Introduction
Command of Evidence questions make up part of the Information and Ideas domain, which accounts for roughly 26% of SAT Reading and Writing operational questions. Within that domain, Strengthening and Weakening a Hypothesis questions ask you to do one precise thing: given a researcher's hypothesis, choose the finding — from a set of four — that most powerfully confirms it (support) or most powerfully undermines it (weaken). This note focuses entirely on that question type. For questions that ask you to pick a textual quote to back up a general claim, see Supporting a Claim with Textual Evidence. For evidence drawn from graphs and tables, see Reading Tables, Bar Graphs, and Line Graphs and Choosing Data That Completes the Claim.
Core Concept
A hypothesis is a researcher's specific, testable prediction about a cause-and-effect or correlational relationship. Every hypothesis has an expected direction: it predicts that X will increase Y, that group A will outperform group B, that process C produces result D, and so on.
A finding supports a hypothesis when it shows exactly what the hypothesis predicted — the right variables, moving in the right direction, in the right population.
A finding weakens a hypothesis when it shows the opposite of what the hypothesis predicted, or when it shows the predicted effect is absent in the exact conditions where the hypothesis says it should appear.
The key mental move: identify the hypothesis's core prediction first, before reading the options. Ask yourself:
- What two (or more) variables does this hypothesis connect?
- What direction does it predict (more/less, faster/slower, higher/lower, present/absent)?
- In what population or conditions does it apply?
Then treat each answer option as a mini-experiment result and ask: Does this result match the prediction, contradict it, or neither?
Options that neither clearly support nor weaken are almost always wrong — the SAT rewards the option that directly targets the hypothesis's central claim.
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