Evaluate Questions

[PhoebeL747]

I noticed that on the recent LSAT, they bring back the Evaluate Questions that used to appear in the much older tests. I'm not sure how to attack this type of questions and the correct answers very often greatly surprise me..It's also not a type of questions that covered in the strategy guide

How would a LSAT geek categorize this type of questions? Are they in the Assumption Family?
Is there a consistent approach recommended for this type of questions?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated

[ohthatpatrick]

Yeah, Evaluate is definitely Assumption Family ... in fact I would have named the Assumption Family "the Evaluate family" because that's what ties all those questions together:

we're evaluating how the evidence falls short of proving the conclusion.

Evaluate usually feels like Strengthen/Weaken, only the answer is asked as a question rather than declared as a statement.

For example:
Timmy applied to Jackson University. Thus, he must want to go to a good school.

How would we strengthen? (correct answers)
(A) Jackson U is a top 5 school.
(B) No one pressured Timmy to apply there.

How would we weaken? (correct answers)
(A) Jackson U has never been regarded as a top tier school
(B) Timmy's parents forced him to apply

Which of the following would be most useful to know to evaluate this argument? (correct answers)
(A) Is Jackson U a good school?
(B) Did anyone coerce Timmy to apply there?

So think of Evaluate as having the same approach as Strengthen / Weaken.

The correct answer poses a question or identifies an issue that would STRENGTHEN the argument if we answered it one way but would WEAKEN the argument if we answered it the opposite way.

Although our approach to Evaluate questions is easy enough (it's basically the same as how we break down and size up arguments in Strengthen / Weaken), the actual examples of Evaluate questions on recent tests have tended to be really tough problems.

So you may come away thinking you're bad at Evaluate questions, but I think everyone has struggled with the recent examples, even if we're clear on our approach.

Hope this helps.

[PhoebeL747]

Thank you Patrick! This definitely helps to clear hings up