotional thus made for good TV.
AC D is just less of an assumption 'leap'. If, from a pool of possible interviewees (people who would be affected by the proposed freeway-according to the sim) there are OVER TWICE as many people against than are for the freeway, it makes sense that the against are 2x more represented.
I'm still confused on the difference between Weaken and RRE questions. They keep trying to highlight a difference and I don't quite understand it. If anyone could explain that would be great!
For weaken questions, what discredits the stimulus the most? The answer should be an "AHA" thats why this conclusion/hypothesis can't be true.
For RRE, remove your biases from the stimulus and read it as if you are not involved at all mentally. Read it as if someone if telling you of all possibilities of different outcomes and choose the best one that fits with the 'story' presented.
Prior to your explanations of how to attack "weakens" question, I was horrible at them. I'm much better now. This explanation was better by the way. Showing how to determine the weaken answer, and THEN showing relation/conversion to RRE flowed better. (IMO)
Reasoning is the logic or rationale behind the argument's conclusion.
This is the “because” part of the argument—the connection between the evidence and the claim.
Example:
"Online classes lead to higher test scores because students have more time to study."
The reasoning is that more time to study leads to better performance.
2. Result (What is the argument trying to prove?)
The result is the conclusion or outcome that the argument is attempting to explain or justify.
In most cases, it’s the claim the author is making.
Example:
"Therefore, online classes are more effective than in-person classes." The result is that online classes lead to higher scores and are therefore better.
3. Evidence (What supports the conclusion?)
Evidence is the data, studies, or observations the argument uses to support the reasoning and conclusion.
This is the “because of” part, which could be facts, examples, or statistics.
Example:
"A recent study showed that students in online classes scored 10% higher on average than those in in-person classes." The evidence is the study showing higher test scores in online classes.
88 comments
So could we think of the weakening answers this way. Essentially the conclusion of the stimulus is a hypothesis that could be true. But the answer choice is another hypothesis or (conclusion) that could be true. BUT because when know the answer choice is true, it makes the support stronger for the answer choice hence weakening the conclusion in the stimulus?
i need to go with my gut more. my first choice was D then changed to C ugh
It looks like the answer they pick destroys the conclusion and not doing anything with the support, plus isn't support the same thing as the premise? Premise supports the conclusion right?
But the point of an argument is to input a conclusion, whether its a hypothesis, or an actual properly drawn conclusion, when the question asks you to weaken you should instantly look for anything that disprovers the conclusion. Disproving the premise will not weaken the argument (tbh it can, but it would have to be a premise-conclusion that leads to another main conclusion).
This took a while for me too, I think because I kept 'reversing' the logic which put my mind into a loop. But to break it down... Premise: Of the interviews shown, those conducted with people against the new freeway outnumbered those conducted with people for it 2:1.
Conclusion: The television program is therefore biased against the proposed freeway.
A. Nothing in the stimulus indicates that the viewers (NOT interviewees) being aware of the freeway controversy = affects => how biased the TV program is against the proposed freeway. Cross this out
B. Again, nothing in the stimulus indicates that viewers’ expectation of bias has a relationship with the bias of a TV program. OUT
C. Okay, we’re getting closer, but if this was true, this would support the argument, not weaken it. We can keep this in reserve and see if there’s another answer that is better.
D. Better than C, so we can strike it out. The fact that there were 2x as many people before the program aired indicates that the ratio of those against the freeway versus those for was not because the TV program had a bias/selectively chose their interviewees. This greatly weakens the argument.
E. If true, would support the argument. If the TV has a fiscal interest that would be harmed by the freeway construction, they would naturally be biased against it, which supports the argument.
I got it but took too long.... sigh
No bc I started zoning out here :) like...
when I picked the right answer, I'm not even kidding, I clapped my hand so loud it hurt my ears.
Got it but it was confusing for sure!
In this question, I got confused by the previous lesson which mentioned that for causal logic weakening questions, we can find an alternative hypothesis in the answers to weaken the argument.
I found that it helped, in this instance, to forget about an alternative hypothesis (the answer just did not seem like one to me). Instead, it helped to just focus on weakening the support (that is, what supports the tv program being biased) on a more intuitive level.
I'm so dumb and picked B. I should make sure that the answer is specific to the argument and not pick one that makes a broad statement
@Super_Cookie Same here!
@Super_Cookie my favorite way to eliminate answer options is if I can just say "who cares?" I can cross it off and move on.
I'll be honest, I saw "Most viewers" and moved on. Didnt even read the rest. Why read it. Its asking for us to weaken the conclusion about the station being biased due to the amount of interviews. How would viewers affect any of that? Maybe there's some way, but its not likely and I can come back if nothing else pops out as correct sooner.
I don't know if I recommend doing that, but just sharing how I approach a lot of these.
These easier weaken questions REALLY make me overthink the AC's
The answer choice C would definitely have been a great answer choice that strengthens the stimulus' choice. Despite not being 100% certain that there is a direct causal relationship between evoking emotions and bias, we can reasonably deduce that those who oppose the freeway can simply appeal to people's emotions to reinforce their points instead of providing legitimate, practical, and logical reasons why building a freeway would not be a good thing.
@PennJoon2025 Yeah I had C & D both sitting there, but C requires the (admittedly reasonable) assumption that the station really just cares about views, and emotion gets more views. D requires maybe an assumption that the station did NOT fairly distribute interviewees beforehand based on opinion, but an assumption of action compared to disaction would require much more reasonableness to be on par, and I just don't think we have that here. Both are reasonable, and disaction is simpler to assume than explicit action. Never assume malice when incompetence will suffice.
Got it right - the part in the stem where it mentions that people against the freeway were 2 to 1 has to be explained - D explains this because it tells us that twice as many people were already against the highway.
Yay! 31 secs over because I second-guessed that, but I got it.
Got it wrong. Assumed that emotional strength of argument = outnumbering = program bias, when that's not true. Got it right on BR after realizing this
@MRod Hmm its worse than that. Lets say "emotional strength of argument = outnumbering = program bias" were true. That would make it even more wrong. That would strengthen the conclusion, not weaken it.
im terrible at these
@meepmeep You'll get better with practice! I really wasn't a fan of RRE questions but practice helps. I went from gettin 0/5 to 3/5 (not the best, but better), practice, practice, practice! Goodluck!
#feedback Originally, I was frustrated with the amount of time JY put into alternating the ACs/Question types to show how the question could work given different scenarios. It just seemed too confusing and a waste of time. After reviewing this question, I now see why its important to view the questions in different ways. Understanding the unity in logical reasoning questions makes for better overall understanding. All of the question types are linked in terms of thought process in some way shape or form. It may seem confusing at first, but once it clicks--it clicks, and you likely will start relying less on identifying question types and simply just applying, well--logical reasoning!
Isnt D saying the same thing as the conclusion?? I am so lost
@legallyhaya The conclusion is that the TV program is biased because of the ratio of the interviews of people for:against, so the path of least resistance would be to explain the ratio without the program's involvement.
So, if the ratio was already there before the program aired and they match, then the TV program is actually not biased in portraying that ratio, ergo the hypothesis is weakened.
@legallyhaya The conclusion is the last sentence. D is similar to a part of the premise. D is correct based on the phrase "before the program aired" because it predates the news coverage, suggesting that more people were opposed to the freeway than in favor of it before the news conducted interviews.
like seriously, please bring the "all AC at once" back, cause i understood why D was correct (somewhat) and now going through other AC, i forget what was the reasoning for D? like come on mannn, i am so mad. since they started doing that, i am not learning anything
I fell for E because I thought that it was the businesses who were biased and not the news station but I guess it was an unreasonable assumption
@EthanSegerman same here.
@EthanSegerman Same here, I need to read more lol
I dislike this question. Interpreting bias in this way seems a bit thick. Just because one side of an issue enjoys more support does not allow a news provider to cover or give exposure to that one side of the issue disproportionately and remain bias free. Imagine a panel debate with 4 on one side and 1 on the other of an issue. Even if these numbers were representative of the public, surely no reasonable person could conclude that the debate structure is unbiased. Bias relates to the evenhandedness of the coverage of any given topic, and a reasonable evaluation of its support, not how many supporters it touts. An argument is no less if true if it has 1 or 1 million supporters. The grand leap of an assumption that this question requires to reason that proportionally being similar or larger in the general population than in the interviews is any sort of weakener to the claim of bias is absurd. This question stupidly equates bias and representativeness. D is still correct, as all others are worse, but it is a bad question pure and simple.
In the end I chose D but doesn't C seem like a potential explanation too? Maybe the news station aired more interviews with people against the new freeway because those people gave more emotional interviews, which made for better TV. So C does weaken the argument. However, D is right because it weakens the argument more.
@SimonNavarrete I thought the same exact thing!
The way I have explained it to myself is AC C requires a greater assumption 'leap' than AC D does.
AC C requires we assume more emotional = better TV; What if both groups (for and against the freeway) were very emotional, the people against were just a little bit more emotional? Technically they would still be 'more emotional' but if both groups are emotional, both interviews would have been emotional thus made for good TV.
AC D is just less of an assumption 'leap'. If, from a pool of possible interviewees (people who would be affected by the proposed freeway-according to the sim) there are OVER TWICE as many people against than are for the freeway, it makes sense that the against are 2x more represented.
@SimonNavarrete Answer choice C infers that the TV is in fact biased therefore, making the conclusion stronger not weaker.
I'm still confused on the difference between Weaken and RRE questions. They keep trying to highlight a difference and I don't quite understand it. If anyone could explain that would be great!
@Isabella! Hi! These notes have helped me.
For weaken questions, what discredits the stimulus the most? The answer should be an "AHA" thats why this conclusion/hypothesis can't be true.
For RRE, remove your biases from the stimulus and read it as if you are not involved at all mentally. Read it as if someone if telling you of all possibilities of different outcomes and choose the best one that fits with the 'story' presented.
Hopes this helps.
@Alondra_Sanchez you explained this very well!
Prior to your explanations of how to attack "weakens" question, I was horrible at them. I'm much better now. This explanation was better by the way. Showing how to determine the weaken answer, and THEN showing relation/conversion to RRE flowed better. (IMO)
Reasoning (Why is the argument making the claim?)
Reasoning is the logic or rationale behind the argument's conclusion.
This is the “because” part of the argument—the connection between the evidence and the claim.
Example:
"Online classes lead to higher test scores because students have more time to study."
The reasoning is that more time to study leads to better performance.
2. Result (What is the argument trying to prove?)
The result is the conclusion or outcome that the argument is attempting to explain or justify.
In most cases, it’s the claim the author is making.
Example:
"Therefore, online classes are more effective than in-person classes." The result is that online classes lead to higher scores and are therefore better.
3. Evidence (What supports the conclusion?)
Evidence is the data, studies, or observations the argument uses to support the reasoning and conclusion.
This is the “because of” part, which could be facts, examples, or statistics.
Example:
"A recent study showed that students in online classes scored 10% higher on average than those in in-person classes." The evidence is the study showing higher test scores in online classes.