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| Question | Answer |
| For ASP questions, you absolutely read | the question before you read the passage, as it will tell you exactly the what kind of ASP you are dealing with. |
| Premises | are stated pieces of information or evidence that provide support for the conclusion. They may be facts, opinions or claims. |
| Counterpremises | are stated pieces of information or evidence that undermine or go against the conclusion. |
| Assumptions | are unstated pieces of information that the argument requires to function. |
| Conclusion | The main point of the argument is the conclusion, which is logically supported by the premises and assumptions. Conclusions are in the form of an opinion or a claim. Facts will never be conclusions. Often in the last sentence, sometimes in the first sentence. |
| For ASP questions, you should first look for | the conclusion. |
| Method | T diagram |
| You should expect to see about | 4 or 5 ASPs on the test of the following categories: Strengthen the conclusion, Weaken the conclusion, Analyze the argument structure , Draw a conclusion, Resolve a paradox. |
| For strengthen the conclusion and weaken the conclusion ASPs | Create an SW slash chart. Do not eliminate choices in your head. Always check all of the answer choices. s - strengthen, w - weaken, - irrelevant. |
| For strengthen the conclusion question types, notice that | the choice does not need to make the conclusion definitively true; it just needs to make the conclusion more likely to be true. You should evaluate all your answer choices for this. |
| A premise that strengthens the conclusion should do at least one of the following: | 1. Fix a weakness of the conclusion. 2. Introduce additional supporting evidence. The correct answer choice for a Strengthen question will typically function as a new premise. This choice will be related to the argument but generally introduce new information supporting the conclusion. A correct answer might provide an explanation of or support for a keyword in the conclusion. |
| for Weaken the conclusion question types | correct answers do not need to make the conclusion false or invalid. Correct answers merely need to make it less likely that the stated conclusion is valid. |
| For solving analyse the Argument structure ASPs, there are 3 primary options for each statement | The statement in boldface is the author's CONCLUSION. The statement in boldface is a premise that SUPPORT'S the author's conclusion. The statement in boldface is a premise that WEAKENS the author's conclusion. Make sure you outline BEFORE you attempt to classify each statement according to the categories; and that you've both outlined and categorized the boldfaced statements BEFORE you look to the answer choices. |
| Analyze the argument structure is a very difficult question type | If you can only figure out how to categorize one of the two boldface statements, then assess the corresponding half of the answer choices. Eliminate whatever answer choices you can, pick intelligently from among the remaining answer choices , and move on. |
| Fact | A fact is a verifiable statement. Evidence, Circumstance, Finding |
| Opinion | A minor claim, or an opinion of someone other than the author. Judgement, claim, position (taken by someone else) |
| Conclusion | is the major claim of the author. position (taken by the argument), assertion (of the author) |
| For draw a conclusion ASPs | you should only fill the "premises" portion of your T-diagram. The conclusion must be true as a result of only the given premises. The conclusion should not require you to make any additional assumptions at all, even tiny ones. The correct answer to a Draw a Conclusion question is NOT a claim or an arguable statement. Rather, it is a FACTUAL deduction based only upon information that you have been given. The correct conclusion that you can draw from a set of premises must ALWAYS be a provable fact. Thus, it will generally restate a premise, sometimes in a mathematically equivalent way. The mathematical equivalence provides a slight disguise for the truth. For instance, the premise 'More precipitation falls on the Sahara than on Antarctica' can be restated as 'less precipitation falls on Antarctica than on the Sahara'. |
| For Resolve a Paradox Argument structure passages, like Draw a Conclusion arguments.. | will only contain premises. |
| To solve Resolve a Paradox problems, look for the answer choice that | provides a new, FACT-BASED premise that directly illustrates why the apparent discrepancy is not a discrepancy after all. The correct answer will often contain some very specific new piece of information that resolves the given discrepancy. You might have not anticipated this information ahead of time, but after you add it to the existing premises, the situation should make sense. |
| Boundary words in the argument | narrow the scope of a premise. - be sure to include them in your T-diagram and highlight them for emphasis to help you identify answer choices that try to trick you on the argument boundaries. |
| DO NOT SPEND TIME DETAILING TECHNICAL INFORMATION | ASPs revolve more around logic. Take time to re read a technical phrase only if the question demands it. Learn to locate the conclusion of the argument as quickly as possible. |
| For diagramming purposes, after each sentence ask yourself the question | Was that a fact or an opinion? Learn to do this quickly. If you get all facts, then the passage has no conclusion. |
| For ANY question, it is helpful to focus your attention on the BOUNDARY words and phrases provided in the argument | Boundary words and phrases are vital because they provide nuances to the argument. These nuances will often be manipulated in the answer choice ASP questions. In other words, these nuances can single-handedly make some answer choices correct and incorrect. |
| Quickly scan the passage to see if there are any | EXTREME WORDS. Since good argument structure passages rarely contain extreme words, any such words that you find will likely be very useful in responding to the question. |
| Boundary and extreme words also appear | in the answer choices. When you see boundary or extreme words in the answer choice, ask yourself, "What is the most extreme example I can think of that would still fit the wording of this answer choice?" Then, using the conclusion and the question asked, see whether your extreme example allows you to eliminate that answer choice. |
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