The secret to do tough Weaken/strengthen question

JS

Today I have a big progress in weaken/strengthen question.
I find in most weaken/strengthen question, there exists a presumption and the only thing answer choice do is to give an example to answer the assumption in the stimulus "it is the case, it could be possible"(strengthen) or "it is not the case.(weaken)"

For example, in PT37 S2 Q20
http://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-37-section-2-question-20/
We an see choice A talks about the horses, which at first glance is irrelevant to the stimulus argument cuz stimulus talks about the Antarctic seals. But this choice answer to the presumption in the stimulus "yes it could be possible"(animal can store oxygenated blood in their spleens)

For instance, in PT 52 S3 Q19
http://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-52-section-3-question-19/
We can see choice A mentions"large mammals", which also seems to be irrelevant to the argument cuz the stimulus talks about dinosaurs, however, choice A answer to the assumption in stimulus(any animals dead in contorted position cuz they eat poison food) "it is not always the case".

Also, in PT 52 S1 Q21.
http://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-52-section-1-question-21/
Choice C talks about modern writer, which again seems to be out of scope cuz stimulus talks about Homer, but it rebut the presumption in the stimulus"any work has such a difference can't be the same author."

For all three questions here, including numerous strengthen/weaken questions, I think the trap here is at first glance it seems to be irrelevant and you may eliminate them quickly. However, for strengthen/weaken question, we can have those example or similar parallel to answer the presumption in the stimulus, which seems at first not perfect enough. That's strengthen/weaken question you don't need to make a perfect argument or destroy an argument.

Hope helps.

Any comments ? Any thoughts ?

JS

At first when I do those questions, I eliminate the correct question quickly cuz they seems to be irrelevant. After thousands of mistake, I finally found the trap here.

Midriff

Ya i did PT 52 q 21 and I did exactly that. I eliminated C because of modern writer. My problem is finding the correct assumption the author is making. But i think that just takes time and practice. For now I am not going to rush these questions. Just stick with them and take my time.

JS

Even for most supported question we can also see the weaken/strengthen here.
For instance, http://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-52-section-1-question-13/

Modern crocodiles seems to be irrelevant to hadrosaur but it debut the presumption here “any animal that has careful designed nests guarded their young long after the young hatched.” which is enough to weaken the whole paleontologist argument here.

CJ Shin

Great! I noticed this trend in the newer lsats.

JS

http://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-51-section-3-question-01/

This stimulus talks about human treatment but the correct answer is about laboratory animal.

paulfan2011

Great stuff. I just want to add that the presumptions that exist in LR questions are key to most types of questions. There are only 3 things that makes up an argument, the premise, conclusion, and assumption, an unstated premise. In most cases, you are asked to evaluate the argument, and assumptions, the crucial link between the premise and conclusion, determines the strength of support. Recall from JY's lessons that you rarely gets to attack the premise or the conclusion, your only focus should be on the assumptions.

To use the same examples, in PT 52 S3 Q19, the conclusion is that dinosaurs died from eating this poisonous plant. There are two supporting premises:

Premise 1.) Dinosaurs can die from eating this plant. (They can't taste bitterness and they can't detoxify the poison). But this does not prove that they in fact ate those plants, which is addressed by the second premise.

Premise 2.) The dinosaurs died in contorted positions. But how does dying in contorted position prove that they indeed ate those plants? This is where the assumption comes in.

Assumption: Eating these plants will cause the animals that eat them to die in contorted positions.

Now we can easily weaken the argument by attacking the assumption.

Answer choice A: if animals die in consorted position regardless of consumption of this plant, then it is not the case that dying in consorted position supports the claim that the dinosaurs ate those plants.

Note: In harder questions, the assumptions are really subtle. It is likely that you already made these assumptions, but you have to try really hard not to do that.

JS

Thank you for your reply. I find it seems when comes to assumption, premise, conclusion, all questions seem to be same.
Add one more example, this one talks about "mammal other than seal"
http://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-23-section-3-question-13/

manishsahay09

Yes, the test tries to misguide by throwing new words but these new words are still related to the actors in premise. Such words are generalized form of words in the stimulus. For example - animals for Antarctic seals and modern writer for homer. So, it is not that these answer choices are not related to the premise. They are related to the premise, and also impact the conclusion.This is all we need to check if the statement is along the lines of reasoning.

redshift

Yep. The key thing to remember in strengthen/weaken questions is that there can be outside information in the stimulus. More specifically, for weaken questions, counter examples are used to highlight and expose the flaw in the stimulus. For strengthen questions, we often say that that counter example isn't happening.