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AndrewArabieApril 21, 2023
Strengthening by defense
I find the greatest difficulties I have with strengthen questions have to do with not understanding how the AC impact the argument. This is almost invariably with ACs that defend against a possible objection. Is the right strategy for approaching strengthen questions to first find a way to weaken it?
Emil, since Im sure you'll answer this, what is your approach to harder strengthen questions? What is your step-by-step method of analysis before heading to the answer choices?
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I'll start by saying that personally, I think that hard strengthen questions are the single hardest question type, with the possible exception of rule replacements in Lg. I would say that generally you're right, we should start by finding ways to attack the argument. Ultimately it's hard to strengthen something if you don't know what's wrong with it, so my first step will always be to try to attack the argument, and if I have a line of attack I like, there's a good chance a correct answer will rebut my attack.
However, this doesn't work all the time. Sometimes there will be multiple flaws in an argument, sometimes we can make an honest effort but still not figure out a decent line of attack. When this happens, I keep an open mind in the answer choices and try to answer the question "what, if anything, does this have to do with the argument." Essentially im using process of elimination at this point, but usually that helps me knock out clearly irrelevant or weakener answers, at which point I can look at the remaining ones and try to determine how, if at all, they might rebut a counter argument.
The method I described is always plan B. Plan A is always to find the flaw, but if that fails, I'd try plan b,
