Identify the technique | Quick guide

A quick guide to approaching questions that ask you to "identify the technique"

Here, you’re being asked to describe the reasoning of an argument: the way it uses support to justify a conclusion. You can think of these as questions about structure, method of reasoning, and technique. They’re not about what an argument says or whether it’s a good argument—just about how it’s built. What is the arguer doing, in other words?

Wrong choices will almost always contain an idea that doesn’t match up with the passage, so you can either make a prediction and select the answer that reflects that prediction, or you can “match” each choice against the argument and eliminate the choices that contain an unmatched idea.

Some helpful practices

✓ Make a prediction

What is the arguer doing in the conclusion? Refuting? Supporting?
What kind of support is the arguer using? Analogy? Counterexample? Appeal to authority?

✓ Test the choices

If you made a prediction, find the choice that matches that prediction.
If you didn’t make a prediction, compare each choice with the stimulus and ask yourself if every piece of that choice is illustrated in the passage. If a choice says that the arguer makes a generalization, ask yourself: “Is there actually a generalization in the conclusion?”

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noelle.binesh
Posted 9 months ago. Direct link to noelle.binesh's post “What if there are two ver...”
What if there are two very similar options where we cannot conclude what is the answer? What would we do then?
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