NA questions, Blocking or Bridging?

Kevins-Spilled-Chili

Can anyone explain to me when to use a blocking or bridging NA, I always find myself getting easier NA questions wrong bc I'm zeroed in on the conclusion and if there is a bridge AC I assume its a Sufficient Assumption AC and it's therefore it's not necessarily true. Then in difficult questions I tend to zero into the conclusion and end up getting those right, but not all the time. I guess my hesitance on bridging is I don't want to mistakenly pick an SA AC but at the same time I know that sometimes the right answer to and NA question can be both a SA and NA. Can anyone tell me when it's okay to pick a bridging AC? and also how something can be sufficient and necessary at the same time? Thank you in advance!

CSieck3507

@Kevins-Spilled-Chili My first answer is that you need to ask yourself, "Does this answer choice NEED to be true?" There have been NA questions where the answer choice is both the SA and the NA! The importance with bridging NA questions is that often times you need to connect two ideas in order for the argument to hold. So sometimes that may look like a P->C answer. If you dont connect the two ideas then there is no way for the argument/conclusion to hold.

Blocking NA often is in form of correlation/causation. You need to block other causes that could lead to the cause given in the argument.

What has helped me with NA questions is think of an assumption that the argument makes or use the "What if" test. What if X happened? then the conclusion wouldn't hold? Well then what you need to do is block that What if!

Feel free to PM me and I would be happy to answer any more questions you have about NA and SA questions as well as any other LR questions you have.