#25 - Weaken

[15veries]

Hi,

Just wondering,
so in LR "many" is actually not enought to be weakener or strengther right?
Why it is allowed here? (C)

[Adam Tyson]

Hey 15, interesting question, based on an interesting premise. Not sure where you got the idea that "many" is a bad thing when it comes to weaken or strengthen questions, but I hope nothing we have said gave you that impression, because there is nothing inherently wrong with the concept of "many" being used in those ways. It all depends on context.

If I want to weaken a claim about all people - all people prefer chocolate to vanilla, for example - then a "many" response might be perfect. Many people prefer vanilla to chocolate would do the trick! That would have less effect on a statement that most people prefer chocolate, and even less on the claim that some people prefer chocolate, but it's still useful in the right context.

Here, that context is an implied "all". See around lines 28-29, where the author says "A continuous sound, particularly one that is judged to be safe, relaxes the brain." The suggestion is that this is always the case. This is the claim we want to weaken. If many people find a particular continuous sound to be unnerving, that would weaken that very broad claim about what is considered relaxing.

Be careful about making broad generalizations about which concepts are okay and which are not. For example, we like to say that you should beware of extreme language in Must Be True answer choices, but that doesn't mean there can never be a correct answer with extreme language. It depends on the stimulus and what you can prove. We warn people to be careful about any introduction of numbers and percentages into an argument because those often lead to bad arguments, but it's still possible to make a sound argument based on those ideas. Be alert, be on your toes, but remain open to a variety of possibilities that the authors will throw at you. Not everything fits neatly into a prescribed category, and we can't account for every twist you might encounter, so there are no absolute rules in how to approach this test, just guidelines and red flags.

Proceed with caution! Traps ahead! Good luck!