Getting Better at Weakening

[katem2002]

Weaken questions are my worst by far on LR. I have no issues identifying the premises and conclusion, but I have trouble with what really "weakens" the argument most of the time. I've noticed that almost all of my wrong answers fall into the "does nothing' type of incorrectness.

I also noticed that I have a habit of disregarding the right answers due to scope or relevancy to the argument. For example, I did a question today where the argument was that medicine X should be used more often than medicine Y. The correct weaken answer was something along the lines of medicine X having a negative impact on animal test subjects in labs. I knocked it due to the argument not mentioning anything else about animal usage, just humans. A similar pattern follows with other answers.

Any advice on solving this issue and determining the "relevance" of answers would be appreciated -- thanks!

[EmilyOwens]

Weaken questions are my worst by far on LR. I have no issues identifying the premises and conclusion, but I have trouble with what really "weakens" the argument most of the time. I've noticed that almost all of my wrong answers fall into the "does nothing' type of incorrectness.

I also noticed that I have a habit of disregarding the right answers due to scope or relevancy to the argument. For example, I did a question today where the argument was that medicine X should be used more often than medicine Y. The correct weaken answer was something along the lines of medicine X having a negative impact on animal test subjects in labs. I knocked it due to the argument not mentioning anything else about animal usage, just humans. A similar pattern follows with other answers.

Any advice on solving this issue and determining the "relevance" of answers would be appreciated -- thanks!

Hi katem,

Here are some tips to help with attacking Weaken questions:

It’s great that you’re able to consistently identify the premises and conclusions. However, the next step is to think about how the premises support the conclusion (Do the premises use data to draw a conclusion? Are the premises showcasing a cause and effect relationship that allows the author to draw a conclusion? Etc). When working through a Weaken question, you want to either bring in new information that harms the relationship between the premises and conclusion or exploit a gap identified between the premises and conclusion (like an assumption the author is making but not explicitly stating).

After you break down the stimulus and understand the argument, you then want to prephrase the answering using the identified loophole. For example, let’s say I have an argument in which the conclusion is "Using pesticides on one’s farm does more harm than good." To attack the conclusion that using pesticides is more harmful than it is good, I need to show that the use of pesticides has greater benefits than harms. Answer choices that portray greater benefit than harm, or that shows the premises are “debunked” and therefore not harmful, are the ones for us! Always be prepared to prephrase. This will help you recognize those trap answers, or even see the “relevance” arguments that you mention above a bit more clearly. I like to brainstorm a multitude of different loopholes with my students when we first start working on Weaken questions, especially because your first prephrase won’t always match the correct answer (though both will weaken the argument).

Lastly, look for causal reasoning when attacking Weaken questions. These questions can usually be easily exploited and the answers prephrased by:

• Finding another cause

• Showing that the cause can occur without the effect (or vice versa)

• Showing relationship reversal (what’s advertised as the effect is actually the cause and vice versa)

• Looking for data discrepencies

I hope this helps! Also feel free to check out our other resources on Weakening questions:

Podcast Episode 85: Causal Reasoning Part II – Causality and Question Types 24:22 – Weaken Questions
How NOT to Weaken Logical Reasoning Arguments

[katem2002]

Thank you, Emily!