Weakening Questions (Attack what?)

olepueblo

There's been several posts about this, but I haven't found any consensus. I understand that we should attack the support relationship, but is it also proper to directly attack premises (assuming that they legitimately attack them and it's not an LSAT trap)? Does the same apply to conclusions? Is it just so uncommon that a well-grounded on either of them exists that it wouldn't be beneficial to examine questions in that mindset?

chrijani7

1) Never attack the conclusion
2) There may be cases where it is okay to attack the premise, but thats not the case on the LSAT.

You primarily want to be focused on attacking the support relationship between premise and conclusion. Super simple example
P: Studies found that when A occurs B typically follows.
C: Based on these findings, scientist conclude that A causes B.

What can we add to weaken this argument? We can't just say no the conclusion is wrong A doesn't cause B, unless we have proof... That proof is the weakener we need to weaken the support. So for instance if we say, but what if there is some other cause "C" that causes both A & B. Well now thats the stuff we want. By introducing a third element C, which if true, caused both A & B, then the relationship between A causing B is weakened, if not diminished.

Hope this helps.

jeffersonairplane14

So, in weakening questions, the author has left his analysis/theory incomplete. With that incomplete theory, he goes on to make a strong conclusion. Hence, there is no reason to believe that the conclusion is supported by the theory.

tsamvelyan

I feel like all the responses are great, but here's my input. For weakening questions, you want to 1. isolate the conclusion then find the supporting premise. 2. Read the supporting premise and then read the conclusion. You will ALWAYS see that there is a flaw when the author goes from that premise (supporting premise) to the conclusion. Then you'r job is to 3. find an answer choice that would further weaken the argument. Remember, you're looking for an answer that CAN weaken the argument, it doesn't have to completely destroy it. What I usually do, is when I narrow down to 2-3 answer choices, I ask myself, 4. "if I presented the author with this argument, would he reconsider his position"? That's sort of my "negation/proof" technique that you find with other types of questions. Hope this helps!