Strengthen/Weaken Questions
Learning to identify an argument's central
assumption is crucial not only for assumption questions, but for other
question types as well. Strengthen/Weaken questions, which ask
you to either strengthen or weaken an argument, almost always depend
on your ability to identify the central assumption.
Let's go back to our Central High School volleyball
players.
The argument looked like this:
Sally plays volleyball for Central High School.
Therefore, Sally must be over six feet tall.
The best way to weaken an argument is to attack the
central assumption.
Weaken: Show that not all volleyball players for
Central High are over 6 feet tall.
Countinue
This statement undermines the central assumption, and
weakens the author's argument that just because Sally plays volleyball
for Central High, she must be over 6 feet tall. If not all of the players
are over 6 feet tall, then we don't know how tall Sally is, and the author's
conclusion that she must be over 6 feet tall is weakened.