Premises and Strengthen and Weaken Questions

[TargTru99^]

Greetings,

I read on p. 3-79 of the first book of 4 lessons for the Powerscore live online prep course that for Weaken questions, I should not worry about the premises. However, as I have practiced with both Strengthen and Weaken questions, I have come to feel that premises and the conclusions' relations to premises are indeed helpful in finding correct answers for these question types. While I am definitely sure that conclusions must be heavily focused on in both these question types, I am finding trouble on figuring out how much focus I need to put on the premises of the stimulus. For Strengthen and Weaken questions, how much weight must be given to the premises of the stimulus? Should premises that act like sub-conclusions be the only premises that should be given significant weight, which is the case in p. 4-61 of this same prep course book? Should the conclusion be given only slightly more weight than the premises, or should the conclusion be almost entirely focused on when reading a stimulus for a Strengthen or Weaken question?

[Dave Killoran]

Greetings,

I read on p. 3-79 of the first book of 4 lessons for the Powerscore live online prep course that for Weaken questions, I should not worry about the premises. However, as I have practiced with both Strengthen and Weaken questions, I have come to feel that premises and the conclusions' relations to premises are indeed helpful in finding correct answers for these question types. While I am definitely sure that conclusions must be heavily focused on in both these question types, I am finding trouble on figuring out how much focus I need to put on the premises of the stimulus. For Strengthen and Weaken questions, how much weight must be given to the premises of the stimulus? Should premises that act like sub-conclusions be the only premises that should be given significant weight, which is the case in p. 4-61 of this same prep course book? Should the conclusion be given only slightly more weight than the premises, or should the conclusion be almost entirely focused on when reading a stimulus for a Strengthen or Weaken question?

Hi Targ,

What that statement means is that you don't need to worry about attacking the premises. Weaken questions don't just straight up undermine a premise; that would be way too easy to spot as a correct answer. It does not mean that you should ignore the premises entirely because you need to see what premises existed and how they drew the conclusion from them. So, know the premises but don't worry about attempting to attack them in Weaken questions.

Sub-conclusions act in a different way, and because they are conclusions, can and will be attacked

Thanks!