Strengthen questions

plutofireball21

Could someone please type out their strategy as to how to attack these questions? They give me the most difficulty .Thanks!

MissChanandler

A is wrong because it is a mistaken reversal. This question is actually a PSA

tagging @administrator because we aren't allowed to post questions

redshift

These were my worst questions when I took my diagnostic, but have quickly became one of my favorites to do. On my most recent PT, I got no strengthen/weaken/etc. questions wrong. Here's my strategy.

First, I identify the premise and the conclusion, and I try to hold them in my head.

Next, I identify the gap. What helped me with this process is coming to realize that ALL Logical Reasoning questions (in the assumption family) have some gap in the reasoning.

Next, I think of how we might plug that gap. Gaps in reasoning are fatal flaws for arguments. Your job in a strengthen question is therefore to alleviate some of the damage done by that gap. Note that your job here ISN'T to plug the gap completely. If it were, this would be a sufficient assumption question. Instead, we simply want to pick an answer choice that renders the assumption the author made in her argument more plausible.

Finally, I pre-phrase an answer. Then I try and find the gap that I've come up with in my head down in the answer choices.

On hard Strengthen Questions, you'll often have a correct answer that doesn't match up with your pre-phrase, because the answer choice addresses a less obvious gap in the argument's reasoning. On these, I find it helpful to analyze the answer choice in relation to the conclusion. Does it help get us from premise to conclusion? It also helps to think about the answer choice and contemplate whether it addresses a gap that you didn't see. Often times, if you really think about the answer choice, you'll notice that there IS a gap you missed.

Hope that helped!

Louislepauvre

Nothing is hard as a really hard strengthen/weaken. The hardest ones absolutely baffle me (that one about the ancient Irish weapon/talking stick...holy shit). One approach I have with these is I don’t spend a lot of time predicting the answer. Because the range of what could be the answer is so broad (as opposed to flaw/SA/argument part) and sometimes they come out of nowhere, if I try to predict it could just throw me off. What I’m clear on going into the answers is the nature of the relationship in the support of the argument. Then I stay focused on that in the answers. A big thing for me (something I’m currently focusing on) is to know when to walk away. I can’t waste a minute struggling with these questions that are so hard I’m probably going to get it wrong regardless. My best bet is to just guess then go that hard flaw or SA question, which I could absolutely get correct.