[Anonymous]

So I would like to start a conversation on eliminating answer choices, with emphasis on assumption family questions. (nesscesary, sufficient, strengthen, weaken, flawed, etc.)
I tend to be really good at eliminating on necessary and flawed questions. What advice could you guys give? I know drilling by type helps. I think it’s why i have improved on flawed and necessary assumption questions. I would love to hear from as many experts as possible in regards to how one should improve on elimination skills. What happens when you go into a test, and you see the gap, but you can’t really articulate it? How should I think about the argument with respect to elimination? I tend to focus on the conclusion. How should one think about the answer choices in relation to the argument when you can’t really articulate the assumption in a way that makes sense?

So, I realize I asked a lot of questions, and as I said earlier, I’m hoping to have more than one person answer. I don’t want anyone to feel like they have to answer all of these questions..unless of course you want to lol.

My goal is to really hone my skills in this area. Past the point of being just ok at it(which I think I am).

[dannypearlberg]

Here are a few thoughts to start with:

(1) If you see the gap but can’t really articulate it, I would encourage you to spend a bit more time working on being able to articulate it- the extra time spent up front figuring out the stimulus really pays off when going through the answer choices. Out of the question types that you listed, I think sufficient assumption questions are probably the most important to always try to articulate how to fill in the gap before moving on to the answer choices.

(2) This is one of the things that is important to cover during review- not just understanding why the correct answer is correct and why the incorrect answers are incorrect, but also going back to the stimulus and seeing how you could have articulated the gap before going into the answer choices.

(3) The correct answer on necessary assumption questions tends to use weaker language “it is possible that once in a while smoking isn’t the best thing for you” in comparison with the correct answer on sufficient assumption questions, which tend to use stronger language “smoking is always bad for you”. So, on necessary assumption questions, some answer choices are more likely to be incorrect simply on the basis of the language being too strong, and on sufficient assumption questions, some answer choices are more likely to be incorrect simply on the basis of the language being too weak. While this isn’t a foolproof method, it can help.

I know this doesn’t come close to answering all of your questions, hope it helps a little bit 🙂

[Anonymous]

Thanks Danny! Yeah, the necessary and Sufficient are two are my better question types. I really want to consistently be able get down to 2 answer choices -which I struggle with on Str/weak questions-