Great in Str Questions. Bad in Weaking Questions

Midriff

So i'm going through the LR practice questions and I get about every Strength question right. But, I do awful in the weaking questions. And I know both are so similarly so I cannot understand why. I am also very strong in MSS section so maybe I am just taking the same approach. Would like some ideas or help to improve.

Is anyone else having the same problem?

Chris

vitesse951

Are you having about the same level of problems with "Which of the following weakens" and "All of the following weaken except"?

Midriff

Yes I am

bnta.jrd

I'm going to steal/paraphrase a lot of what JY says in the vid lessons. If you have access to those, I'd reccomend going over them again and reading the comments.

The most important thing to remember for weakening questions is that the correct answer
choice is always attacking the support that the premises give the conclusion. Usually this is done by negating an assumption made by the argument's author.

"All force users are powerful, and all jedi use the force. Thus, all jedi are powerful. Tom is not a jedi, thus he is not powerful."

What's the assumption here? That the only way to be powerful is to use the force, and that Tom is not another class of force user. A correct answer choice for a weakening question involving this argument would state something along the lines of "Tom is the leader of a political bloc in the Galactic Senate that holds a super-majority." or "Tom is the aprentice of Darth Sidious, a force user and Sith Master."

For the weaken EXCEPT questions, ignore the EXCEPT. Instead, treat it like a regular weakening question. You will find four answer choices that will weaken the argument, and one that does not. To reuse the above example, let's say that in addition to the two possible AC's, there's one that says "Tom is the nickname of Jabba the Hutt.", "Tom has beaten numerous Jedi Masters in fights, even though he can't use the force.", and "Tom is an acountant." That last one doesn't weaken the argument, it's just a statement about Tom's career choice, and as such would be the correct answer in a weaken EXCEPT question.

Hope that helps!

Midriff

Wow thanks really cleared that up for me!

The_Rise

you MUST pre-phrase in weaken questions, this helped me immensely. By "pre-phrase" I mean, actively look for the weakness (where the author jumps from premises to conclusion), and find the flaw in that space.

Midriff

Hey bnta.jrd and kyuya for helping me! It has really cleared things up. I think my problem was that I was not making an assumption. Therefore, I was just lost in the answer choices. Thanks again!

JS

Hey, @Chris Beal, I wrote a post about strengthen/weaken question. Maybe you can take a look

JS

http://7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/152/the-secret-to-do-tough-weakenstrengthen-question click here.