Does anyone have any advice about approching NA questions?

Comments

• 1 Like

  JMPlaw19 Member

  October 2021 144 karma

  One big advice I can give for situations in which you are maybe stuck within two choices, run the negation of the answer choice and see if that opposite would destroy the argument, if so then that is the necessary assumption, because if the opposite was true then the argument collapses.
• 3 Likes

  sarakimmel Member ⭐

  October 2021 1488 karma

  I like to look at NA as a must be true. They can be more subtle, but the correct NA AC is the only one that must be true.
  I have tried the negation approach, negating each answer choice and choosing the one that destroys the argument, but I have found this to be somewhat confusing and much more time-consuming.
  Give the MBT approach a try, see if it "clicks" for you. Best of luck!
• 2 Likes

  canihazJD Alum Member Sage ⭐

  October 2021 8491 karma

  Practice translation of your stimulus (or really anything you read on the test)
  Look for something that intuitively must be true
  When in doubt, negate the answer
  Practice negating answers

  I think the first and last points are the most important and also the most severely underdressed. If you're not comfortable with these skills, you haven't done them enough. If they are still things you have to consciously make sure you do correctly, at some point the test will make you fail to do them. Any other performance activity (learning a song on the piano, swinging a golf club, driving a car, etc.) takes a lot of reps before we can perform with any semblance of proficiency. In the ideal state, you don't remember to negate properly (or translate, employ question type strategies, correctly diagram, etc.)... you just do them because you can't do it any differently. IMO you can't get around the repetition requirement.... you gotta put in the work.
• 1 Like

  Cashhhyyy Core Member

  October 2021 583 karma

  So, I am not sure if this is 100% right but I will say that I went from getting 0 correct (LIKE SERIOUSLY 0 CORRECT LOL) to all NA correct.

  The approach that I did is read the stimulus, found the conclusion, and then started going through the answer choices. What was I looking for in the AC? I was looking for a AC that will support the conclusion.

  For example: BECAUSE THIS AC HAPPENED, then this conclusion was able to happen. Due to the argument depending on this AC for the conclusion to be valid.

  Also what helped me figure this out is work backgrounds on NA. After I got them ALL wrong, I would see the correct answer and see how that would fit the stimulus. That is how I learned how to approach them.