LR Weaken Structures and Things to Know Flashcards
Proposal, Opinion, Value Judgement (Usefulness)
Conclusion: Usually will contain language like “should” and “need,”
Weaken: Show a disadvantage to the proposal/opinion/value judgement
Wrong Answer Red Flag: Alludes to quantity
With conditionals in inference questions, be wary of “more” or “less” quantity phrases.
If you eat Vitamin D then you’ll have better health.
If more vitamin D, then better health. (Not necessarily, this could be too much of a bad thing.)
Wrong Answer Red Flag: Answer choice alludes to “belief” or “has knowledge of”
Knowing what people think/believe doesn’t tell us anything about what’s actually happened. Unlikely to be a correct answer.
Weaken Structure: Author rejects a view because the view has been rejected based on arguments from 5, 10, etc. years ago. Since there’s apparently no “new” arguments, author rejects it.
Issue: There COULD be newer arguments that the author fails to take into account.
What Makes LR Questions Harder.
Harder questions are usually more challenging because of the nuances and the little details. Take a minute to reconsider what the conclusion is and take a minute to reconsider the strength and scope of the conclusion (weak, strong, absolute). If you’re stuck, that’s typically where the trap answer lies.
Weaken structure: Author concludes that the present quantifiable circumstances suggests the rate of a phenomenon that will occur. You don’t actually have the rate.
Issue: We don’t actually know the rate/speed of the phenomenon. The result could take so much longer or shorter.
Ex: Littering began in the lake 20 years ago. Now, there’s 10 pieces of plastic per pound. A dangerous amount of litter is 50 pieces of plastic per pound. Therefore, the current rate will make the lake irreversibly dangerous in the next few years.
In the next few years??? All we have is the 1) date of start 2) the current numbers.
If it took 20 years to get 10pp/lb, then it would likely take ANOTHER 20 years to get to 20 pp/lb. Therefore, we can’t conclude that the dangerous levels will occur in the next few years.
MSS Strength of AC
Remember, it’s supposed to be a weak AC. Provable.
Strategy: Figuring out What Is the Conclusion
Slap a “therefore” before the statement and see if it seems supported.
Wrong Answer Red Flag: Distinction between rate and exact quantity
Be on the watch for the distinction between rate (increase/decrease) and the exact quantity in the answer choices (if the passage is talking about rate, then usually the correct AC will talk about rate as well and vice versa)
Wrong Answer Red Flag NA: very specific and absolute language
A mere requirement for an argument is likely going to be weak in nature BUT that doesn’t mean that the correct answer will never have absolute language.
Wrong Answer Red Flag: Reversal
The answer choice will reverse the direction of the support, but it will have the two matching elements from the passage.
Passage: Obesity causes health issues.
AC: Health issues are caused by obesity.
Don’t automatically dismiss an AC that seems to go in the wrong direction. Could it be a contrapositive?
More common conclusions—Prediction and Comparison
Prediction: Author will project a course of action/thing will either succeed or fail. Weaken? Show disadvantages. Strengthen? Show advantages or strengths.
Comparative: Author will conclude that X is superior to Y in some way. Weaken: Show that Y somehow rivals it or has a hidden advantage to X. Strengthen: Show that X is distinctly advantageous over Y in some way.
(In tricky passages, the author will say something like Yoga is an effective mental health exercise, because people in group X did yoga and therapy and people in group Y did therapy and traditional self-help groups. . . In this case, you would want to establish that self-help groups are effective, because the similarities of variables (therapy) cancels out.)
Weaken Structure: Pay attention to when two competing theories are introduced. The premise will insinuate that one theory does not align with the other one (usually mainstream/popular/etc.). And therefore, it’s incorrect.
With two theories, we have not been shown that one is superior to the other.
PT 51 S2.15
Weaken Structure: Possible but doesn’t have to be (explanation sneaky)
Structure: There’s an attribute that can be attributed to a group, a person, a theory, etc. Conclusion explains what happened is BECAUSE of that attribute.
(They prefer to live in large cities. P) The citizens most often selected Tampa in their preferred place to live, it’s also the largest city in the area.)
It just so happens that it’s the largest city, but does that mean they CHOSE that city because of size? Not necessarily! Could be alternative reasons.
Explanation Structure: Something being SUFFICIENT to bring about an event does not mean it’s the ONLY way to bring about that cause.
Methane is fragile and releases into the atmosphere when UV light touches it.
All methane in the atmosphere has been released recently.
Notice giveaway for explanation types is often the strength of the conclusion.
When UV light touch then methane releases.
What if UV light is not the only way to release methane into the atmosphere? It’s just one sufficient cause. There can be others..
