Weakness on NA/SA/weakening/flaw sections

cqas190517

These are all my incorrect questions that pop up the most as wrong answers. What can I do to fix weaknesses on these types of questions?

BinghamtonDave

Look very close for assumptions. Success on all four types of questions you mentioned is often predicted on the test taker identifying the assumptions within the argument. This begs the further question: how can we get better at finding the assumptions of an argument? I believe the answer to that question is broadly speaking: spend drilling time breaking down arguments piece by piece. I mentioned a similarity that all four questions types have in common: an assumption. But how that assumption functions within the argument is different across the question types you mentioned above. So for instance, for NA questions, the assumption might be a set of circumstances that must not be the case in order for the argument to function (in order for this conclusion to follow from that premise this other state of evens must not be the case). This is called a "blocking assumption." For weakening questions the assumption might be that there is no other cause responsible for the stated effect. Our job would be to point out that that other cause exists and it could be responsible for what we see in our original argument. All of these different operations center around the assumptions of an argument.

I am of the opinion that no matter what form an assumption takes, our time spent effectively drilling and pulling apart the constituent parts of arguments over and over again and then watching the videos on 7Sage and interacting with the comments is the single more important thing we can do to prep for future LR questions and improve our score.

Lets take a look a how this process might work on a question. Take a look at PT 40-Section 3 Question 5. Here are a list of questions I would ask myself for this question:
1.What is/are the premise(S):
2.What is the conclusion:
3.Does this question contain some type of argument form: phenomena/hypothesis etc?
4.Is there a cookie-cutter flaw here?
5.What must be the case for this reasoning to hold (that this conclusion follows from this premise)?

At that point we have found our assumption(s): we deny or affirm according to our task: weakening/strengthening. We could additionally ask a question about different words used in the premise/conclusion (sets), that could be where our assumption is hidden: for a great example of this type of assumption please see: PT 62-4-23.

So I think the above is a general outline of how I got better and better on these questions (and continue to improve). One thing I will add here that adds strength to this approach is that great practice pulling apart arguments on weakening and NA questions can come from our drills on argument part, method of reasoning and main point questions. Pulling apart these arguments can serve as great practice for other questions.

I hope this helps
David

Lucas Carter

There are some really great Webinars that dive into individual question types that you can find here: https://7sage.com/webinar/. You can additionally use the question bank to filter by question type and do a bunch of the same type.

It also may be helpful to really think about argument structure and how you can look at 1 argument (Premise + Conclusion) and turn it into any one of those question types. For example: Tom Brady is on our team, therefore we will win the Super Bowl.

NA: Tom Brady does not lose every single game he plays in
SA: Tom Brady's team always and will always win the Super Bowl
Weakening: Football is a team sport and one player alone can never guarantee a win.
Flaw: The argument assumes that the presence of one player is sufficient to necessitate a Super Bowl victory

cqas190517

@"Lucas Carter" said:
There are some really great Webinars that dive into individual question types that you can find here: https://7sage.com/webinar/. You can additionally use the question bank to filter by question type and do a bunch of the same type.

It also may be helpful to really think about argument structure and how you can look at 1 argument (Premise + Conclusion) and turn it into any one of those question types. For example: Tom Brady is on our team, therefore we will win the Super Bowl.

NA: Tom Brady does not lose every single game he plays in
SA: Tom Brady's team always and will always win the Super Bowl
Weakening: Football is a team sport and one player alone can never guarantee a win.
Flaw: The argument assumes that the presence of one player is sufficient to necessitate a Super Bowl victory

I had no idea these webinars existed so thank you a whole bunch ton! Most of these seems extremely valuable.