Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Categories
- 32.3K All Categories
- 27.2K LSAT
- 16.5K General
- 5.1K Logical Reasoning
- 1.3K Reading Comprehension
- 1.7K Logic Games
- 73 Podcasts
- 193 Webinars
- 9 Scholarships
- 193 Test Center Reviews
- 2K Study Groups
- 108 Study Guides/Cheat Sheets
- 2.4K Specific LSAT Dates
- 14 June 2024 LSAT
- 3 April 2024 LSAT
- 11 February 2024 LSAT
- 23 January 2024 LSAT
- 37 November 2023 LSAT
- 42 October 2023 LSAT
- 12 September 2023 LSAT
- 38 August 2023 LSAT
- 27 June 2023 LSAT
- 4 August 2024 LSAT
- 30 Sage Advice
- 4.8K Not LSAT
- 4K Law School Admissions
- 11 Law School Explained
- 10 Forum Rules
- 581 Technical Problems
- 276 Off-topic
Strengthening Questions - Help
nhood22
Core Member
Does any one have any tips to help me improve my score on strengthening questions in LR? I don't know why I can't seem to get it.
Comments
Strengthening is in the same ballpark as sufficient, pseudo sufficient, and justify question types. Further, ACs can be powerful statements, not necessarily making the argument 100% valid (unless it's a sufficient assumption). Think about a statement that's in common with the premise to make the conclusion more valid, even if by a small margin. Fill that gap.
Maybe that sounds a little broad, but drill with this in mind. The more I looked at the connection strengthen has with these others (sa, psa, justify) the less I tended to overthink it. The problem can be when the premise turns terribly abstract and you have to depend on lawgic, and not your intuition, to get your answer. In that case, don't bash yourself on the head, because it won't come naturally.
Give this a try: break from the strengthening section, you can come back to it later. Check out the validity, invalid argument structures, sufficient, and pseudo sufficient section. There's some strengthening questions within the sa,psa section if you did all the question sets in the strengthening one. From there, you should have a better idea on how to "fill the gap", or at least, what you're struggling to see. Since "strengthen" can be a broad question type, I found it better to see the "degree" of powerful statements that were possible to fit the bill.
It's critical to remember that you are trying to strengthen the RELATIONSHIP between the support and the conclusion. Like the previous comment said, it's possible that it is only a slight improvement. Strengthen and weaken questions tend to have longer stimuluses, but that just means there is more background noise to decipher from the conclusion and premise.
Once I've gotten the conclusion and premise, I try to look for any flaws (same process as a flaw question) that can be addressed in order to make a prediction. Sometimes, I can't see one, so I remind myself the conclusion/premise and move onto the answer choices. At this point, I can generally tell if it is going to strengthen only slightly. I try to aggressively eliminate the ACs that don't affect the argument. And the ones that are left, I consider whether they strengthen or weaken and choose accordingly. Popular wrong answers simply do the opposite of whatever the question is asking.
It took me at least a month to properly wrap my head around strengthen questions. Maybe create a list of strengthen questions that really confuse you and watch the explanation videos. Try and see if there are any patterns to answering the questions. There are also a lot of strengthen/weaken questions that involve experiments. I would recommend finding a specific process to work through those as well.
Want to add, usually there is more than one reason to eliminate an answer choice. If you don't understand a particular explanation, check the comments for a different version. Good luck!