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So what has helped everyone determine if something is an argument or not an argument in LR questions?
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So what has helped everyone determine if something is an argument or not an argument in LR questions?
3 comments
The question is not "is this an argument?" but rather, "is the question asking me to treat this like an argument?" Inference questions, Paradox/Explain/RRE questions, Point of Disagreement/Agreement questions--these questions may have arguments in them, but the test maker is instructing you to simply consider everything they say as true and then do a task based on that truth.
For the most part, the question stem will say "argument" if they want you think about it as an argument, to break it down into Conclusion and Evidence, look for Assumptions, etc.
Most questions are arguments in some form or another. If there are premises that support a conclusion, this is an argument, though it may be valid or invalid. 7sage has a list of conclusion indicators-if you see any of these, it's probably an argument. Sometimes you won't get an argument with MBT or MSS questions, so you'll just get a lot of causal or conditional premises and you have to complete the argument with your AC to make a valid conclusion. In general, conclusion indicator word = argument!
I'm not sure what you mean by determining if something is an argument or not in LR questions. If you mean determining if something is a valid argument on LR, we mainly deal with valid arguments only on the "objective" question types like parallel questions (the non-flaw ones), main conclusion, role, and MBT/inference. But even for those questions, we aren't asked explicitly to identify whether the argument is valid.
All the "subjective" question types (the types where we are being asked, either implicitly or explicitly, to critique the argument -- think flaw, NA, SA, PSA/Principle, strengthen/weaken) involve flawed arguments. So when I approach the LSAT, I rarely/never approach a question by asking myself "Is this a flawed argument or a valid argument?" Instead, I assume that the argument is flawed for all of the subjective question types and start by finding where that flaw(s) is by poking holes in the reasoning. That first step applies for all of these subjective question types.
I have never seen a question where we are asked explicitly "is the argument above a valid argument?" I may have missed what you were really asking -- let me know if so!
For more info on the "subjective" vs. "objective" question types, check out this post by Mike Kim summarizing some of his LSAT Trainer content. I find this framework helpful: https://www.trainertestprep.com/lsat/blog/logical-reasoning-question-types