Weaken Questions

Welcome back. Hopefully you have not quit studying for the LSAT by now. We will be tackling Weaken questions, and along the way we will introduce the next key skill for LR sections: talking to yourself (there is a reason people go mad studying for the LSAT after all).

Identifying the Question Type

As always, read the question stem first. For Weaken questions, it will look something like this:

Which one of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the argument?
Which one of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?
Which one of the following statements, if true, most calls into question the view above?

The GOAL

When solving Weaken questions, you are given an argument and your job is to find an answer choice that, if true, makes the conclusion less plausible. Simple enough on the surface. But when arguments get wordy and complicated, it becomes easy to accidentally pick an answer that strengthens the argument or does nothing at all.

To prevent this, we introduce the GOAL. After reading the stimulus and identifying the conclusion, you state a goal to yourself before reading the answer choices. Then, after reading each answer choice, you ask: have I reached my goal?

Let's work through an example.

Example 1

Aviral and Mann have been roommates for two years. During this time, Aviral has consistently paid his share of rent on time, kept common areas clean, and resolved disagreements calmly. Therefore, Mann concludes that Aviral is a highly responsible and reliable person in general, and thus a perfect fit for the position of treasurer of their graduate student association.

First, identify the conclusion: "Aviral is a perfect fit for the position of treasurer of their graduate student association."

Now make the GOAL:

GOAL: Find an answer choice that makes it more plausible that Aviral is NOT a perfect fit for the treasurer position.

Seems obvious, but stating it explicitly prevents stupid mistakes. And as my math teacher used to say: there's no such thing as a stupid mistake — after all she'd never heard of anyone making an intelligent one. Mistakes are Mistakes and they will cost you on the LSAT.

Now we go through the answer choices and ask after each one: have I reached my goal?

A. The treasurer position requires attending weekly meetings on Friday evenings.

B. Aviral has served as a web developer for an undergraduate club and was widely praised for his coding skills.

C. Several other candidates have significantly more experience in finance than Aviral.

D. Aviral is horrible with money, and even when it comes to rent, he is constantly reminded by his wonderful girlfriend to pay it on time.

E. Mann has recommended other friends for positions in the past, and those recommendations were poor ones.

Think of an answer choice before moving on. Have one in mind? Let's analyze each!

Click to reveal

A. The treasurer position requires attending weekly meetings on Friday evenings.

Does this help us prove Aviral is NOT a perfect fit for the position? No it does not. We have no idea what Aviral's availability is. Who says he cannot attend on Fridays. Therefore, this cannot be the correct answer as it does not make the conclusion less plausible. Eliminate.

B. Aviral has served as a web developer of an undergraduate club and was widely praised for his coding skills.

Does this help us prove Aviral is NOT a perfect fit for the position? No it does not. We have no idea if having good coding skills correlates with being a bad treasurer or not. Therefore, this cannot be the correct answer as it does not make the conclusion less plausible. Eliminate.

C. Several other candidates have significantly more experience in finance than Aviral.

Does this help us prove Aviral is NOT a perfect fit for the position? Well, just because other people have more experience in finance compared to Aviral, why would that make Aviral not the perfect candidate as well. There can be more than one perfect candidate and Aviral may possess some skills useful as the treasurer that others may not have. Therefore, this cannot be the correct answer as it does not make the conclusion less plausible. Eliminate.

D. Aviral is horrible with money, and even when it comes to rent, he is constantly reminded by his wonderful girlfriend to pay it on time.

Does this help us prove Aviral is NOT a perfect fit for the position? It absolutely does. This explicitly tells us that Aviral is not good with money, something that we would expect a treasurer to be good at. Moreover, the premise that he pays rent on time is also countered by the fact that he is reminded by his girlfriend.

This perfectly helps us in reaching our goal as it does show that Aviral IS NOT a perfect fit for the position of the treasurer. We keep this.

E. Mann has recommended other friends for positions in the past, and those recommendations were poor ones.

Does this help us prove Aviral is NOT a perfect fit for the position? No it does not. Just because Mann has recommended other people who did not turn out well, that does not tell us anything about Aviral. In our reasoning, we are not using Mann's past record to show if Aviral is a good fit or not. Eliminate.

After analyzing each answer choice, we pick Option D.

Now, do you need to write out this elaborate analysis every time? Hell no. You won't have the time. The point of this exercise is to show you how to think about each answer choice.

In practice, the minimum you need to do is: state a GOAL, read each answer choice, and ask yourself whether you have reached it. No elaborate justification required. As soon as you read an answer choice and realize it does not help you reach the goal, cross it off and move on.

If you are down to two options and cannot decide, that is when you slow down and think more carefully about one of them.

And yes, I do talk to myself when solving these. I read an answer choice, realize it does nothing, say to myself "this is useless", cross it off, and move on. Keeping that internal monologue active helps you stay sharp on every elimination.

Example 2

This one is harder. A new concept is going to come in play here, so pay attention.

Aviral and Mann, both recent computer science graduates, have been roommates for two years. Throughout that time, Aviral consistently debugged Mann's personal coding projects quickly and accurately. Mann is now a software engineer at a large technology firm, and his team has an opening for a new hire. Mann argues that because Aviral diagnosed and fixed complex bugs in Mann's code so reliably, Aviral would be an effective member of his engineering team. After all, strong debugging ability is widely considered the most reliable indicator of overall software engineering competence.

Identify the conclusion: "Aviral would be an effective member of Mann's engineering team."

GOAL: Find an answer choice that makes it more plausible that Aviral would NOT be an effective member of Mann's engineering team.

Try the answer choices yourself before reading on.

A. Aviral is most comfortable in a single programming language, whereas Mann's team regularly works across several different languages and technology stacks.

B. Debugging code written by someone you know well and have collaborated with closely is never indicative of your performance as an engineer in a company.

C. Mann's firm requires all new hires to pass a standardized technical interview regardless of personal recommendations.

D. Sometimes Aviral struggles a lot in solving bugs involving recursion.

E. Mann has sometimes made errors in his own code that even Aviral was unable to identify.

Click to reveal

Answer Choice	Think this to yourself
A	Aviral only knows one language but the team uses many. This could make him an ineffective member. Keep for now.
B	If debugging a close collaborator's code is never a valid indicator of professional performance, the entire basis of Mann's argument collapses. This directly attacks the evidence. Keep for now.
C	Who says Aviral cannot pass the interview? This does not help us establish whether he would be effective or not. Eliminate.
D	Well not solving bugs dealing with recursion sounds important enough. This could make Aviral an ineffective member. Keep for now.
E	Sure, Aviral sometimes cannot solve bugs made by Mann. This could help us establish he wont be an effective member. Keep for now.

We are left with A, B, D, and E. Only C was eliminated outright. Crap, now what?

Strong vs. Weak Answer Choices

Since Weaken questions ask for the answer that most weakens the argument, we need to think about the strength of each remaining option.

Strong answer choices use all-encompassing language: always, never, all, most, significantly.

Weak answer choices use limited language: sometimes, some, few, many, several, could be, not necessarily.

If you remember from the conditional reasoning chapters, a "some" statement only requires at least one instance to be true. Weak answer choices are essentially variants of "some."

Now look at D and E again with this in mind.

D: Sometimes Aviral struggles with recursion bugs. "Sometimes" means at least once. So in the worst case, this happened exactly one time in his entire life. Does one failed recursion bug make Aviral an ineffective engineer? Not really. This is a weak answer choice.

E: Aviral has sometimes been unable to identify Mann's bugs. Same logic. "Sometimes" means at least once. If it happened only once, does that make Aviral ineffective? No. Another weak answer choice.

You might push back and say: "sometimes" could also mean nearly every time. And you would be right. But that ambiguity is exactly the problem. Because "sometimes" could mean just once, the answer choice does not reliably weaken the argument. A strong answer choice, one with no escape routes, will always weaken the argument. A weak answer choice might, depending on how generously you read it. When a stronger option exists, the weak ones are wrong and need to be eliminated.

Now we are down to A and B.

A: Aviral only knows one language, but the team uses many. This is a reasonable weakener. But there is an escape route: who says Aviral cannot learn the other languages, or already knows them at a basic level? The answer choice does not rule that out, which limits how much damage it does.

B: Debugging code written by a close collaborator is never indicative of professional engineering performance. This one has no escape routes. It directly attacks the core premise Mann is relying on — that Aviral's debugging track record with Mann predicts his performance on the job. If that premise is invalid, the entire argument falls apart. And "never" is strong language with no wiggle room.

After analyzing each answer choice, we pick Option B

One Important Caveat

Does a weak answer choice always lose? No. A weak answer choice can still be correct if there are no stronger options available. What makes an answer choice weak is that it is weaker relative to the correct answer. When a stronger weakener exists, the weaker ones lose. When nothing stronger is available, a weak one can win.

Wrong Answer Choices

Let's quickly go over the patterns of wrong answer choices in Weaken questions.

Does nothing for us: The most common type. The answer choice simply does not help you reach your goal. You read it and think: so what?

Weak statement: The answer choice does technically help you reach the goal, but not as convincingly as the correct answer. These are the hardest to eliminate, especially when you are deciding between two surviving options.

Strengthens the argument: These answer choices go in the wrong direction entirely and would actually make the conclusion more plausible. They obviously do not help you reach your goal, but they can be tempting if you misread the argument.

Except Alert

Weaken questions are a popular destination for except questions. You may find stems like these:

Each of the following, if true, weakens the argument above EXCEPT:
Each of the following, if true, would call into question Mann's conclusion EXCEPT:

In this case, four answer choices will weaken the argument and one will not. That one outlier could either strengthen the argument or do nothing at all. Both are valid options here, since neither actually weakens the argument.

Your GOAL for this kind of question becomes: find the answer choice that does NOT make the conclusion less plausible.

TL;DR

Read the question stem and confirm this is a Weaken question.
Know the stimulus will be an argument and go in looking for the conclusion.
Read the stimulus and highlight the main conclusion.
Form a GOAL: the negation of the conclusion — what would need to be true for the conclusion to fall apart.
Read all five answer choices, asking after each one whether your goal has been reached. Eliminate anything that does nothing, strengthens the argument, or is too weak relative to better options. What remains is your answer. Your answer would typically have nice STRONG language (but not always).

EZ!

That is a lot of material, and I think we have officially exhausted the use of Aviral and Mann. The only way to get better now is to practice with new characters and new arguments — which is exactly what you will find in the real LSAT questions below.

After you finish the drill, go touch some grass. Weaken questions are among the most common question types on the LR section, so it is crucial to get these locked in.

GLHF!