Weaken vs. Flaw questions

[reop6780]

I have a question about the question stem, "The argument is vulnerable to criticism on which one of the following grounds?"

I had trouble during practice test in that I regarded this question as "Weaken" question.

It seems to be the 2nd family to me..

Additionally, there were three questions found in "weaken" section of the LR training book that confused me of "flaw" questions.

#46, "Which one of the following indicates a weakness in the argument?"

-indicates a weakness...

And the answer choices seem to be finding flaw to me..

#50, "The argument's reasoning is questionable because the argument fails to rule out the possibility that"

- reasoning is questionable...

At least the answer choices seem to be "weaken"

#75, "Which one of the following is the strongest criticism of the argument above?"

- strongest criticism...

Compared with #35 of flaw question, I cannot tell which one is "flaw" type or "Weaken" type..

(This one does include answer choices made to weaken..)

My question is how to distinguish "flaw" from "weaken" effectively...

I feel like I cannot attack the question properly if I'm confused of the question type.

Thank you

[KelseyWoods]

Hi Hyun,

The basic difference between a Weaken and a Flaw question is that a Weaken question asks you to actively weaken (or attack) the argument and a Flaw question only asks you to point out the flaw (or weakness) in the argument.

When the question stem asks how the argument is "vulnerable to criticism," that is a flaw question. You are not being asked to attack the argument, you are just pointing out where it is vulnerable, or in other words, where it is flawed.

The question stem "indicates a weakness" is a little confusing because it can seem like you are just pointing the weakness, as you are in a Flaw question. But on closer examination, looking for an answer choice that "indicates a weakness" is not the same as pointing out a weakness yourself. Instead, you want the answer choice to indicate the weakness (by attacking the argument). The answer choices in this question more actively attack the argument than Flaw answer choices do--they contain more specific facts and details and fewer abstract statements than we normally see in Flaw questions.

You're right that "The argument's reasoning is questionable because the argument fails to rule out the possibility that" is also confusing, and the reason it is a Weaken question is somewhat nuanced. But if you think about it, most of the time when you are weakening an argument, you are bringing up something that the argument failed to rule out. So again, you're not so much pointing out an abstract logical weakness as you are bringing up something to attack the argument that the argument didn't specifically rule out. Again, the answer choices are a clue here because they have specific details which, if true, could hurt the argument.

For the "strongest criticism of the argument" question stem, again you are looking for an answer choice which actively criticizes (or attacks) your argument and doesn't just point out a flaw. And again, the answer choices all introduce new specific details which could impact the argument.

The good news is that you've managed to identify a few of the most confusing Weaken/Flaw questions stems. Most of the time their question stems are more straightforward. If you come upon another one and you're not sure whether it is Weaken or Flaw, ask yourself if it is asking you to actively attack the argument or only point out the weakness and use the answer choices to guide you--general answer choices which are only describing something that could be happening in the argument are usually for Flaw questions; answer choices which introduce new specific facts that could hurt the argument are usually for Weaken questions.

Hope that helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[reop6780]

Thank you so much Kelsey!