What is everyone doing to conquer NA? I have a really difficult time on these questions...I'm thinking maybe I need to go back to the curriculum, but even then I'm not sure where to start. Review Assumptions? SA? BOTH? maybe weaken?
Or if not the curriculum, what else is there to do to help me improve?
HELP!
Comments
What helps me on NA questions is saying the following right before starting, "What is the author assuming in order to draw their conclusion?" or "What must absolutely be true if I want to help the author prove his/her conclusion to be true?"
JY would prolly yell at me for saying this but here goes. This may be the one question type where you can run through the answer choices without knowing what to directly look for. Just run the MBT test for every answer.
https://7sage.com/webinar/necessary-assumptions/
What I mean by "subtle and weak" is: Let's compare NA to Sufficient Assumption (SA). SA are usually very strong missing premises and are clear in stating that a supporting premise is missing. However, remember that the SA does not have to be true (it is not a MUST be TRUE) answer choice. It very STRONGLY helps us make the argument.
Remember what J.Y. says in his syllabus: NA is the answer choice that is required, needed, absolutely must be true. If not, it will wreck the argument in question.
SA is the answer choice that is probably wanted to make the argument very solid and strong.
To conclude:
SA => Strong missing premise to strengthen the argument greatly (conclusion will be satisfied in some way).
NA => Weak missing premise to make the argument valid (without this, the conclusion cannot be satisfied at ALL).
This SA vs NA helps a lot on level 4 and 5 difficulty questions when both of them are in the answer choices.
For me, If I don't have an understanding of the Method used by the author, I usually skip it, because I am probably going to get it wrong by chosing one of the sucker answer choices. I might as well spend time on another question, and come back to it again when I have time in the end. Sometimes reading it the second time helps me see what method or reasoning was used to arrive at the conclusion.