Strengthen/ Weaken Questions

Meghan D.

Does anyone have any recommendations for how to approach strengthen/ weaken questions - especially weaken questions? I’m actually horrible at them and they’re killing my LR score.

lisset17c

Weaken questions require Powerful answers . When narrowing down the answers, you are looking for something that destroys the argument conclusion. (Look for answers that take you into the Loophole)

lilpingling

Not sure if this will help a lot, but here are some things that really helped me. It's kind of a two step process.

First, I always start every question by determining what's "wrong" with the argument in question. These argument "issues" (note I am calling them "issues" and "problems," not flaws because those are a little different). The problems with most arguments lie in three basic areas: Correlation, Chronology, and Cause and effect.

Correlation: "There's a lot of snow in city A. There is also a lot of ice in city A, therefore snow must cause ice." Look for the alternate explanation that causes both. In this case, I'd anticipate something like "Maybe the climate is cold and that causes both."

Chronology: "The newspaper reports more crime now than 20 years ago, so there must be more crime." Look for the issue with change over time (what has changed?). I might say "maybe crime stories are just more popular now than 20 years ago"

Causation or cause an effect: "People who exercise are healthier diet than people who don't, so it must be that exercise makes people." Look for the competing cause, such as "Maybe people who are healthy are more likely to exercise," or "people who exercise also have healthy diets, so the diet is causing the healthiness."

Then, once I've arrived at the issue, I apply it to the question type. For a weakening question, the correct answer should most likely reflect the argument issue- it may not be the same as what you come up with, but it will still relate to the relevant problem (remember the three Cs). If it's a strengthening question, I consider my issue and find the answer choice that blocks that issue from being relevant and/or prevents it from being applicable. (For example if I had a strengthening question that presented the argument above, "The newspaper reports more crime now than 20 years ago, so there must be more crime." I would look for something like "Crime reports are less popular now than they were 20 years ago."

For me, this process helped a ton. Also, @lisset17c is correct on the language. Weaken and strengthen arguments need to make "iron clad" claims, so you're looking for the argument that has the strongest language that makes the argument strongest or weakest such as "All people who exercise also eat healthy diets" versus "some people who exercise eat healthy diets." This isn't necessarily always the case and difficult questions use bad language, but generally speaking you're looking for the strongest argument point that is still correct.

These are typically my best question types, followed by NA/SA. I am, however, horrible at flaw and evaluate questions. I'm happy to trade tips if you have any.