Confusing Question Stems

Question

Hi All,

I am having a bit of confusion in classifying the stems which say:
Which of the following would be most useful to establish the above said?
or ,
It will be most helpful to find out which of the following?
or,
which of the following is most useful to determine?

I remain confused between Must be true and the assumptions here.

Please help !

Thanks in advance !

prashanmdgl9 · Answer

I think all of the above belong to the Evaluate the argument type question sets.

bcrawl · Answer

Yes, I feel the same way.

Usually, books say strategy is to

Look at Stem,
understand Structure of Argument,
brainstorm possible answers, 
Eliminate Wrong Answers, 
Pick an answer

But when it comes to this set of questions, I just get mad. The part of "brainstorm possible answers" doesnot fit in this type of questions. Either way, you have to read the damn argument again everytime you go over an answer.... I hate ittttt. Stupid CRs. Might aswell just take 2 mins and pick an answer and move on.

Somebody plz give us poor guys a link or something..

prashanmdgl9 · Answer

I think I can at least help you out with the strategy, Do not read the Stem first. Read the stimulus/argument, then read the stem and then try to form the answer in your mind, for weaken and strengthen , you can look for alternate causes . Also, look for the choices which strengthen or weaken the premises. Read the answer choices carefully always, be wary of those choices which have words and subjects which are similar to those in the argument but say something else.
Look for the answer choices which uses strong words e.g. ALL, NONE etc , these can help you in finding the scope.
For scope you also need to think about whats being said in passage.If the passage talks about past, then remain in past. any choice which says about the same event in present is ought to be wrong.
These are few pointers.

KapTeacherEli · Answer

Hi folks,

The questions in the original post are indeed "evaluate" questions. If there a little confusing to you, think of them in terms of hybrid strengthen/weaken question. The correct answer choice to an evaluate question will be a question or an unknown variable for which  one possible response  strengthens the argument in the stimulus, but  another possible response  weakens the argument in the stimulus.

For example, if an evaluation stimulus was, "The toxic Chemical X tastes like candy, and has the potential to tempt children to consume it; we must require by law that additional chemicals be added to Chemical X to make it taste bad, to protect our children," a proper answer choice might be: "Is chemical X a household chemical common in homes with children?" If we say "Yes" to the answer choice, then the argument is strengthened--we need to take steps to protect our children. But if we say "No," then the argument falls apart: we don't need to change the taste of an industrial chemical used only in factories where children aren't allowed! Since different responses to the answer choice can alternately strengthen or weaken the stimulus, we know we have the correct answer to the evaluation questions.

I hope this helps!

prashanmdgl9 · Answer

Thanks Eli !!!
It definitely helped

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