LR: strengthen and weaken

Comments

• harrismegan Member

  June 2015 edited June 2015 2074 karma

  I don't know if my approach is "special" or "different" but for strengthening I usually just write out premise and conclusion and just go through the answer choices and eliminate the obviously wrong ones. I then look at the answer choice and ask myself "does this make the conclusion more likely?" if yes, then that's you're one!
  
  For weakening I basically do the same thing except I ask myself "does this make the conclusion less likely?". Also, with weakening, looking for another alternative explanation or looking for strong works in the conclusion such as "Stephanie ALWAYS drinks her coffee black". Using absolute words like that always makes me aware. An answer choice could be a "competing data set" like... "Stephanie drank her coffee with milk on Tuesday".
  
• Aiesha G. Alum Member

  June 2015 199 karma

  Which would make the conclusion that Stephanie always drinks her coffee black less likely. Ok that makes sense. Thanks! I think since it is so new that I prob mix up strategies for different questions and end up picking the wrong ones due to mix-up or task confusion. I suppose more drilling will help solidify that.
• harrismegan Member

  June 2015 2074 karma

  Totally. Sometimes when you're confused it helps me just to take a breath and reaffirm what the conclusion and premise are. Because the answer choices will just try and confuse you in that respect by bringing in other information from the stimulus that's irrelevant. So sometimes I just take the time and say ok. what's the conclusion. what's the premise.
  Also I found it helpful to take each answer choice in isolation. Somewhere on the core curriculum it tells you to not compare answer choices to each other, but always compare it back to the stimulus. That helped me a lot too!
• Matt1234567 Inactive ⭐

  June 2015 1294 karma

  I always look for the flaw in every argument, since every argument that the LSAT presents you is flawed (thanks LSAT trainer lol). Every argument that I look at, I try to identify the conclusion and then the premises for that conclusion, and why the evidence does not support the conclusion. I always have this mindset. I never try to think of "how to make the argument work" but rather "what is wrong with this argument? What assumptions is the author making that is unjustified? What is he failing to consider?"
• 1 Like

  DumbHollywoodActor Alum Inactive ⭐

  June 2015 7468 karma

  To piggy back onto @Matt1234567, I especially like to think of the flaw as what the argument is failing to consider. It’s usually really hard to anticipate what a weakening correct answer will look like because they tend to add a little new information. But if I keep in my mind, "is that something the argument failed to consider that might make the conclusion less likely ?”, the correct answer tends to jump right out.
  That being said, some correlation/causation weaken questions can muddle this line of thinking. If you suspect there’s a "correlation implies causation” (i.e. A correlates to B, therefore A causes flaw, you have to try to remember your other possibilities: B causes A, C causes A and B, and no relationship. LSAC can make the correct answer seem like it’s coming out of nowhere if you forget that.
• LSATisland Free Trial Inactive Sage

  June 2015 1878 karma

  You are on the right track. Strengthening and Weakening questions both focus on a gap between the premise and the conclusion. Getting familiar with those gaps should help with these question types.