11.2 Strengthen–Weaken (Beyond the Passage) Questions

Like the similarly named category detailed in the preceding chapter, Strengthen–Weaken (Beyond the Passage) questions concern evidence–conclusion relationships. However, unlike the other type of Strengthen–Weaken questions, at least one of the claims involved will not be from the passage but will be unique to the question stem or answer choices. Strengthen–Weaken (Beyond) questions are also distinct because they treat the passage as flexible, subject to modification by outside forces.

Sample Question Stems

• Suppose [new info]. This new information:
• Which of the following statements, if true, would most bolster the author’s argument about [topic]?
• Assume that [new info]. This assumption weakens the author’s claim that:
• [New info] would most strongly support the view of:
• Recent research on [topic] suggests [new info]. Which of the following assertions from the passage is most logically consistent with these results?
• Some theorists have argued that [new info]. Based on the discussion in the passage, which of the following would present the greatest CHALLENGE to their argument?
• [New info]. In conjunction with information presented in the passage, it would be most reasonable to conclude that:
• Imagine that [new info]. What impact would this have on the arguments made in the passage?
• Which of the following study findings would most seriously undermine the author’s thesis?

If the question includes new information and asks about logical relationships like support, challenge, and consistency, you can safely Assess that it’s a Strengthen–Weaken (Beyond) question. However, sometimes the new information is hidden in the answer choices, so you may have to watch out for clues that suggest the correct answer will come from outside the passage, such as words like would and could.

MCAT Expertise

According to our research of released AAMC material, Strengthen–Weaken (Beyond the Passage) questions make up about 16 percent of the CARS section (about eight or nine questions).

Strategy

As with Strengthen–Weaken (Within the Passage) questions, your primary task will be to identify the three relevant parts: the conclusion, the evidence or refutation, and the nature of the connection (strengthen, weaken, or some unspecified relevance). Your first step should be to determine which component (or, rarely, which two components) you’ll be seeking. If the stem is long, don’t bother to read all the new details the first time through. Instead, jump to what immediately precedes the question mark or colon in order to figure out where the question stem is going. With this Plan in mind, turn next to what you are given, reading the entire question stem closely now and keeping an eye out for any hints of analogy. So, for instance, if a novel experimental finding described in the question stem reminds you of a study in the passage that was used to support the author’s thesis, then chances are that the correct answer will indicate that this strengthens the thesis, or a similar idea.

From this point, the same strategy considerations apply as did to Strengthen–Weaken (Within) questions, with Logic keywords from the passage again playing a major role. The major differences will be that correct answers to Strengthen–Weaken (Beyond) questions are seldom exact matches to your predictions and are far more likely to be only incidentally related to the text.

Bridge

Strengthen–Weaken (Beyond the Passage) questions are extremely similar to Strengthen–Weaken (Within the Passage) questions, except that the former bring in new information while the latter ask about arguments wholly contained in the passage. Accordingly, the strategic approaches to these two types of questions are very similar. Make sure to review Strengthen–Weaken (Within) questions, discussed in Chapter 10 of MCAT CARS Review, in tandem with this discussion of Strengthen–Weaken (Beyond) questions.

Worked Example—An Arts Passage

One of the first examples of the ascendance of abstraction in 20th-century art is the Dada movement, which Lowenthal dubbed “the groundwork to abstract art and sound poetry, a starting point for performance art, a prelude to postmodernism, an influence on pop art…and the movement that laid the foundation for surrealism.” Dadaism was ultimately premised on a philosophical rejection of the dominant culture, which is to say the dominating culture of colonialist Europe. Not content with the violent exploitation of other peoples, Europe’s ruling factions once again turned inward, reigniting provincial disputes into the conflagration that came to be known by the Eurocentric epithet “World War I”—the European subcontinent apparently being the only part of the world that mattered.

The absurd destructiveness of the Great War was a natural prelude to the creative absurdity of Dada. Is it any wonder that the rejection of reason made manifest by senseless atrocities should lead to the embrace of irrationality and disorder among the West’s subaltern artistic communities? Marcel Janco, one of the first Dadaists, cited this rationale: “We had lost confidence in our culture. Everything had to be demolished. We would begin again after the tabula rasa.” Thus, we find the overturning of what was once considered art: a urinal becomes the Fountain after Marcel Duchamp signs it “R. Mutt” in 1917, the nonsense syllables of Hugo Ball and Kurt Schwitters transform into “sound poems,” and dancers in cardboard cubist costumes accompanied by foghorns and typewriters metamorphosize into the ballet Parade. Unsurprisingly, many commentators, including founding members, have described Dada as an “anti-art” movement. Notwithstanding such a designation, Dadaism has left a lasting imprint on modern Western art.

Example:

1. According to some estimates, prior to the beginning of World War I in 1914, more than four-fifths of the world’s landmass was controlled by European nations or former colonies such as the United States. If this figure is accurate, what effect does it have on the passage?
   1. It bolsters the author’s suggestion that European colonialism was an overbearing force.
   2. It weakens the author’s assertion that World War I was instigated by provincial disputes.
   3. It strengthens the author’s claim that Europe is the only place in the world that mattered.
   4. It challenges the author’s insinuation that European rulers ignored the rest of the globe.

Solution:

With lengthy opening details, you’ll want to skip right to the question itself, which asks for the effect on the passage. Assess that this is a Strengthen–Weaken (Beyond) question and that your task will be to determine the relevance of this new data. As you read the stem a second time, now closely, think about how the information presented either supports or challenges statements from the passage. The evidence provided has nothing to do directly with the Dada movement, which doesn’t even start until after the commencement of the war, but it does pertain to the author’s discussion of Europe and World War I at the end of the first paragraph, so Executing your Plan requires rereading that portion of the text to see whether anything there would be impacted. If nothing else, the figure cited does seem to support the author’s opinionated characterization of the dominating culture of colonialist Europe.

If you look for a match, you’ll find that (A) works perfectly. The word overbearing is just a synonym for dominating, so there is a close connection with language actually used in the passage. On Test Day, you would select this answer and then move on to the next question without even bothering to read the wrong answers.

For our purposes, however, it’s worth reviewing where the others go wrong. (B) may point to a claim that the author actually makes, but the fact from the question stem does not really pose a threat to it. Regardless of how much landmass each country controlled, the catalyst for World War I could remain disputes among these countries. This answer is a Faulty Use of Detail. In contrast, (C) is wrong for two reasons: first, it’s Out of Scope because this is not something the author endorses; the phrase the European subcontinent apparently being the only part of the world that mattered is used almost sarcastically when the author points out that “World” War I actually took place exclusively in Europe. Second, even if the author did have this view, the statement is a value judgment—a matter of opinion—which cannot be directly affected by geographic facts. Finally, (D) does contain a factual claim that would be challenged by the question stem. The only problem is that this is not an insinuation of the author, who explicitly refers to the rulers turn[ing] inward after violent exploitation of other peoples, suggesting they were indeed gazing outward before the start of the war, the time period noted in the question stem. It’s also Out of Scope.

Example:

1. Which of the following, if true, would most threaten what the author says in the final sentence of the second paragraph?
   1. A large majority of members of the general public, when asked to identify the most important work of art of the 1900s, fail to mention an example from the Dada movement.
   2. Other prominent 20th-century artistic movements, such as Surrealism and Pop Art, were also commonly described as “anti-art” by their most influential participants.
   3. The consensus among art historians today is that Dada was merely a brief departure from the principal themes in European art that evolved during the 20th century.
   4. Some of the founding members of the Dada movement were sympathetic to the radical view that, far from being anti-art, Dada was the purest form of art imaginable.

Solution:

Although this question is perhaps more difficult to Assess than the previous example, the hypothetical if true is strong evidence that the answer choices will be new elements and that this is indeed a Strengthen–Weaken (Beyond) question. Clearly the task is to Weaken the author’s claim; threaten is just a less common way of saying this.

Plan to follow the reference in the stem and reread that last line, as well as the preceding one, to gain additional context. The penultimate sentence (the one before the last) suggests that some people think of Dada as anti-art, but the last one contests this by noting Dada’s lasting imprint on modern Western art. Thus, we are most likely looking for a refutation of the author’s idea that Dada was influential.

There is a chance, however, that the correct answer challenges the author’s rejection of the term anti-art. In other words, if we cancel out the confusing double negatives, the correct answer could be one that supports the idea that Dada is anti-art.

An elaborate prediction, such as the one just formulated, will usually result in a quicker match. In this case, we find it in (C). An appeal to expert opinion is often an acceptable form of evidence for arts and literary passages, as can be seen here in the author’s name-dropping and quotation-citing, so consensus among experts should carry even more weight. The scholars’ idea of a brief departure clashes directly with the lasting imprint from the text, so we can be confident in identifying (C) as correct.

You would ordinarily want to move on to the next question at this point, but it’s worth learning from the flaws in the wrong options. (A) clearly does not support what the author says, but it poses less of a challenge than it may seem to. For one, popular opinion could easily be mistaken about how influential particular works of art are. But, more substantially, leaving a lasting imprint is not identical to being the singularly most important movement of the century. Thus, the threat presented by (A) is extremely weak at best. The remaining options are Opposites that actually support the author. (B) is completely consistent with the passage, strengthening the point that simply calling a movement anti-art does not necessarily make it so. (D) has no impact on the passage. Even if some of the founding members of Dadaism did not think of the movement as being anti-art, many of the founding members certainly could have held this view. Further, this answer choice attempts to weaken the penultimate sentence—not the last one of the paragraph.

MCAT Expertise

Appeals to authority or expert opinion are common in CARS passages, particularly those involving disciplines like the arts or literature, in which value judgments and other opinions play a prominent role. Widespread agreement among experts, though rare in these fields, would of course provide even stronger support. That said, be mindful of the field that you are reading about and the types of argumentation that the author chooses to employ. Quoting experts may provide decent support for a passage on an artistic movement, but such testimony will carry far less weight in more empirical social sciences like psychology or economics. Non-expert opinions tend to carry even less weight: while authors may occasionally draw on popular opinion to support arguments, actual surveys of public opinion are seldom seen outside of a small number of cases, confined primarily to political science.