LR Question 14 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Drama critic: There were many interesting plays…
QUESTION TYPE: Necessary Assumption
CONCLUSION: None of the plays written last year will be popular centuries from now.
REASONING: None of the plays written last year will be performed centuries from now.
Only plays that skillfully explore human nature will continue to be performed, and the plays written last year don’t skillfully explore human nature.
ANALYSIS: Necessary assumption questions often pretend that two different things are the same things.
I’ve read Hamlet. But I’ve never seen it performed. A play can be popular with readers even if no one performs it anymore. (though Hamlet is performed, of course)
The argument assumes that being performed is a necessary condition for a play to be popular.
___________
- CORRECT. Exactly. If plays can be popular even if they aren’t performed, then the argument hasn’t proven anything.
- The conclusion wasn’t about whether plays deserve critical acclaim. This is a red herring.
- It doesn’t matter whether the drama critic has personally read or seen all the plays. They only need evidence that none of the plays explored human nature very well. They could have got this evidence from reading reviews.
- Critical acclaim is not relevant. Acclaim is neither necessary nor sufficient for a play to be performed or popular.
- That’s nice. But none of the plays performed last year skillfully examined human nature, so it’s hard to see how this is relevant.
If you negate “E” isn’t that incompatible with the argument made-
NEGATION: Any play that skillfully examines human nature will not be performed regularly over the centuries.
To be clear, I understand why A is a great answer, but why isn’t E also needed?
The stimulus says that the only plays that continue to be performed regularly over decades and centuries are those that skillfully explore human nature:
performed regularly –> exp. human nature
The negation of (E) is:
Not all plays that skillfully explore human nature will be performed regularly over the centuries.
This doesn’t actually affect the author’s argument if we plug it back into the stimulus. Skillfully exploring human nature is a necessary condition, so there could still be plays that do explore it, but that doesn’t mean that they will definitely be performed regularly or will be popular several centuries from now. It’s not sufficient.