Help with Flaw/Type of Argument Questions Forum

[ac8876a]

While doing LR practice questions, I seem to always mess up flaw and identify the argument questions. These questions seem so abstract and I don't know how to improve on them, anybody have any suggestions?

[Mikey]

While doing LR practice questions, I seem to always mess up flaw and identify the argument questions. These questions seem so abstract and I don't know how to improve on them, anybody have any suggestions?

What I do for the majority of flaw questions is prephrase what i think the flaw is before looking at the A/C's. Look for the gap, why is the conclusion what it is because of the evidence? What did the author do wrong or not consider when coming to that conclusion based on the evidence? I do very well on flaw questions and this is how i tend to look at them.

[ac8876a]

do you ever have any issues with the answer choices being too abstract?

[ac8876a]

While doing LR practice questions, I seem to always mess up flaw and identify the argument questions. These questions seem so abstract and I don't know how to improve on them, anybody have any suggestions?

What I do for the majority of flaw questions is prephrase what i think the flaw is before looking at the A/C's. Look for the gap, why is the conclusion what it is because of the evidence? What did the author do wrong or not consider when coming to that conclusion based on the evidence? I do very well on flaw questions and this is how i tend to look at them.

do you ever have any problems with understanding the answer choices?

[Mikey]

While doing LR practice questions, I seem to always mess up flaw and identify the argument questions. These questions seem so abstract and I don't know how to improve on them, anybody have any suggestions?

What I do for the majority of flaw questions is prephrase what i think the flaw is before looking at the A/C's. Look for the gap, why is the conclusion what it is because of the evidence? What did the author do wrong or not consider when coming to that conclusion based on the evidence? I do very well on flaw questions and this is how i tend to look at them.

do you ever have any problems with understanding the answer choices?

Sometimes, but the only time is when it's one of the tougher flaw questions. Usually it will be the strange wording of the right answer choice that throws me off, but with practice it should get better.

[railyard]

While doing LR practice questions, I seem to always mess up flaw and identify the argument questions. These questions seem so abstract and I don't know how to improve on them, anybody have any suggestions?

Which LR book do you have? I know for the LRB they list out each flaw type: straw man, circular reason, ad honimem, false analogy, mistaken C&E, etc! They give little tips for each one as well. For example, if you understand the flaw is a mistaken necessary/sufficient condition, the vast majority of the time the correct answer with have conditional language and sometime it'll be the only answer to have such language. Same goes for mistaken C&E, just look for causal language within the answer choices.

[ac8876a]

While doing LR practice questions, I seem to always mess up flaw and identify the argument questions. These questions seem so abstract and I don't know how to improve on them, anybody have any suggestions?

Which LR book do you have? I know for the LRB they list out each flaw type: straw man, circular reason, ad honimem, false analogy, mistaken C&E, etc! They give little tips for each one as well. For example, if you understand the flaw is a mistaken necessary/sufficient condition, the vast majority of the time the correct answer with have conditional language and sometime it'll be the only answer to have such language. Same goes for mistaken C&E, just look for causal language within the answer choices.

I have manhattan prep and powerscore. I'll read the powerscore bible again though, thanks!

[fishpaste1]

While doing LR practice questions, I seem to always mess up flaw and identify the argument questions. These questions seem so abstract and I don't know how to improve on them, anybody have any suggestions?

When I first started my LSAT prep, I absolutely loathed Flaw questions. Like you said, they seemed so abstract and I just couldn't wrap my mind around what most of the answer choices were saying. I know it sounds cliché, but doing lots and lots of practice questions is the best way to improve Flaw questions. After a while, you'll start to recognize certain Flaws almost immediately and it becomes automatic. You don't need to memorize the different Flaw types discussed in the PowerScore books, but I would spend some time reading over them and looking at the examples. The more familiar you are with the different Flaw types, the easier and faster you'll be able to recognize them on the LSAT.

Something that really helped me was eliminating wrong answer choices. You should be able to eliminate 2-3 answer choices pretty easily. For example, if the stimulus contains no conditional language, eliminate any answer choices that talk about necessary/sufficient conditions. If the stimulus contains no causal language, eliminate any answer choices that talk about correlation/causation. Answer choices that talk about circular reasoning are one of the most common trap answer choices. Do not choose an answer choice just because it contains complex/vague language that you do not understand. Be on the lookout for extreme language (always, never, none, all) and word modifiers. If you spot them in the stimulus, the correct answer choice will likely have something to do with it. Hope that helps some.