- Thu Aug 05, 2021 1:57 pm
#89390
QueensU,
I'm sorry to hear you're struggling! If you're doing well on Strengthen and Assumption questions, then think about what you're doing right to do those questions well - identifying conclusions, locating gaps in the argument, and helping to close those gaps. For Assumption questions with Defender assumptions, you're negating weaknesses. For Flaw in the Reasoning questions, you're also identifying problems with arguments. All of these aspects of approaches to the stimulus are doing a lot of the work that also applies to Weaken questions, so think "I can tell what's wrong with an argument and how to make it better. So when I identify a problem with an argument and want to make it worse instead, what little adjustments do I need to make?" That will take your strength with the other question types and help use it in your favor in the Weaken context.
Further, if you're getting more difficult Weaken questions incorrect, but not the less difficult ones, it might be less of a Weaken-specific problem and more of a difficult-question problem. It might be beneficial to work on tough problems of all types.
Finally, if the Weaken questions with which you have trouble involve things like causal reasoning, it's worth practicing the ways to weaken causal arguments discussed in the Bibles.
Robert Carroll
