Evaluate the Argument Questions

Evaluate the Argument questions ask you to consider the question, statistic, or
piece of information that would best help determine the logical validity of the
argument presented in the stimulus. In other words, you must select the answer
choice that decides whether the argument is good or bad.
To better understand this question type, imagine that you are examining an
argument and you have to ask one question that—depending on the answer to
the question—will reveal whether the argument is strong or weak. By this
definition, there must be a flaw in each argument, and your question, if posed
correctly, can reveal that flaw or eliminate the flaw. Please note that you are not
being asked to prove with finality whether the argument is good or bad—rather,
you must simply ask the question that will help best analyze the validity of the
argument. For this reason, Evaluate the Argument questions can be seen as a
combination of a Strengthen and Weaken question: if you ask the best question,
depending on the answer to the question the argument could be seen as strong
or weak.
As mentioned in Chapter Three, this unusual question type is the only question
that does not fall into one of the four question families. Evaluate the Argument
questions are actually a combination of the Second and Third Families, and as
such you should keep the following considerations in mind:
1. In all Second and Third Family questions the information in the stimulus
is suspect, so you should search for the reasoning error present.
2. The answer choices are accepted as given, even if they include
“new” information. Your task is to determine which answer choice
best helps determine the validity of the argument.
Evaluate the Argument question stems almost always use the word “evaluate”
or a synonym such as “judge” or “assess,” but the intent is always identical: the
question stem asks you to identify the piece of information that would be most
helpful in assessing the argument. Question stem examples:
“The answer to which one of the following questions would contribute
most to an evaluation of the argument?”
“Clarification of which one of the following issues would be most
important to an evaluation of the skeptics’ position?”
“Which one of the following would be most important to know in
evaluating the hypothesis in the passage?”
“Which one of the following would it be most relevant to investigate in
evaluating the conclusion of George’s argument?”
“Which one of the following would it be most helpful to know in order
to judge whether what the scientist subsequently learned calls into
question the hypothesis?”
Evaluate the Argument questions (and Cannot Be True questions, which are
covered in the next chapter) appear infrequently on the LSAT, but the
uniqueness of the question type forces students to take a moment to adjust when
they do appear. Some question types, such as Must Be True and Weaken, recur
so frequently that students become used to seeing them and are comfortable
with the process of selecting the correct answer. When a question type appears
rarely, test-takers are often thrown off-balance and lose time and energy reacting
to the question. The makers of the LSAT are well aware of this, and this is the
reason they intersperse different question types in each section (again, imagine
how much easier the LSAT would be if the Logical Reasoning section was
composed of 25 Must Be True questions). One reason we study each type of
question is to help you become as comfortable as possible with the questions
you will encounter on the test, making your reaction time as fast as possible.