Need advice- Picking the opposite answers on verbal

[truont321]

I am struggling on the verbal section specifically with weaken/strengthen questions, and I tend to pick a weaken answer for a strengthen question. Only after analyzing the correct answers will I see how I went wrong, but is there anything I can work on to minimize these mistakes?

[StaceyKoprince]

Why do you think you're making that mistake? Do you forget that you're supposed to be strengthening and think that you're supposed to weaken? In that case, do three things: write down S, really big, and circle it. (Maybe even write out the entire word Strengthen!). When you're evaluating each answer, write down an S, a W or a / next to ABCDE on your scrap paper. Label each one carefully. Finally, your LAST step before you solve, from now on, is to glance at the Q stem again. What are you solving for? Is that what you did?

Or do you read a Weaken answer but think that it is actually strengthening? If so, that's more of a comprehension issue. You'll need to pick apart your process for how you decide whether something strengthens or weakens an argument.

Go look through some arguments you've already done (both strengthen and weaken). Take the correct answer and actually insert it into the argument - pretend that it was there from the beginning. Did you just make the conclusion better or worse? You need to learn how to think about how a piece of information affects the conclusion in conjunction with the other pieces of info.