Lessons · Law foundations · Arguments: what the question is really asking
Find the job before you read the answers
Every argument question hands you a short piece of reasoning and asks for one specific operation on it: what the argument assumes, where it breaks, what would strengthen it, what must be true if it is true. The operations are few and they repeat. Naming the operation before looking at the options is most of the work.
Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
In beta. This lesson was written for Hone and has not yet been checked by an attorney. Practice material, not professional advice. What that means.
What it is for
Somebody who reads the options first is reading five sentences written by people whose job was to make four of them feel right. Deciding what you are looking for first turns that from a taste test into a search.
How to think about it
Read the question stem before the passage. Say the operation out loud in your own words. Then read the argument, mark the conclusion, and mark what is offered in support of it. The gap between those two is where nearly every answer lives.
Worked example
Stem first: what operation is being asked for?Assumption, flaw, strengthen, weaken, must-be-true, and a few more.
In the passage, mark the conclusion.It is often not the last sentence, and often signalled by 'so', 'therefore', 'clearly'.
Mark the support offered for it.Everything else in the passage is background or noise.
Name the gap between support and conclusion before reading a single option.The credited answer almost always addresses that gap.
Your turn
In an argument question, which sentence should you mark first?
Mark the first, then what is offered in support of it
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Reading the five options before deciding what you want. Four of them were written by somebody whose job was to make a wrong answer feel reasonable, and they are good at it.