by ohthatpatrick Mon Jan 02, 2017 3:05 pm
Thanks.
It's actually both a Principle and a Strengthen question.
Strengthen often is worded:
Which of the following, if true, most supports the reasoning?
And this says:
Which of the following, if valid, most justifies the reasoning?
So, it's basically the same task. The word 'Principle' actually shows up in a handful of question stems, some of which are like Strengthen, some are like Necessary Assumption, some are like Match the Reasoning, and some are like Inference.
For that reason, it might be a good habit to stop thinking there is such a thing as a Principle question. When we see that word in the question stem, the word alone doesn't tell us what our task is.
To be fair, Principle-Strengthen usually feels different from a normal Strengthen question. It actually acts more like Sufficient Assumption the vast majority of the time (i.e. the correct answer is usually a conditional that connects the Premise to the Conclusion). But on recent tests, they have given us correct answers that are more of the Strengthen variety (although still worded in a broad, normative way to sound like a principle).