CR strategies

[ashish.jere]

This is in reference with all CR questions.

1. How do i identify an answer choice that is out of scope?

2. Is it wise to read just the initial few words of an answer choice and throw it out?

Please advise.Thanks.

[JonathanSchneider]

1 - To get a sense of what is out of scope, you need to first understand the actual scope of the argument. I am a big proponent of diagramming as a way to keep you focused on the text. Let's say, for instance, that an argument boils down to this:

Libraries have seen a decline in visitors over the past decade.
Those who still use libraries often do so only for internet access.
Previous users, who were primarily interested in books, have begun to use large book stores instead, as these bookstores have newer collections, allow browsing, and often have comfortable chairs and cafes.
Thus, in order to reverse the decline in visitors, libraries should increase internet access.

If you were asked to weaken this argument, you would want to focus on the actual conclusion: to reverse the decline, libraries should increase internet access.

Now, let us imagine that a choice reads: "Libraries began to discontinue subscriptions to most magazines in the past year." This is out of scope. While it may seem that this choice provides an alternate reason for the decline in visitors, not that this choice mentions "in the past year," whereas the decline has been happening for a decade. Moreover, the argument is about internet access, and the only other point mentioned was about books. Something about newspapers is not warranted here.

2 - Sometimes. Specifically, for "boldface" questions: if you know that a boldface is evidence, and the choice begins "the first is the conclusion," then you don't have to read any further. The rest of the time, however, I'd beware of this strategy.

[ashish.jere]

Thanks for the clarification.

[Ben Ku]

Glad it helped.