Necessary Assumption Questions

Victoria14

Ok, so I can see right away as i'm doing the CC that NA Questions will be the death of me.

I completely understand the theory, but i'm having a hard time applying it to pull out the question answer. When I read the stimulus i'm projecting that, "This must be the NA". Get to the answers and none of them even talk about my NA. Even when I guesstimate the right topic or area, it's still off. I have not run into this problem with any other question. While I struggled through a few, I still was able to successfully apply the theory after a little while and some practice with 90%+ accuracy. I'm genuinely missing these consistently.

Anyone have some serious tips or tricks?

When I watch the video explanation I get why it's the answer but i'm having a hard time making those inferences ahead of the explanation.

Victoria14

Ok, I figured it out lol. Just needed some more time for the idea to really sink in.

Cant Get Right

Yeah, NA is a really hard question type to try to prephrase on. Best to just gain a solid understanding of the argument and flaw, then go into the ACs with an open mind. They can come up with really obscure assumptions that we would never anticipate under time.

Alex

@Victoria14 said:
Ok, so I can see right away as i'm doing the CC that NA Questions will be the death of me.

I completely understand the theory, but i'm having a hard time applying it to pull out the question answer. When I read the stimulus i'm projecting that, "This must be the NA". Get to the answers and none of them even talk about my NA. Even when I guesstimate the right topic or area, it's still off. I have not run into this problem with any other question. While I struggled through a few, I still was able to successfully apply the theory after a little while and some practice with 90%+ accuracy. I'm genuinely missing these consistently.

Anyone have some serious tips or tricks?

When I watch the video explanation I get why it's the answer but i'm having a hard time making those inferences ahead of the explanation.

Like @"Cant Get Right" says, NA's can be really hard to pre-phrase on since you never know which necessary assumption they might go with. I find I do best with NA when I just zero in on the argument core, make sure I understand it and see the gap in reasoning, and then working with that. Then, of course, you can use the negation technique whereby you negate your answer choice, and if it causes the argument to then be impossible, it is correct.