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According to 7 sage, I average 95% on strengthen questions, but only 77% for weaken questions (compared to 88% for LR overall). Any tips for how I can get better at weaken questions? It seems sometimes the correct answer comes out of left field, or requires a really big leap in logic.

Question 21 of section 4 on prep test 54 and question 19 of section 1 of prep test 47 are examples of difficult weaken questions that i struggle with. The answers make sense after i read through the Manhattan explanations, but when I'm actually taking the test it's difficult to make some of the inferences these questions seem to require.

PT54-S4-Q21 seems like a resolve, not weaken question. Both weaken/strengthen questions involve similar if not the same thought process...

walterwhite wrote:According to 7 sage, I average 95% on strengthen questions, but only 77% for weaken questions (compared to 88% for LR overall). Any tips for how I can get better at weaken questions? It seems sometimes the correct answer comes out of left field, or requires a really big leap in logic.

Question 21 of section 4 on prep test 54 and question 19 of section 1 of prep test 47 are examples of difficult weaken questions that i struggle with. The answers make sense after i read through the Manhattan explanations, but when I'm actually taking the test it's difficult to make some of the inferences these questions seem to require.

Why don't you give us your analysis of two or three weakening questions you've gotten wrong. Let us know what you were thinking in the stim, and what you were thinking in the answer choices. I have a suspicion or two that I'd like to confirm/deny.

KDLMaj wrote:

walterwhite wrote:According to 7 sage, I average 95% on strengthen questions, but only 77% for weaken questions (compared to 88% for LR overall). Any tips for how I can get better at weaken questions? It seems sometimes the correct answer comes out of left field, or requires a really big leap in logic.

Question 21 of section 4 on prep test 54 and question 19 of section 1 of prep test 47 are examples of difficult weaken questions that i struggle with. The answers make sense after i read through the Manhattan explanations, but when I'm actually taking the test it's difficult to make some of the inferences these questions seem to require.

Why don't you give us your analysis of two or three weakening questions you've gotten wrong. Let us know what you were thinking in the stim, and what you were thinking in the answer choices. I have a suspicion or two that I'd like to confirm/deny.

PT 54, section 4, question 21

So after reading the stim i think the correct answer choice needs to show that the witnesses who gave greater inaccuracies in their first testimony were somehow different then the other participants in the experiment. Also, whenever there's a question about experiments or surveys I look for an answer choice that suggests an unrepresentative sample was used.

Right away I ruled out the correct answer choice because it was the opposite of what I expected. The fact that the witnesses were less influenced by the nature of questioning doesn't explain why they had greater inaccuracies in their second testimony than in their first. If they were unaffected by the nature of questioning, then they should have had the same amount of inaccuracies both times, but according to the stim, this is not the case.

On the other hand, answer choice E seemed attractive. If the witnesses mentioned in the stim gave a greater amounts of details, then it explains why they would have more inaccuracies in their second testimony, because they were talking longer and had more opportunities to make a mistake. While this choice doesn't explain why they would give fewer inaccuracies when the first lawyer was trying to trick them, I still felt it was the strongest answer choice, because it was the only choice that demonstrated the witnesses mentioned in the stim were somehow unique compared to the "normal" witnesses AND wasn't out of scope.


PT 47, section 3, question 14

After reading the stim, I thought the correct answer choice would shoe there's a side affect of sunblock the doctors did not take into consideration. On this same prep test, section 1, question 19, similar reasoning was used to weaken the argument for IPV (while it would decreases polio caused by vaccines, it would increase the total number of polio cases).

With this question fresh in my mind, I bubbled in choice B. While now I see that this answer is out of scope, and an obvious wrong answer, when I was taking the test I eliminated C,D, and E fairly quickly. Ultimately, I eliminated choice A because I didn't really understand what it meant by "wavelengths." If a sunblock prevents you from getting sun burn, then wouldn't it also do a good job of preventing melanoma? This choice makes it sound like some wave lengths of sun can give you really bad sun burn, but not cause melanoma. That logic seemed strange to me, so I chose B.

walterwhite wrote:

KDLMaj wrote:

walterwhite wrote:According to 7 sage, I average 95% on strengthen questions, but only 77% for weaken questions (compared to 88% for LR overall). Any tips for how I can get better at weaken questions? It seems sometimes the correct answer comes out of left field, or requires a really big leap in logic.

Question 21 of section 4 on prep test 54 and question 19 of section 1 of prep test 47 are examples of difficult weaken questions that i struggle with. The answers make sense after i read through the Manhattan explanations, but when I'm actually taking the test it's difficult to make some of the inferences these questions seem to require.

Why don't you give us your analysis of two or three weakening questions you've gotten wrong. Let us know what you were thinking in the stim, and what you were thinking in the answer choices. I have a suspicion or two that I'd like to confirm/deny.

PT 54, section 4, question 21

So after reading the stim i think the correct answer choice needs to show that the witnesses who gave greater inaccuracies in their first testimony were somehow different then the other participants in the experiment. Also, whenever there's a question about experiments or surveys I look for an answer choice that suggests an unrepresentative sample was used.

Right away I ruled out the correct answer choice because it was the opposite of what I expected. The fact that the witnesses were less influenced by the nature of questioning doesn't explain why they had greater inaccuracies in their second testimony than in their first. If they were unaffected by the nature of questioning, then they should have had the same amount of inaccuracies both times, but according to the stim, this is not the case.

On the other hand, answer choice E seemed attractive. If the witnesses mentioned in the stim gave a greater amounts of details, then it explains why they would have more inaccuracies in their second testimony, because they were talking longer and had more opportunities to make a mistake. While this choice doesn't explain why they would give fewer inaccuracies when the first lawyer was trying to trick them, I still felt it was the strongest answer choice, because it was the only choice that demonstrated the witnesses mentioned in the stim were somehow unique compared to the "normal" witnesses AND wasn't out of scope.


PT 47, section 3, question 14

After reading the stim, I thought the correct answer choice would shoe there's a side affect of sunblock the doctors did not take into consideration. On this same prep test, section 1, question 19, similar reasoning was used to weaken the argument for IPV (while it would decreases polio caused by vaccines, it would increase the total number of polio cases).

With this question fresh in my mind, I bubbled in choice B. While now I see that this answer is out of scope, and an obvious wrong answer, when I was taking the test I eliminated C,D, and E fairly quickly. Ultimately, I eliminated choice A because I didn't really understand what it meant by "wavelengths." If a sunblock prevents you from getting sun burn, then wouldn't it also do a good job of preventing melanoma? This choice makes it sound like some wave lengths of sun can give you really bad sun burn, but not cause melanoma. That logic seemed strange to me, so I chose B.

So problem #1 is- as another poster pointed out- that the question you're citing in PT54 isn't a weakening question, it's a resolve the paradox question. I want you to spend some time reading through a bunch of weakening stems to make sure you're correctly identifying them. That could potentially explain the discrepancy you're finding between Str and Wk questions.

Interestingly enough, the weakening question in question is a bit of a white alligator. Your instincts to see this as a standard overlooked possibilities- pro/con argument were good. The stem said recommendation (which should have immediately had you thinking along those lines), and it's a weakening question- which are virtually always overlooked possibilities arguments.

In this case though- you were actually in a scope shift argument (super rare for weakening questions). Here's how you should have paraphrased the argument:

The doctors recommend that you use sunblock to protect you from the dangerous wavelengths that cause melanoma because sunblock protects you from sunburns. Always be on the lookout for something important and new in a conclusion. If you find such a thing (wavelengths in this case), make sure the evidence the author is giving you is actually, objectively relevant. Given the evidence was about sunburns (which sort of comes out of nowhere), this is definitely a case where it's not relevant. So we're in scope shift territory, not overlooked possibilities territory. The last thing to do is to figure out what relationship the author needs those two unrelated concepts to have. In this case (as is most often the case), it was simply a relationship of equivalence/alike. The author assumed that wavelengths in question = sunburns. Thus the correct answer needs to break that connection. Answer choice A is oddly worded, but it's telling you that wavelengths don't cause sunburns- which completely kills our assumption.

In order for this to have been a pro/con argument as you initially suspected, the evidence would need to be relevant to the conclusion. Those arguments are usually in the form of:

Should do X because of reason(s) Y

BUT reason(s) Y have to be inarguably related to what the author recommends.

Don't worry- Q14 is NOT a commonly tested thing. I've seen VERY few scope shifts posing as OP-pro/con.

Have you ever tried the negation test? Where you negate an answer choice and see what it does to your conclusion? You can actually use it on weakeners. If you negate it, and it suddenly bolsters the argument- it's the right answer. See if that helps you. (It's generally more useful on strengthening than weakening for various reasons, but it's worth a shot)

And since your first question wasn't a weakener- why don't you tell us why you thought it was (so we can check that part) and give us an analysis for another weakener to help give more data.

here's another tricky one: PT 47, section 1, question 22

First of all there's a lot going on in the stimulus. The argument seems to make 2 points: pesticides manufactured in the US will harm the health of people in other countries and will eventually harm Americans as well (since we import agricultural products that come into contact with the dangerous American-made pesticides). I couldn't really come up with a good pre-phase answer after reading this stimulus.

I quickly eliminated A, B, and D. Ultimately, I got rid of the correct answer because it required too many assumptions. So what other countries manufacture the pesticides banned for use in the United States? Who's to say the US imports vegetables from those countries? Maybe Cuba manufactures the pesticides. Maybe we just don't import agricultural products from those countries. How do we know other countries import these pesticides? It requires too many assumptions.

I felt E was a more attractive answer. If some pesticides are banned in other countries but not in the US, that suggests judging the safety of pesticides is relative, and varies from country to country. Thus, pesticides banned in the US might not actually be unsafe, it may just be that different countries ban different pesticides. This would weaken the argument that the US manufactured pesticides pose a health risk to international consumers.

I typically recommend approaching flaw questions the same way you would your loud-mouthed buddy when he tells you he has a brilliant argument after Happy Hour. He's about to drop a fallacy; you should be waiting to pounce on that flaw in his reasoning.

Weaken questions are similar, but instead of bursting his bubble by indicating the logical flaw in his argument, you're going to do so by introducing a new fact to the discourse. He says bees are a nuisance so we should get rid of them; you weaken his argument by saying that they are, in fact, a keystone species.

Wrong answers to weaken questions will either be inert (meaning they have no bearing on the argument), or they will actually strengthen the conclusion. If you are stuck on a weaken question, see if you can identify any answer choices that match these criteria so that you can eliminate them.

Lastly, if you're not reading the prompt first on LR you should start doing so, because that will tip you off about what you should be looking for within the stimulus. Also useful to underline the conclusion so that you can refer back to it.