September 2018 LSAT Section 2 Question 12

An independent computer service company tallied the service requests it receives for individual brands of personal co...

rswafra on September 5, 2022

Why is B strong enough to weaken?

B was my first gut reaction and matched by anticipation; however, the "some computer brands but not others" part made it really suspicious to me because it seemed too weak and could apply to anything but not the two at hand. So I went with A because maybe it indicated that ProBit isn't that much more reliable because it is clustered with a bunch of others (think the more reliable part in the conclusion was an overall more, than a comparative more). I still didn't like A either. Any tips on weaken questions --- I feel like too often I pick too weak of an answers so I've been careful about strength, but clearly there are times where it can be pretty weak but still weaken overall...

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Emil-Kunkin on September 6, 2022

Hi Rswafra,

I would worry less about the relative strength or weakness of answer choices. Ultimately, only one answer choice will weaken/strengthen an argument, and that one could be phrased quite strongly or quite weakly.

A does not weaken the argument- the fact that other brands are better/worse than the two brands in question does not have any impact on the relative quality of these two brands.

For a weaken question, the right answer will be the only one that undermines the relation between the premises and the conclusion, or gives us reason to doubt the argument. Even if it's phrased in general terms like B is, it still weakens.