Self-study
I've been wrestling with a few particularly tricky necessary assumption (NA) questions (PT116.S2.Q16 and PT127.S2.Q20) where I find myself quite unconvinced with the right answer. I won't spoil those qs in particular, but spending some time with them + re-reading a prepbook section on NA questions has gotten me to the following understanding:
Steps for NA assumption q (e.g. "which of the following must be assumed for the argument to hold"):
Identify the conclusion (C) and support (S).
Roughly identify the gap/weak point between C and S.
Go through each answer choice -- which one is required for the argument to hold?
More on step 3:
Step 3 is where I've gotten tripped up. A straightforward reading of "which one is required for the argument to hold?" = "If the assumption is false then the argument does not hold." i.e. negate the answer choice, and check if the argument is destroyed. I think this works the majority of the time but requires a little more nuance for some qs.
There are times where "if the assumption is false then the argument is severely weakened (but not destroyed)" seems to be the correct answer. (Another tricky nuance is that the assumption could be needed, not sufficient enough on its own to fill the gap in the argument and still be the correct answer).
What seems to never be the correct answer is an answer choice that goes beyond what is required.
The reason I find this confusing is that you could be faced with two ACs (and I contend PT116.S2.Q16 and PT127.S2.Q20 are examples of this) where neither of two answer choices seems to be strictly necessary, but the narrower one is correct.
Would appreciate any thoughts/pushback on this!!
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3 comments
Hi! I also used to struggle with NA questions. This is what helped me. First: understanding the difference between NA and SA questions. If you see "if" in the Q stem you can pretty quickly assume it is SA. SA require stronger answer choices that fill in a gap and sometimes actually strengthen the conclusion- think of them as BOOM big explosion wow moment. NA questions require much, like you said, narrower answer choices, I don't even like to think of filling in a gap, I like to think of what does the argument seek, what does it need. These answer choices confine closely to what is stated in the stimulus- if the answer choice offers any new information or goes above and beyond- that is likely not the answer. That's where it gets tricky. It helped me to think of Conlcusion supports the necessary and Sufficient supports the conclusion.
I have found that the negation test tends to be pretty accurate, if the negation of this answer choice destroys the argument or makes the argument HIGHLY UNLIKELY to follow then it's probably correct. In theory we could always find loopholes around the negation test, but I suggest just taking it as it is and don't overthink because you will be able to find assumptions in almost all answer choices on the entire test and that becomes like a black hole.
For PT127.S2.Q20
Think of it almost as steps (I AM NOT DRAWING OUT CONDITIONALS) this is my thought process that usually leads me to the right answer-
Talk show------ broad audience
But broad audience --- not high quality
OK but why does that even matter?????
not high quality ---- no talk show
WAIT BUT WHYYYYY?
you can kind of see here where the argument is missing a premise, it introduces "high quality" without justifying its impact and position in the argument. That is what we need to resolve, we need to give high quality a purpose.
So we can look at the conclusion and the lead up to it and say ok all of this information together needs answer choice D while silmutaneously providing support for it to fit seamlessly into the argument.
If you negate D the argument should not follow (of course you could deep dive into assumption land) but just take it as surface level as possible.
@k13lawwwwww thank you so much this is really helpful!! The framing of "Conclusion supports the necessary and Sufficient supports the conclusion" and not diving deep into assumption land particularly super helpful. (for PT127.S2.Q20 I assume you mean E not D)
@tigerlily Yes, sorry about that!