NA questions. Forum

[eli2015]

Lost as hell with this QT. I am familiar with the negation test, but even with that I have no clue. Any help/advice is appreciated.

[BlueprintJason]

Lost as hell with this QT. I am familiar with the negation test, but even with that I have no clue. Any help/advice is appreciated.

It messes with a lot of people. I'll give you my basic explanation that I give to beginners to the question type.

For NA questions, you are looking for an answer choice that makes the conclusion POSSIBLE. You aren't trying to prove it definitively. Think of it like a deal breaker on a date: If you don't bathe regularly, then you won't get very far in the dating world. Bathing regularly is something that is necessary for the result you want.

A quick example argument I have used a bunch:

What assumption does this argument depend on?

LeBron and Danny DeVito are going to play a basketball game. LeBron is better, thus LeBron will win.

Diagrammed out:

Prem: LB > DD
Con: LB wins

When you approach the question, your first job is to understand the above structure. What is the conclusion? What is the relevant Premise?

The next step is to definitively ID the Flaw in the reasoning, and come up with a statement of that flaw that you understand to work with in the answer choices. What's the GAP between the support conclusion relationship? How could the premises be true, but in some hypothetical circumstance the conclusion ends up false anyways? If that can occur, then the argument isn't valid.

Here, the argument assumes that being better = winning. That isn't necessarily true. Sure, it's plausible in this context, but it doesn't have to happen. The underdog wins every now and then. What if LB missed every shot and DD was just on fire that day reigning threes? The argument fails to consider that possibility. This is the flaw of equivocation. Two concepts can be closely related, but distinct. Winning and being better often go hand in hand, but they don't have to.

At the beginning, it's important to go through the exact thinking process like above. Later on, you'll recognize the flaws because you've spotted them a million times. When I see that now, I think "Exclusivity!" and just hit the answer choices. For now, really think through the error in the reasoning in a detailed way. It will pay dividends over time.

Once you have the flaw clear, you go into the answer choices looking for something that relates to that flaw, and makes it so that the argument can possibly survive despite having a gap in the reasoning.

For example, a common answer choice for this kind of situation might be: "Being better is relevant to winning in some cases." Well yeah. That has to be true for this argument to succeed, because if being better is irrelevant it kills our main premise about LB dead in the water.

Another common wording is when they take some characteristic in the premise and state that it doesn't make the conclusion impossible. So in this context that would be: "Being better doesn't guarantee that you will lose." Well yeah. That is necessary to assume. If being better guaranteed that you would lose, then LB has no chance of succeeding in our conclusion based on the premise that he is better at bball. That's kind of a weird example for this particular stimulus, but that pattern does happen a lot.

A caveat though, there could be a lot of other necessary assumptions out there that are kind of obvious that they could use. Generally, the correct AC is related to the GAP in the reasoning. But every now and then they will do something like: "There is a basketball available for use." Well yeah because if not no one could win. Or: "LeBron makes a basket." You can't win if you don't score, so I guess that is necessary. It's annoying when they do that, but it happens. So, go in armed with the flaw and expecting that to be the key to finding the answer, but don't block out other possibilities in your mind. If you know the structure of the argument, then you'll know whether something is necessary to the conclusion.

Lastly, look out for the trap of them putting in a sufficient assumption. Sufficient assumptions don't always need to be necessarily true for the argument to have a CHANCE at success. Here, they might try to trick you with: "If you are better, then you will always win." Well that certainly proves your conclusion, but it isn't necessary for success. I could think of a million things that are sufficient to prove the conclusion even if that is false. If you negate it, you get: "If you are better, then you will not always win." That doesn't kill the conclusion for sure. What if instead it were true that anyone that has a name starting with L will always win against someone with a D name? Or if you play for the Cavs you will always beat someone who doesn't? Those things are sufficient to prove my conclusion, but not necessary for its success. Think about the difference here and really understand it. Make up your own examples, study both questions, etc. Bc they will try to trick you here.

HTH and good luck!