Please correct me if I'm wrong, but my takeaway from Weaken questions here is that doing so does not always mean we're weakening the strength of the premises. The whole objective of W questions is to undermine the logical framework of the author's argument that their premises --> conclusion. Here's where the issue comes in: the previous lessons say weakening the premises doesn't necessarily mean that the conclusion isn't true, that instead our objective is to just weaken the author's assumption that their premises fully support the conclusion. However, the explanation of D being the correct answer indicates that there ARE some cases where an additional explanation (cost in this situation) does weaken the author's conclusion.
Does anyone know why my timing keeps showing up as zero? I always try to pay attention to my timing in order to help me evaluate where I'm at, but for some reason the last few questions I've done it says I took no time. Is there something I can do to fix this?
Does anyone else have to refresh the page every time before running the practice questions? It happens on my phone, my laptop, and my ipad. Just wondering if anyone else has this issue!?
I knew it was D from the very beginning and I thought about how the company's overall position was irrelevant to the argument. I keep seconding guessing myself way too much.. I keep getting it wrong initially and right in my BR. Idk how to stop second guessing myself..
I am feeling fustrated as I am always between the right answer and a wrong answer (usually the most picked wrong answer) and always choose the wrong answer in WSE Questions. In my blind review I will end up picking the correct answer.
I was 36 seconds over and only chose D as a last second gut decision. My reasoning is far from perfect but here it is.
Stimulus: New marketing campaign. No guarantee of success, but there's a chance.
(essentially, there is a possibility of failure, but a possibility of success).
A - Mentions losses, but does not state how those losses would arise. They may arise from the new campaign, maybe not. We don't know - it's too vauge on that note.
B - (I almost chose this). There are many new products that fail, but that implies that some succeed. The stimulus states that there is no gurentee of success, but there is still the possibility.
B implies there is still a possibility of success.
C - Similar to B. The stimulus implies that there is a possibility to fail and to succeed. There was never any gurentee they would fail.
D - Provides reason why it would be a bad idea to undertake this idea, despite the possibility of success. Invoking a 3rd variable that would hinder the argument.
E - We don't care about other products, only this one. If people demand more of other products that's good, but why should we not at least try to promote this one?
I chose D, but this is why I think people are picking B and C
We know that we assume the ACs are true. B and C do not guarantee the outcome if the condition is met
C. The drug company should not undertake a new marketing campaign for its newest product if the campaign has no chance to succeed.
For this to be true all that needs to happen is that if the product has a 0% chance of suceeding, the company should not do another campaign.
But in our heads when we assume truth, we go on to assume that the product does not have a chance of suceeding, so the company should not undertake a new campaign
In other words, when we say an AC is true what we say is that the conditional is right in saying whatever it said, not that what it said has happened.
I chose (D) but I didn't think of the question as a cost/benefit analysis. I just thought (D) as the only answer that really does something to weaken the argument.
Should I get in the habit of trying to identify whether a question is a cost/benifit?
I think there is another flaw with B. Even if you change "many" to "most" I don't see that as impacting the argument. Even if most marketing campaigns fail, what drawback is there to trying it anyway? B doesn't give us any reason NOT to try to marketing campaign, because there is no cost to simply trying, even if you were likely to fail. D on the other hand reveals that there is indeed a cost to attempting the marketing campaign in the first place.
Is it a stretch to say that the overall success is relevant also because the speaker is a person working at the company? Even if the company's position doesn't "matter" in the grand scheme of things, surely it's a reasonable thing to say that it matters to the people that it employs
I was so tripped up by this. I thought D was the trap answer because it explicitly said "endangered". I thought they were trying to trick us with that word :(
This argument looks very similar to a typical weakening argument. How am I supposed to tell the difference between that and a "cost-benefit" argument? Are the answer choices supposed to provide that clarity?
Why is C irrelevant, it says if true then. So we must grant that in the world of c, the market has no chance of success. So the answer contradicts the argument, but we're supposed to believe the answer because it says that's what's true.
As per D. Overall position, what does that mean? In relationship to what?
Wait, but how does it weaken the argument. You can still be successful with the one drug even if other marketing campaigns in the company are hurt. Isn't this kind of irrelevant to the argument?
The explanation to the answer made sense... it just tripped me up because I thought the focus would be on the efforts of wanting to save the product. Sometimes I struggle with gauging the bigger picture vs. the small picture
Something I want to point out: This question doesn't ask which of these answer choices weakens the argument. It asks which of these choices most weakens the argument made. That is a massive difference. All 5 answers can weaken the argument, but it asks which of the 5 most weakens it. I haven't seen that pointed out in the videos.
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103 comments
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but my takeaway from Weaken questions here is that doing so does not always mean we're weakening the strength of the premises. The whole objective of W questions is to undermine the logical framework of the author's argument that their premises --> conclusion. Here's where the issue comes in: the previous lessons say weakening the premises doesn't necessarily mean that the conclusion isn't true, that instead our objective is to just weaken the author's assumption that their premises fully support the conclusion. However, the explanation of D being the correct answer indicates that there ARE some cases where an additional explanation (cost in this situation) does weaken the author's conclusion.
Does anyone know why my timing keeps showing up as zero? I always try to pay attention to my timing in order to help me evaluate where I'm at, but for some reason the last few questions I've done it says I took no time. Is there something I can do to fix this?
I really dislike these weakening questions, I need to work on them more :/
Does anyone else have to refresh the page every time before running the practice questions? It happens on my phone, my laptop, and my ipad. Just wondering if anyone else has this issue!?
I knew it was D from the very beginning and I thought about how the company's overall position was irrelevant to the argument. I keep seconding guessing myself way too much.. I keep getting it wrong initially and right in my BR. Idk how to stop second guessing myself..
I am feeling fustrated as I am always between the right answer and a wrong answer (usually the most picked wrong answer) and always choose the wrong answer in WSE Questions. In my blind review I will end up picking the correct answer.
Can someone please help me on how to fix this?
I was 36 seconds over and only chose D as a last second gut decision. My reasoning is far from perfect but here it is.
Stimulus: New marketing campaign. No guarantee of success, but there's a chance.
(essentially, there is a possibility of failure, but a possibility of success).
A - Mentions losses, but does not state how those losses would arise. They may arise from the new campaign, maybe not. We don't know - it's too vauge on that note.
B - (I almost chose this). There are many new products that fail, but that implies that some succeed. The stimulus states that there is no gurentee of success, but there is still the possibility.
B implies there is still a possibility of success.
C - Similar to B. The stimulus implies that there is a possibility to fail and to succeed. There was never any gurentee they would fail.
D - Provides reason why it would be a bad idea to undertake this idea, despite the possibility of success. Invoking a 3rd variable that would hinder the argument.
E - We don't care about other products, only this one. If people demand more of other products that's good, but why should we not at least try to promote this one?
I chose D, but this is why I think people are picking B and C
We know that we assume the ACs are true. B and C do not guarantee the outcome if the condition is met
C. The drug company should not undertake a new marketing campaign for its newest product if the campaign has no chance to succeed.
For this to be true all that needs to happen is that if the product has a 0% chance of suceeding, the company should not do another campaign.
But in our heads when we assume truth, we go on to assume that the product does not have a chance of suceeding, so the company should not undertake a new campaign
In other words, when we say an AC is true what we say is that the conditional is right in saying whatever it said, not that what it said has happened.
This same principle applies to AC B
I chose (D) but I didn't think of the question as a cost/benefit analysis. I just thought (D) as the only answer that really does something to weaken the argument.
Should I get in the habit of trying to identify whether a question is a cost/benifit?
I think there is another flaw with B. Even if you change "many" to "most" I don't see that as impacting the argument. Even if most marketing campaigns fail, what drawback is there to trying it anyway? B doesn't give us any reason NOT to try to marketing campaign, because there is no cost to simply trying, even if you were likely to fail. D on the other hand reveals that there is indeed a cost to attempting the marketing campaign in the first place.
Is it a stretch to say that the overall success is relevant also because the speaker is a person working at the company? Even if the company's position doesn't "matter" in the grand scheme of things, surely it's a reasonable thing to say that it matters to the people that it employs
I am a little bit confused about of A is not weakened because it is an example of the Sunk Cost Fallacy? #help
I was so tripped up by this. I thought D was the trap answer because it explicitly said "endangered". I thought they were trying to trick us with that word :(
This argument looks very similar to a typical weakening argument. How am I supposed to tell the difference between that and a "cost-benefit" argument? Are the answer choices supposed to provide that clarity?
I knew B was a trap answer and still chose it lol... BR was right.
Why is C irrelevant, it says if true then. So we must grant that in the world of c, the market has no chance of success. So the answer contradicts the argument, but we're supposed to believe the answer because it says that's what's true.
As per D. Overall position, what does that mean? In relationship to what?
one thing about B is that it is actually related to the new product; whereas D is about the company......how do we know which is more important?
these are just sofucking difficult i feel like imlearning a whole new version of literature and im a native russian speaker or somesht
Wait, but how does it weaken the argument. You can still be successful with the one drug even if other marketing campaigns in the company are hurt. Isn't this kind of irrelevant to the argument?
Just got 5/5 right, LFG
these questions will be the death of me i just cant wrap my head around them... anyone have any tips when approaching?
The explanation to the answer made sense... it just tripped me up because I thought the focus would be on the efforts of wanting to save the product. Sometimes I struggle with gauging the bigger picture vs. the small picture
I got B...
Does anyone else get all the 4-5 difficulty ones correct and under the target time but struggles on like 1-2 difficulty lol?
Something I want to point out: This question doesn't ask which of these answer choices weakens the argument. It asks which of these choices most weakens the argument made. That is a massive difference. All 5 answers can weaken the argument, but it asks which of the 5 most weakens it. I haven't seen that pointed out in the videos.