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What am I doing wrong? (LR Questions - Strengthening)
kshutes13
Member
Hi everyone,
I'm on the LR part of the curriculum, specifically just finishing up strengthening questions.
I'm super confident with the first 4 or 5 drills, and without BR, I'm getting 4/5 or 5/5 on the questions. Unfortunately, as soon as I get to the 6th drill and above, where the difficulty gets worse, I continuously bomb each drill.
It's really frustrating to study causation theory & strategy for 6 hours and then barely see any results when doing weakening & strengthening. I guess I'm having difficulty because when J.Y. does the questions in his videos, he doesn't really use a 'strategy' to do strengthening questions. He simply figures out the assumption the argument is making and exploits it. I, however, cannot seem to pinpoint the assumption very easily. Is there a strategy for this or is it just something you get good at with practice? Does anyone have any advice on how they mastered strengthening/weakening questions?
Appreciate any advice or simply relating 
Comments
In my opinion, Strengthening and Weakening questions can be the most difficult questions in the entire LR section. The "normal" difficulty Strength/Weak questions are a bit more obvious but the "difficult" questions are almost insidious. They boost/undermine the argument in such a nuanced way that it takes a lot of practice to identify what is actually going on. I would not be too discouraged by it.
Ehhh. Those books are very one-size fits all and while some of the tips can be helpful online forums are much better. LSAT performance is not something you can buy...that being said are you correctly identifying the conclusion in certain questions? It doesn't matter how much you study for because LSAT success is not a function of time. Are you aware of the negation technique? This technique has helped me a lot as well as understanding the difference between the sufficient and necessary. The negation technique just means you take the assumption and imagine it to be false. So when the question reads "the argument depends on which of the following assumptions?" It's basically asking which of these if proven wrong or untrue would falsify the argument?
Hmm can you elaborate on some of this?
LSAT success in my experience actually is directly correlated with time. I'd suggest that the more time someone spends understanding the fundamentals, exposing themselves to the test, and learning the traps that the LSAT leaves, the more likely that person will be successful on the test.
Also in relation to the negation technique, it comes in handy on Necessary Assumption questions but proves far less useful on Strengthening types of questions which OP asked about. Can you elaborate how they are connected because this confused me a bit?
Strengthen and Weaken questions require a flawed argument. A valid argument is perfect and can neither be strengthened nor weakened without contradicting a premise. So think of them kind of like applied flaw questions. Without seeing the flaw, you're going to have a tough time of it. Once you know what's wrong with the argument, it's a matter of being able to manipulate it. It's a matter of nuance and subtlety to shift the argument in the right direction, and the question difficulty with correlate very closely with how subtly the AC shifts the argument. Very challenging at the higher levels.
If you are pre-phrasing on these, quit it. There are too many different things it could be, and you're not going to pick the right one on harder questions. You've got to approach the ACs creatively, keeping an open mind, and really giving each AC fair consideration. You want to actively advocate for each one--really try to make it work--just do it with skepticism and with the understanding that you should fail 80% of the time!
@LSATcantwin What I meant by LSAT success is not necessarily a function of time is that it's not necessarily about how many hours you put in a day as much as how much you're really putting into those hours. So 2-3 hours of intense concentration spaced out would be better than 6 hours in one sitting. And no I also agree that you really have to sit down with it until you have a comprehensive understanding of the test; though, you shouldn't go for 6 hours in one sitting if you're not even trying by the fourth hour. It would be better to break that up throughout the day. And I mean the negation technique at least helped me identify the assumption. Strengthen has always been much easier for me than weaken.
@LSATcantwin and that's interesting...I never though about the negation technique in relation to strengthening questions. How exactly is it not useful and if it isn't useful on strengthening questions then how would it fair with weakening questions?
Ah okay, I took it the wrong way. I do agree that you can't just plow through studying. Our minds need breaks.
I think we have a different definition of question types maybe.
For me a "strengthening question" would say something like
"Which of the following most strengthens the argument."
"Which of the following lends the most support to the arguments conclusion.'
These are not as powerful as a necessary assumption. The argument can still exist without the answer choice in many instances.
A necessary assumption question, which can also strengthen an argument in a sense has the argument phrased as-
"which of the following is an assumption required by the argument."
"which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends."
A necessary assumption has more impact on the argument than just strengthening it. The argument requires it or it falls apart. If you negate the answer choices for a question like this (negation technique) the right answer will destroy the argument.
I don't even like negation on NA questions, lol. It's an abstraction that only changes one task to another. In fact, it adds the additional task of negating, which I'm personally much more likely to screw up than just picking what's necessary. I think necessity is actually a really hard, abstract concept which is why converting it is such a popular technique.
Not sure how to even try to apply it to strengthen/weaken. A negated correct answer would need to merely not strengthen, but this wouldn't differentiate it from many wrong answers. Many negated wrong answers will also not strengthen.
I think the misunderstanding here is how you and I understand Necassary assumptions V. Strengthening compared to how he sees it. A necessary assumption when added to an argument technically strengthens it so he might be grouping NA in with other strengthening questions. At least this is what I've kinda gathered?
I think @"Cant Get Right" provides a perfect explanation, but it might be hard to understand & implement the strategies without specific questions. I recommend @kshutes13 that you join one of @"Cant Get Right"’s future LR Tutoring sessions and ask how he solves specific weakening/strengthening questions!
Yea, I think @Nunuboy1994 may be using different categories from the one used on 7Sage. The negation technique works in Necessary assumption questions because the assumptions are necessary. If we negate the necessary condition, the argument is supported to fall apart (as @LSATcantwin wrote above). And I agree with @"Cant Get Right" in that the negating under the timed conditions is so time consuming.
For Weakening and Strengthening questions, we just have to weaken/strengthen the support between the premises and the conclusion. But since NA is in the broad category of Strengthening, we sometimes have a Necessary Assumption answer for Strengthening questions.
1 thing for me in strengthening questions is: strengthen according the relationship that exists between the premise and conclusion, other questions may strengthen but not in the way we want. Which answers makes the relationship between the premise and conclusion stronger? Also why is my font so big
**edit
LOL
how did your font get so big? coool!
I think you unintentionally used Markdown by putting "----" after writing something.
I absolutely love this explanation of strengthen/weaken questions @"Cant Get Right" !
Thank you so much for taking the time to help out @"Cant Get Right" @Euthyphro @akistotle @LSATcantwin @Nunuboy1994 ... sorry it took 2 months to respond, I abandoned 7sage for 2 weeks and then completely forgot to respond. Much appreciated!!