#1 - The painted spider spins webs that are much stickier than the webs spun by the other species of spiders that share

[Claire Horan]

Mr. Cheese,

Often on the LSAT a word or phrase can be linked back to an earlier reference. Carefully and active reading will help you make those connections, so beware of interpreting sentences in isolation. Here, we are told in the first sentence that painted spiders have stickier webs than other "spiders that share the same habitat." In the third sentence, we are told how spiders, in general, prey on insects. Following the flow of the stimulus would lead to interpreting "its competitors" to mean types of spiders in the same habitat whose webs are less sticky.

One way you can track these references is to draw arrows while reading, when you realize the stimulus is referencing something mentioned earlier. This technique can be helpful on both logical reasoning and reading comprehension sections.

I hope this helps!

[lenihil]

Hi Powerscore,

If I say "Besides a web's stickiness, the area of a web is also a factor in deciding which spider is a more successful predator", will this weaken the argument?

How about "The area of a web is the only factor in deciding which spider is a more successful predator"? Is this a weakener?

Thank you in advance!

[Frank Peter]

Hi leni,

With a weakener question like #1, one key issue to keep in mind is that we want to choose the answer choice that does the most to weaken the argument. This means that sometimes the correct answer might be one that only weakens the argument slightly, but is still better than the other answer choices. On the other hand, you may get a weakener question where you are able to narrow your options down to two answer choices, both of which weaken the stimulus, but you'll find that the credited response offers a stronger counter-argument against the conclusion of the stimulus.

With this in mind, I would say that both examples you've provided could conceivably weaken the stimulus in question #1. Both give us reason to doubt that stickiness should be the only factor we consider in the spider's success as a predator.

"Besides a web's stickiness, the area of a web is also a factor in deciding which spider is a more successful predator." This could conceivably weaken the argument. It might be the case, for example, that the area of a web is a more important factor than stickiness for predatory success. However, on its face, this would probably be an answer choice that only weakens the stimulus slightly, since we're only told that the area of a web is "a factor", not necessarily a more important factor than stickiness.

"The area of a web is the only factor in deciding which spider is a more successful predator." This is a stronger weakener, since now we're being told that stickiness is basically irrelevant. Now we have to consider that it might be the case that the reason for the painted spider's hunting success has nothing to do with web stickiness - the painted spider may happen to also spin bigger webs than its competitors, and that is the reason for its success.

[lenihil]

Dear Frank,

Thank you so much.

I have been trying to figure out these two questions a couple of days and they really bothered me. Now I feel the lingering qualms are gone.

Thank you for your help.