Help with parallel flaw and parallel reasoning

Hemingway

Hey everyone,

Ever since I've been studying, I've had some trouble with parallel flaw/reasoning questions. Not really sure what it is about them that's giving me so much trouble, but out of all the question types, I've seen the least improvement with these two. How do you approach these questions? What is your strategy, and what, if anything, helped you perform consistently well on these two question types?

Thanks for the help.

BinghamtonDave

I should state that from my experience rarely is an issue confined to a single question type on LR. Instead, an issue with a particular type of question usually indicates issues with particular operations that we might conduct over several question types. So if a person is having an issue with parallel problems, I would be willing to bet they have some issues with SAs, some NAs and some formulaic MBT/MSS questions. The common threads being here: familiarity/mastery over valid argument forms, conditional logic and grammar indicators.

For parallel arguments (non-flaw) try to abstract the argument given into a valid argument form. For instance:
Premise: A——>B——>C
Conclusion: A——>C
Once you have the general argument form in front of you, you will be able to see where answer choices fail or pass the form you have deduced and you can eliminate or select on the basis of this skill. This skill of deducing the form of the argument is helped greatly by attention to conditional language and grammar indicators.

The good news is that proper practice with the core skills of what enable us to get parallel questions correct quickly in confidently, will also build up the skills required to get many SAs and MBTs correct quickly and confidently. To this end, 7sage’s core curriculum is a great investment.

David

Habeas Porpoise

Oh yeah, I've found that PF/PR question, while not always difficult, are often time-sinks.

First, how are you with flaw-types/Flaw questions and conditional logic? Since PF is basically an applied Flaw question, it's hard to find the right answer when you can't see the flaw in the stimulus -- that's half the battle. Beyond that, both PF and PR questions often explicitly test your ability to use logic.

Other than working on these fundamentals (flaw identification/Flaw questions, and logic), strategy can help with timing. There are several ways you can approach these questions more efficiently:

1. Read the stem, realize it's a PF/PR question that's gonna take some time (last PT I took there were these ridiculously long principle and PR questions that covered half a page each...), and come back at the end so you can read in peace. Definitely recommended if you feel a little frozen with the question-type or length.

2. Read the stem and stimulus, go through the ACs and cross off whatever you can without starting a diagram. If you can use POE down to one AC, great. If not, come back and check the remaining ACs at the end, diagramming the stimulus and ACs as necessary.

3. Read through the stem, trust your ability to diagram quickly and accurately, diagram while reading the stimulus (if necessary), and go through the ACs. Of course, I still highly recommend skimming and crossing off obviously wrong ACs before wasting time to diagram them.

As a note, you can quickly eliminate PF ACs that focus on the wrong flaw (though be wary of those 4 or 5-star questions that have 2+ flaws), especially if the flaw is not conditional in nature. You'll likely be left with two ACs that are extremely similar in structure, and then you can dig further to find which one matches the stimulus more closely. For PR, ACs you can quickly eliminate are ones that use obviously flawed reasoning or use the "wrong" words. For example:

• ACs that are standard sufficiency/necessity confusions

• stimulus includes A some B but AC relies on A most B, "all" As are Bs, etc.

• stimulus talks in relative terms like "probably" or "likely" while the AC is more absolute and doesn't use these words

• stimulus utilizes a distinction in knowledge and fact while the AC doesn't even mention words like "know" or "believe"

• stimulus uses prescriptive language like "should"/"ought", while the AC fails to do so

These are off the top of my head, but you'll figure out more strategies to quickly eliminate ACs as you get more exposure to different PR/PF questions. This is where I find drilling by question-type more helpful.

Obviously there are positives/negatives to these approaches, and none of them will be that effective if you're weak on flaw-types and logic in general, but they can definitely help get those couple extra questions each section.

Hemingway

Thanks. Your feedback is really helpful. I think it’s just going to be a matter of more practice. Because I can answer them correctly, but they take up a lot of my time. I’ll continue to drill those questions. I feel really confident in my ability to answer other question types, so I don’t think it’s an issue of fundamentals.

keets993

Something that helps me has been writing down the structure of the stimulus as if it were a method of reasoning question. That way I'm able to describe the flaw in my own words, especially if it's not one of the common types. It's the same for parallel flaw but sometimes I come up with more than one way that it's flawed to give myself more room/options when scanning the answer choice. I've found that the most paralyzing thing about parallel flaw questions is when I'm unable to pinpoint or even try to comprehend the flaw because then I don't know what I'm looking for. By coming up with my own description, even if it's not entirely accurate, I'm actively solving instead of passively browsing. Another thing that really helps me is I always remind myself that the flaw in the support of the argument. There's going to be a gap between the premise(s) and the conclusion and it's our job to exploit/explain that gap.