Strengthening Questions - Help

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• 2 Likes

  teechj117 Alum Member

  March 2021 296 karma

  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.
• 3 Likes

  yunonsie Member

  March 2021 611 karma

  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.
• 2 Likes

  yunonsie Member

  March 2021 611 karma

  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!