Weaken Questions

[Zarie Blackburn]

We recently received the following question from a self-study student. An instructor will respond below!

I wanted to ask to affirm if what I'm noticing on weakening questions is the case: is it correct to look for a necessary assumption in an argument in a weaken question to locate the logical gap in the argument's validity? I have been finding this approach very helpful with these questions.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

That's a great way to look at weaken questions. Weaken questions are asking you to exploit the gap in the argument. Looking for necessary assumptions will help you to identify where that gap is, and help you hone in on the correct answer. One thing I'd watch for is making sure your prephrase isn't too specific. Frequently, you'll find a stimulus that has multiple necessary assumptions, so you could identify a correct assumption, but the answer choice could go in a different direction.

The biggest goal for prephrasing weaken questions is to understand the argument, and understand where it fails. There are many different ways to think about that process, but as long as you are focused on that gap between the premise(s) and the conclusion, you should find you are fairly successful in this question type.