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Argument Part Questions

How to Approach Argument Part Questions

ARGUMENT PART (AP) QUESTIONS ARE VERY SIMILAR TO MAIN POINT (MP) QUESTIONS.

This type of question also asks you to slap labels on things. But, it operates backwards and has more freedom. I’ll explain. In MP questions, you are given a “conclusion” label and asked to slap it onto the part of the stimulus you think is the conclusion. In AP questions, you are given a small part of the argument and asked to select one “label” from the five labels presented to you in the answer choices. This is what I mean when I say it operates backwards. The correct answer choice contains the label that accurately describes the part of the argument that the question stem has selected. Usually, the part of the argument the question stem selects will not be the main conclusion of the argument. This is what I mean when I say it has more freedom.

This type of question is significantly harder than MP questions. You’ll have to be able to label each part of the argument since you won’t know which part you’ll be asked about. Sometimes, what you’ll be asked to label won’t even be a part of your argument, as in situations where a sentence from the context or someone else’s argument is selected.

These questions are also very similar to a type of question we’ll encounter later in the curriculum, the Method of Reasoning (Method) Questions. You can think of this as prep work for the Method Questions that you’ll get to later on. In fact, AP Questions, like MP Questions ought to be considered prep work for all Logical Reasoning questions since these questions are testing your ability to do something very foundational: the ability to identify and label the relationships between different parts of an argument. You have to be able to identify the relationships first before you get to analyze the relationships,which we’ll get to do soon enough.

The stimulus in AP Questions often tends to be just as confusing as the stimulus in MP Questions. They often contain complex argument structures with sub-conclusions, contextual information or other people’s arguments. The MP Questions should have been good training.

The additional difficulty presented by AP Questions is in the answer choices. You will have to make use of your lesson in referential phrasing as the answer choices often contain abstract words or phrases whose meaning is opaque until you decide to force them down to the level of detail of the stimulus. For example, you’ll get an answer choice that will say something like, “used as evidence to support a claim…” What “claim?” To say “a claim” is very abstract and I have no idea what they mean until I force that word to refer to something, to point to something in the passage. Then, and only then, can I evaluate whether “the claim” was supported. This is a skill you’ll find very useful to master for the Method Questions, the Flawed Method of Reasoning Questions and for most Reading Comprehension passages.

Some example Argument Part question stems include:

The proposition that the public is now more interested in reading and hearing about crime plays which one of the following roles in the argument?
Which one of the following most accurately describes the role played in the argument by the statement that zooplankton feed upon phytoplankton?
Which one of the following most accurately describes the role played in the passage by the point that capitalism and industrialization are distinct?
The assertion that it is not illegal to use one person as a vehicle for another's ambitions is used in the ethicist's argument in which one of the following ways?

LET’S REVIEW

AP Questions are similar to MP Questions in that both are exercises in labeling arguments. AP Questions foreshadow Method Questions, which also make heavy use of referential phrasing.

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