Weaken & Strengthen Questions
Weaken and strengthen questions are exactly what they sound like - they ask what would improve or undercut a particular argument. A minor variation just asks what would be relevant in assessing the strength of the argument.
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1. Records show that many settlements existed on the coast of Greenland centuries ago but were submerged by rising oceans caused by higher global temperature. Since this “Medieval Warm Period” was before the widespread use of fossil fuels and was much greater than any current changes in global temperature or sea levels, it follows that the much smaller contemporary changes in temperature are nothing that anyone should be worried about.
Which one of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?
(A) Temperatures have increased in the last few decades at a greater rate than evidence suggests they increased during the first few decades of the Medieval Warm Period.
(B) It often takes the better part of a century for the effects of an increase in global temperature to be noticed.
(C) External forces such as variances in solar intensity or distance between the Earth and the Sun continue to impact global temperature today, just as they did during the Medieval Warm Period.
(D) The exact cause of the Medieval Warm Period is still unknown.
(E) The Medieval Warm Period was the only known period in recent history with such an documentedincrease in temperature and sea levels.
2. Leonard Charles Wyon was a famous engraver whose work is found on many old coins. These Wyon coins in the family estate, while valuable now, will continue to increase in value as time goes on. Thus, even if the heirs have no interest in the coins, they should hang on to them for some time so that their value increases and they can obtain more money for them.
Each one of the following would weaken the argument above EXCEPT:
(A) The coins will likely appreciate in value less than their selling price would if invested in other assets.
(B) The family estate has other coins which are worth much more than the Wyon coins.
(C) Sale of the coins will likely produce a much greater tax liability if it happens in the future.
(D) Keeping the coins will require insuring them or risking that they will be lost or stolen, a high probability for items of the sort.
(E) Many of the heirs have pressing financial needs and many debts which they are having difficultypaying.
3. Banker: Typically lenders do not want to deal with people with a very poor credit history and limited income because of the high likelihood these borrowers will default on their loans. However, there are more factors than just income and credit history in determining propensity to repay loans. Smaller loans which are secured by collateral are quite likely to be repaid, regardless of the borrowers’ history. Our bank could probably make a great deal of money lending to those to who no one else will lend in small, secured amounts.
Which one of the following principles most helps to justify the banker’s reasoning?
(A) Actions which provide a valuable service for a fee to those who are otherwise unable to obtain that service will be profitable.
(B) Many people undergo significant changes and reforms throughout their lives.
(C) If a practice is typical for a particular industry, then it has an advantage over other practices in that industry.
(D) Propensity for default is not a primary concern in determining whether to lend a customer money.
(E) It is better to accomplish a task through a series of small steps than through one large comprehensive step.
4. Psychologist: Young children do not begin to understand the concept of love or romantic relationships until around the age seven, after which they begin to develop a comprehension of the topic. Therefore, parents should not read their children a story with a romantic element in it because the children will not be able to enjoy it.
In evaluating the psychologist’s argument, it would be most important to know
(A) how much a story is render unenjoyable by virtue of its hearer not being able to understand a concept in it
(B) whether there are a sufficient number of stories for children available that do not have a romantic element
(C) whether the loss of enjoyment due to children’s lack of understanding is sufficient to justify a cessation of reading them stories.
(D) whether people who were read stories with foreign concepts as children are more likely to develop psychological problems in adulthood
(E) to what extend a romantic theme is vitallyimportant in most children’s stories.
5. Chef: These dishes I made are recreations of delicacies eaten in the Middle Ages. However, they probably are much better to eat than anything that would’ve been prepared during that time, given our better ovens and cooking utensils.
Each one of the following would weaken the Chef’s argument EXCEPT:
(A) Cuisine eaten during the Middle Ages was prepared by cooks who commonly cooked it and consulted with many others who cooked it for the best recipe.
(B) No kitchen implement used in cuisine of the Middle Ages has received any significant improvement since then.
(C) Recipes from the Middle Ages were designed with the more naturally-raised foods of the time in mind,
which were significantly different in flavor and function than any modern substitutes.
(D) The ingredients used in delicacies fromp the Middle Agesare much more commonly available today.
(E) Recipes in the Middle Ages accounted for various problems with ovens of the era, such as varied heat.
6. Principal: Symbolism was indeed an important literary art form and Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal is a quintessential symbolist work. Nonetheless, it should not be read by young students in an English class because the work is too provocative for their generally immature minds. Young students could barely handle the encounter between Circe and Oddyseus when reading the Oddysey.
Which one of the following, if true, would most weaken the principal’s conclusion?
(A) Les Fleurs du Mal is only provocative in a very different way than any part of the Oddysey.
(B) Many students at other high schools are not too immature to be able to respectably read and discuss Les Fleurs du Mal.
(C) One needs to read a quintessential symbolist work such as Les Fleurs du Mal to understand contemporary literature like romanticism.
(D) Themes in more benign readings that would be used instead could also potentially be provocative to students.
(E) Les Fleurs du Mal requires discussion and deconstruction for students to understand, while the Oddysey is straightforward.
7. Journalist: The workers at the nearby power plant recently went on strike a few years ago, and all the strikers were fired by management and replaced. Despite the fact that it cost more to train the new employees that it would have cost to give the strikers what they wanted, the power plant still made the right decision.
Which one of the following principles, if true, most helps to justify the journalist's reasoning?
(A) If striking workers are given what they want in a strike, they are more likely to strike in the future and demand even more.
(B) If management is capable of replacing striking workers without difficulty, than it is a mistake for those workers to go on strike.
(C) It is better to compromise with an adverse party than to keep ignoring that party’s demands until it exercises its powers in a situation.
(D) Only those workers who demand less than the cost of training replacement workers will be successfulin striking.
(E) Keeping operating costs down is more importantthan ensuring worker happiness.
8. Conservationist: We can get a good idea of where these wood ducks migrated from by what is in their stomach. Wood ducks typically eat seeds and nuts, which can be traced to particular plants. If a particular seed or nut is of a plant unique to a geographic location, it means the wood duck must have nested there.
Which one of the following, if true, most seriously calls into question the process described by the conservationist?
(A) Wood ducks can be tracked in their migratory patterns using radio tags which do not require inspecting stomach contents
(B) Wood ducks often eat a substantial amount of seeds and nuts along their migration path.
(C) Most types of seeds and nuts are not unique to any particular geographic region.
(D) There is only scant data on the plethora of seeds and nuts that wood ducks eat.
(E) It is difficult to identify the seeds and nuts in a wood duck’s stomach with perfect accuracy.
9. Mayor: While our city is a candidate to host the waterskiing derby this summer, and while this would admittedly be a great benefit to local businesses, it is unwise of us to spend large sums of money beautifying the city and equipping it to host the tournament. We would still only have a small chance of hosting the tournament, and if another city is picked, we will have spent all the money for nothing. Moreover, we could put the money toward repaving many city streets and making other infrastructure repairs, and this benefit would be guaranteed, if smaller.
Which one of the following principles, if established, most helps to justify the reasoning above?
(A) It should be a higher priority to deal with mundane things like fixing city streets than to put effort toward larger, more glorious ends.
(B) Money should not be spent, and effort should not be expended, for nothing.
(C) It is better to make decisions pursuant to a long-term plan as opposed to a short-term one.
(D) It is preferable to put effort toward a less beneficial but guaranteed result than toward a more desirable result that is unlikely to happen.
(E) A city should put its infrastructure before the interests of local businesses.
10. Carrie won this month’s poker tournament at Shooters’ Resort. She made most of her money against over-confident older players, bidding very high and then winning a large sum of money from them on several spectacular hands. Because Carrie was young and arguably naive looking, many older poker players did not think she knew what she was doing. Carrie recognized this and used it to her advantage. Thus, her victory in the poker tournament was the result of opponents’ underestimation of her, and her ability to use it to her advantage.
Each of the following strengthens the argument
EXCEPT:
(A) Older poker players are typically used to younger, inexperienced players bidding higher than they should be.
(B) Carrie had never played in a tournament at Shooters’ Resort before.
(C) Carrie did not win as much money in the tournament from players who had been playing poker for only a year or two.
(D) In previous poker tournaments, Carrie did not try to take advantage of any opponents’ underestimation of her.
(E) A player who wins a large sum of money on a few good hands is more likely to win a pokertournament.
11. This painting, titled Fear, seems to actually stimulate an adrenaline rush in people who view it. An experiment assembled a group of people and asked them to view the painting. Researchers then monitored the subjects’ adrenaline levels, and found that on average, their adrenaline levels had increased.
Which one of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument?
(A) The stimulation of adrenaline production is currently not well understood.
(B) Adrenaline is a response not only to fear stimuli, but anger as well.
(C) Being subject to an experiment where one views a painting and is monitored does not affect adrenaline levels.
(D) Auditory and olfactory stimuli have been shown in multiple experiments to increase levels of adrenaline.
(E) Most people in the study described the painting asbeing scary and frightening.
12. Richard Wagner wrote some of the most renowned and recognizable works in the history of music, the depth and complexity of which is rivaled by few. For this reason, he should be considered one of history’s great composers, notwithstanding the fact that Wagner himself was a bigoted egomaniac.
Which one of the following principles would most help to justify the reasoning above?
(A) A person should still be considered great even if they possessed some negative characteristics so long as the good characteristics outweigh the bad.
(B) When determining whether a person is great in a particular field, factors unrelated to that field are irrelevant to the determination.
(C) A person should be considered great if no one else can rival their work in any way in a given field.
(D) No person should be considered great unless the depth and complexity of that person’s work is rivaled by few.
(E) If someone has undesirable personality traits, that person can nonetheless be considered great in their field if they overcome these undesirable traits.
13. Many people refraining from eating any animal products. But most people who do not eat meat will still consume dairy products, eggs, and other foods made from part of an animal as long as this does not involve hurting the animal. Dairy products, however, involve inhumane things such as capturing an animal and forcing labor upon it, as do eggs and invariably any other animal product. Therefore, most people who do not eat meat are still prolonging inhumane things to be inflicted on animals.
Which one of the following most strengthens the argument?
(A) People who consume things, the production of which involves inhumane treatment of animals, are invariably assuring the continued existence such inhumane behavior.
(B) Inhumane treatment of animals would be substantially reduced if a large fraction of the population refrained from eating animal products like eggs.
(C) The primary reason that people refrain from eating meat is stopping inhumane treatment of animals.
(D) Most people who eat meat also eat other animal products such as dairy and eggs.
(E) There are few people who wish to abandon eatingall products produced by animals entirely.
14. Investing on the stock market independently usually yields a higher return than paying into a mutual fund or pension plan. However, making such investments requires extensive knowledge and scholarship on the stock market, as well as diversification – the purchase of many different assets – so that the decrease in value of one will not wipe out the entire investment. Nonetheless, the high rate of return means that it is generally more desirable for most people to simply invest in the stock market a mutual fund or pension plan.
Each of the following, if true, strengthens the argument EXCEPT
(A) Most people have at least some basic understanding of the stock market and are capable of learning more.
(B) The average person has enough money to buy sufficient assets to diversify a group of investments in the stock market.
(C) For most people, the effort required to learn about the stock market extensively is generally no more than that expended in selecting a mutual fund or pension plan.
(D) There are many guides to investing in the stock market available that are easy to understand.
(E) Many employers do not provide for employeepension plans or mutual funds.
15. The local agriculture commission conducted a survey of local irrigated soybean crops. While ordinarily over-irrigated or under-irrigated crops have a lower crop yield, in the survey, over-irrigated soybean fields saw the excess water simply drain away from the field unless the field was such that this drainage was inhibited. It follows that farmers need not worry about over-irrigating their soybean crop unless there is currently no way for excess water to drain. Which one of the following, if true, most weakens the argument?
(A) Agriculturalists do not currently understand all the risks associated with over-irrigation.
(B) Over-irrigation is not as harmful to crops already without adequate drainage for the water.
(C) Excessive irrigation can cause a field with adequate drainage to eventually have inadequate drainage.
(D) All productive soybean crops need to be irrigated to some extent.
(E) Any excess irrigation will ultimately drain awayfrom a soybean field over a period of time.
16. The local taxicab company claims that it does not go to or from Belcourt because it is too long of a drive from their operating center. However, the company has no problem taking customers to the airport, which is almost as long of a distance away as Belcourt, and it also serves Montdale, which is a slightly shorter distance from its operating center than the airport. The real reason the taxicab company does not go to or from Belcourt is because of the high crime in that city.
The answer to which one of the following questions would be most useful in evaluating the strength of the argument above?
(A) What is the typical driving time from the taxicab company’s operating center to Belcourt as opposed to Montdale and the airport?
(B) What other reasons does the taxicab company typically give for not traveling to or from a given area?
(C) How many other taxicab companies go to and from Belcourt?
(D) What businesses other than the taxicab company travel to and from the airport?
(E) What other reasons would a taxicab company secretly have for not going to or from a particular area?
17. There is always a thick fog around the cliffs near Mecklenburg airport, often called “cliff fog.” Unlike most rolling fogs, it always tends to crop up and linger. Local meteorologists claim that the cliff fog is the result of the hot mainland abruptly intersecting with the cold ocean. Indeed, they have simulated the ocean current’s interaction with the mainland in a controlled model and seen the same result – thick cliff fog.
Which one of the following principles, if valid, most supports the conclusion of the meteorologists?
(A) If a model uncovers numerical errors by those who prepared the model, then the predictions of the preparers are likely to be wrong.
(B) A model built to exact scale can simulate things in the real world perfectly.
(C) If a model can capture an actual meteorological event then it can be used to predict other occurrences of that event.
(D) If a model designed to simulate something in the real world yields the same result as in the real world, then the phenomena simulated in the model are probably the cause of that result.
(E) Any model based on a correct theory can be used to show how that theory is in fact true.
18. Historian: In 1494, the Spanish and Portuguese signed the Treaty of Tordesillas, dividing the world into hemispheres that would be exclusively sailed and explored by each nation. The dividing line of the treaty was placed at a rather arbitrary location some leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands and thus included part of Brazil, which was unknown to the Spanish. Because there would’ve been no logical reason to place the line such a distance west of the Cape Verde Islands if no land was known to exist there, I submit that the Portuguese had already secretly discovered Brazil, possibly before the voyages of Columbus.
Which one of the following statements, if true, most strengthens the historian’s argument?
(A) The Portuguese had been making long voyages into the Atlantic Ocean near Brazil for much of the 15th century.
(B) After the Treaty of Tordesillas, the Portuguese ultimately settled and colonized modern-day Brazil.
(C) The Spanish in 1494 would have tried to exclude any of the new land discovered to the West from the Portuguese.
(D) In 1494, the Portuguese had already made settlements along the coast of Africa which were approximately the same latitude as Brazil.
(E) Most Portuguese sailing vessels in the 15th century were capable of sailing to Brazil and back.