Critical Reasoning

I received a PM asking me to respond. I could give thorough strategies for the 4 main question types, but I would have one of two problems. Either:

(a) I could copy the strategies listed in my company's CR book... but then I'd be in serious legal trouble for posting copyrighted material, etc.
or
(b) I could come up with entirely new strategies... but that would take me months of research and days or weeks to write up into complete, new strategies


If you want completely detailed, step-by-step strategies for attacking each question type thoroughly, that would be pages and pages of material - I would guess my company's book spends 5-10 pages on each of these types. There's no way we can provide that kind of detailed info in a forum. If this is what you want, the best thing is to identify which book people think is the best for CR and either buy that book, borrow it from the library, or borrow it from a friend.

Alternatively, if you are just looking for general guidelines or a high-level understanding of what to do with each type (something that could be answered in, say, a paragraph for each type), then please do ask for that.

Also, you can post individual problems from the different categories and glean lessons from the explanations provided by the instructors!

For Assump, Strengthen, Weaken:

Identify type of question

Read argument

Find conclusion and know which info supports the conclusion and which info (if any) goes against the conclusion

Assumption: correct answer will be something that the author MUST believe is true in order to reach the conclusion. It will not necessarily make the conclusion definitely true, but it should make the conclusion at least a little more valid.

Strengthen: correct answer will provide a new piece of information that serves as a premise (info that supports the conclusion); the piece of info will be new but it also has to be tied closely to the argument. You should be able to find an appropriate place to insert it into the list of premises (that is, into the full argument). It usually will not make the conclusion definitely true, but it will make the conclusion at least a little more valid.

Weaken: correct answer will provide a new piece of information that serves as a counter-premise (info that goes against the conclusion); the piece of info will be new but it also has to be tied closely to the argument. The info may show that an assumption the author must be making is false, or it may just be a new counter-premise that we didn't know before. It usually will not make the conclusion definitely false, but it will make the conclusion at least a little less valid.

For Draw a Conc:
Identify type of question

Read argument; re-order info logically or chronologically, if necessary

(You won't have a conclusion to identify this time.)

The correct answer will be something that MUST be true according to the info given in the argument. You will not have to make assumptions about anything. If a choice does require you to assume some things in order for it to work, cross off that choice.