Any tips for Strengthen questions?

Marchy.the.rat

This specific topic in LR is the one I struggle the most with, and I’m hoping someone has some helpful tips or advice on how to approach it. Any insights you can share would be greatly appreciated!

tbynum30

In terms of strategy, there's a couple of things that I do that have worked for me:
1. When reading the stimulus, I think about the argument and what claims are being made. It's important to understand the argument.
2. I normally due process of elimination (POE) because it's quick and generally, if you can find the wrong answers, you're lead to the right one with little effort.
3. Strengthen doesn't have to be a HUGE lift. It's just something that a) does not WEAKEN the argument and b) supports the claim in SOME way, big or small.
4. Avoid ACs that involve unrealistic assumptions.

I'd recommend doing untimed drills with strengthen Qs and as you truly build mastery, you'll see progress then you can add in timing.

Good luck man! You've got this

hrleenkaur2020

I treat it like a flaw question, find the flaw in the reasoning, and try to find the answer that patches up that gap, which strengthens the argument

Vardant104

When confronted with a strengthening question, apply the steps below:
1. Read the question stem to find out if it is a strengthening question.
2. Read the stimulus and run a ‘Why’ test before highlighting the main conclusion.
3. Figure out which one of the multiple choice questions strengthen or support the main conclusion. (Elimate answer choices that are neutral or weakening)
4. Narrow it down to two answer choices

cgraass

This is a minor tip, but might come in handy! For Strengthen and Weaken questions, generally avoid answers with weak wording like "some" or "sometimes". Because of the weak wording, the answer choice probably won't do much to strengthen or weaken an argument. I got this tip from LSAT answer choice explanations on LSAC website.

natemanwell1

you have to learn the full technique for solving strengthen questions. step one: know what your intention is [close the gap as much as possible preferably from both sides, or the weaker side, or the stronger side] 2) figure out if any answer choices fall into the categories, listed from best to worst to strengthen the argument [provide sufficient condition, remove alternative explanation, remove obstacle, show expected correlation holds, provide necessary condition] 3) remove wrong answer choices by identifying their type [probability mismatch, value vs. normative, etc]