Justify the Conclusion Questions

[FrannieVargas]

I'm having difficulty attacking Justify the Conclusion questions and as a result have been selecting a wrong answer choice instead of the correction answer. According to Lesson 4, there are several techniques one can use to attack these questions: 1. Justify Formula, solving them mechanically (focus on new elements in the premise and conclusion and ignore elements common in both) and the usage of arrow relationships (for conditional and causal arguments). How do I know when to use which technique? What are the steps I should be taking when answering these types of questions? Should I be prephrasing at all?

Loyally,
Frannie Vargas '12

[Jon Denning]

Hey Frannie - that's a good question. We talk a lot about Justify questions and the techniques most useful for solving them in our Lesson 4 Conceptual Recap (in the online student center), so that's definitely going to be the best resource for a comprehensive breakdown. In the meantime, I’ll make a few comments.

First, that mechanistic approach (look for new/rogue elements, especially in the conclusion, and find an answer that connects them) works well on questions that are easily broken down into their component pieces, or that have recognizable elements that you can categorize and compare. Then you can readily make the necessary connections. The same is true of conditional reasoning stimuli: simply find the answer that makes the appropriate connection so that the conclusion is proven.

However, as you’ve seen, not every question allows for such an easy breakdown into pieces. A number of challenging Justify questions are based more on dense/complex arguments, and in these instances you really need to focus closely on the explicit conclusion given and make sure the answer you choose would completely prove that conclusion true. You may not be able to do it by simply identifying pieces needed for some connection, but the nature of Justify means that the correct answer will still validate the conclusion, so you can be extremely critical as you scrutinize the options.

I hope that helps and again, please be sure to check out the lengthy conceptual discussion in the student center!