This is both a strengthening and a weakening question, as we are tasked with strengthening one position and weakening another in one fell swoop: Which one of the following, if it occurred, would be the strongest evidence favoring Ms. Fring’s position over Mr. Blatt’s position?
Our stimulus is a dialogue between a Mr. Blatt and Ms. Fring. Blatt argues that expert consultants are worth their expensive fees because they help executives make better decisions. Fring is having none of this, and instead argues that consultants are hired to help executives escape responsibility, and are only high paid so that more blame can be laid on them when things go wrong. We want an answer choice that will weaken Blatt’s high demand hypothesis while supporting Fring’s fall-guy hypothesis. Let’s take a look at our options:
Answer Choice (A) There is nothing to suggest they are hiring him to take the blame if something goes wrong.
Answer Choice (B) This gives us practically no real information.
Correct Answer Choice (C) Fring’s hypothesis suggests that consultants are hired because of their expensive fees, while Blatt’s suggests it is simply a function of supply/demand. A consultant company lowering fees and losing business suggests they were being hired because of their fees, while also being a completely confusing result if the consultants were being hired for their skills; surely more people would hire them for those skills if they were cheaper! This supports Fring’s belief that it’s their fees which consultants are hired for, and is inconsistent with Blatt’s explanation.
Answer Choice (D) This suggests the consultant is being hired for his skills, not his price.
Answer Choice (E) What this answer is really missing is any information about whether the blame was laid on the consultant; but regardless marginally profitable is still profitable!
We should recognize that this is a weakening question, as we are introducing information which weakens reasoning in the stimulus: Which one of the following, if true, is the strongest defense against the counterexample of dogs that shake hands?
Our stimulus begins with the position of brain studies; they suggest that while humans are majority right-handed, approximately half of any given group of animals will be left-handed. Our author’s conclusion is that this finding is suspect, or in other words likely wrong, because dogs will usually shake hands with their right paw. Our job is to introduce a premise which weakens the author’s criticism of the brain studies. On to the answers:
Answer Choice (A) This wouldn’t undermine whether or not they exhibit a consistent preference for a right limb in certain cases.
Answer Choice (B) The front paw is a limb!
Answer Choice (C) This might explain the results of the brain studies (specifically why animals differ from humans), but it wouldn’t weaken the author’s criticism; why do dogs shake a paw with their right paw?
Answer Choice (D) Their ability to compensate is entirely compatible with their preferring their right limb.
Correct Answer Choice (E) If humans have a preference for their right limb, when they train their dog to shake a paw they could be training them to do so with their right paw, so that although the dogs have preferences compatible with the brain study, human influence leads to more dogs shaking with their right paw.
This is a weakening question, as the question stem asks: Which one of the following, if true, casts the most doubt on the author’s hypothesis?
This is a fairly straight forward correlation-causation argument. A study finds that smokers are more likely to snore, and concludes that smoking can cause snoring. Our job is to weaken this argument. Let’s see what we get:
Correct Answer Choice (A) This provides an explanation for why snoring and smoking would correlate, even when smoking might have no influence on snoring, namely that the two share a third cause, stress.
Answer Choice (B) Ok, but unless we know obesity leads to snoring this does nothing for us.
Answer Choice (C) This is completely compatible with the argument.
Answer Choice (D) Same as C.
Answer Choice (E) Interesting! But this could be true while smoking caused snoring, and does nothing to suggest it doesn’t.