Serious trouble with weaken questions

Comments

• studyingandrestudying Core Member

  April 2018 5254 karma

  If you haven't done this already, you might try the webinar on Strengthen and Weaken questions. It's a good resource.
• saraheq1 Alum Member

  April 2018 122 karma

  After noting that the question is a weakening question, I tend to read the prompt as if it were coming from I source that I don’t trust, and after finishing it I write in the margin what my initial objection is. Then I look for that objection in an AC.
  Also, I find that the 19 common argument flaws are a good review for these questions.
• 1 Like

  studyingandrestudying Core Member

  April 2018 5254 karma

  Also, are you tracking difficulty level? I like what @saraheq1 said.
• ZaTabler Alum Member

  April 2018 513 karma

  @lsatplaylist said:
  Also, are you tracking difficulty level? I like what @saraheq1 said.

  Yes they're almost always the highest difficulty. 3-4 stars
• 1 Like

  s_jricke Alum Member

  April 2018 360 karma

  This might not even apply to you, but you might be getting tripped up by trap answer choices that attack a premise but not the actual argument. Remember, there is only one answer choice that even attempts to attack that space or gap between the premise and conclusion. Some answer choices are completely irrelevant and some actually make you think the argument has been weakened when all it has done is weaken the conclusion.

  You have to sense where the gap is between the premise and the conclusion and find the AC that touches on it the right way. Don't get trapped by answer choices that weaken the conclusion without touching the argument structure.

  For instance, if I say,"since I'm good at chess I'm also good at checkers," my whole argument implicitly revolves around that assumption that skill at chess is somehow connected to skill at checkers. Now, you could weaken this argument in many ways by saying something to the effect of, "people who are skilled at chess typically aren't good at checkers." You have to realize too that that statement can be reworded a ton of different ways, but the idea stays the same. What a trap answer choice will do though is just say, "You suck at checkers." In our heads, we go, "yeah, ok weakened.. on to the next." You have to realize though that just saying, "you suck at checkers," didn't say anything about the whole connection to chess. It didn't touch the argument a.k.a. the premise/conclusion support structure.
• 1 Like

  _oshun1_ Alum Member

  April 2018 edited April 2018 3652 karma

  I would keep track of the cookie cutter weaken ACs (like the ones that say sometimes it is not the case that [your premises lead to your conclusion] and the ones that reveal an unstated assumption and weaken it), and the cookie cutter trap answers (like the ones that attack the premises or aren’t entirely on topic). I have a list which I added on to as I went through the CC and tbh I rarely need to refer to it now but just typing it out helped me tremendously.