October 2010 LSAT Section 1 Question 1

By referring to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as "purely programmatic" (line 49) in nature, the author mo...

ScottPalmer on January 11, 2019

Ways to Strengthen

Is there a complete list of ways to strengthen an argument that can be utilized as a protocol when encountering these questions? For example, with S + N we have the protocol of checking if it 1. Strengthens, and 2. Destroys the argument when negated. For the general strengthen questions, "most strongly supports the explanation in the argument; provides the most support for the proposal.. etc." Is there a course of identification and action we can take, I see that eliminating an alternative cause is one way, are there others?

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Ravi on January 11, 2019

@ScottPalmer,

Great question. For strengthen questions, it there are a number of
different ways that a correct answer choice could 'strengthen' an
argument, including strengthening the connection between the
premise(s) and conclusion and weakening alternative
causes/explanations. These can take many different forms, so
strengthen questions are not as formulaic as sufficient and necessary
assumption questions.

The best thing you can do with general strengthen questions (that is,
strengthen questions that don't have necessary or sufficient premises)
is to focus on understanding which gaps are present in the argument
and thinking about those gaps as holes that need to be patched up.

Then, when going into the answers, relate each of the choices to the
holes you found, and see if the answer choice helps fill the hole.

TL;DR: because general strengthen questions are so broad, there's not
a formula that you can follow like you can with strengthen with a
necessary premise and strengthen with a sufficient premise questions.

Does this make sense? Let us know if you have any more questions!

ScottPalmer on January 11, 2019

Thank you, yes it does make sense.

Are the gaps we need to strengthen usually the ones linking the premise and conclusion?

Anna20 on May 31, 2020

Please could you clarify the methods for determining whether a question stem is strengthen, strengthen with necessary premise or strengthen with sufficient premise? Many thanks!

Anna20 on June 2, 2020

Please can I follow up on this. Thank you!