Help with Identifying Assumptions and Prephrasing in general

sunkim49424-1

So, as a person that does not make assumptions in the real world (aka: I ask and double check EVERYTHING)
WEAKENING & STRENGTHENING Qs are killing me.
Once I get to level 3 I start getting 3/5s and ultimately 0/5 as the levels go up.

I'll BLINDREVIEW the drills during the Core Curriculum and watch all the videos for the questions I missed.

I'm trying to get 5/5 without spending more than 10 mins on 5 questions because I get frustrated with how long I'm stuck on the question.

I get that with WEAKENING Qs, you have to find an AC that exposes an "alternative reason for a conclusion" but that is not always easyy.

In STRENGTHENING Qs, I'm just lost because sometimes I have no idea what the assumption is.

Does anyone have tips/tricks to

1. Find the Assumption
2. Prephrase to Integrate found assumption in a way to find the correct AC?

ElleWoods77

I think finding assumptions is tricky at first because it is not something we are used too. What helped me is going over the lessons in the CC over again with the question types I was struggling with . I would then work on problem sets untimed . Taking as long as I need to figure out the questions. In my Blind Review, I would break the question apart to spot the gap . Once I have an idea about the gap, I wrote explanations for the right and wrong answer choices. I found this especially helpful with weakening questions. I would repeat these untimed drills over and over again. Once I felt confident , I moved onto doing this questions with timed sections . Timing yourself right away is really counterproductive . I made that mistake at first and I had no idea what I was doing when attempting the question. Allow yourself to be comfortable with the type first by exposing yourself to several of these question types untimed and then once you are comfortable begin to attempt these questions under timed conditions. I hope this is helpful.

Cant Get Right

@"sunkim49424-1" said:
Does anyone have tips/tricks to

1. Find the Assumption
2. Prephrase to Integrate found assumption in a way to find the correct AC?

Don't.

That's an abrupt answer, but it's that simple. Prephrasing is a really, really bad approach to these question types. We're being asked to introduce new information into the argument, and there's just such a broad spectrum of information that we could introduce that we're relying on dumb luck or, worse, the mercy of the test writers to go with something obvious.

Take, for example, PT 15 Section 3 Number 23. There is absolutely no predicting the answer to this one. I think we'd have to go with something like, "Asbestos is unlikely to be disturbed unless it's removed," or "The removal of asbestos is prohibitively expensive," or "Though potentially dangerous, asbestos is a far safer material than any other insulation," or "The government should not require removal of any building material under any circumstances." All of these answers would be correct, and all of them come to mind before the crazy garbage AC they come up with as the answer to this one. If our strategy on these depends on coming up with this nonsense on our own, we really are lost on this question.

Why do we prephrase in the first place? What are the benefits? Let's first consider the best case scenario: We correctly prephrase the right answer. What is gained? Well, we'll definitely get this question right. We should also get it very quickly. Great. But would we not have recognized it when we saw it had we not prephrased? Would the underlying understanding of the argument that allowed us to formulate the prephrase in the first place have not been enough? If that understanding leads us to come up with the answer all on our own, I just can't believe that it wouldn't lead us to recognize it when we saw it if we were to just read the ACs. At best, prephrasing is only not helping.

And then there's the less than best case scenario: We prephrase an answer that does not appear in the ACs. It doesn't matter if our prephrase would correctly answer the question or not, we're in bad shape here. We have missed the right answer here not because we con't understand the argument or the answer choice, but rather because it doesn't conform to one of many possible correct answers. This is an objectively terrible reason to overlook a correct answer, and it leaves us at a tremendous disadvantage. That initial prephrase is rejected only with great difficulty, and then where does that leave us?

It leaves us to do what we should have been doing in the first place, only with a minute and fifteen seconds already sunk on the question.

Not having to formulate our own answers is one of the great advantages of the multiple choice format. They give us the right answer! The correct answer is literally sitting there right in front of us for every question ever written, and if we're not taking advantage of that, we're really hobbling ourselves. Instead of trying to prephrase, use the ACs as a prompt to guide your reasoning. I promise you that if you would have prephrased the right answer had you tried, it will be just as apparent to you when you see it as if you have predicted it verbatim. I promise you that if you would have prephrased an answer different from the right answer, you will be much better off. This will help you to keep an open mind on surprising ACs, and that in turn will make you much more successful on these question types.