QUESTION TEXT: Critic: The criticism of the popular film comedy…
QUESTION TYPE: Principle – Strengthen
CONCLUSION: It is wrong to criticize Quirks for not being realistic.
REASONING: Quirks is funny. And the important thing for a comedy is for it to be funny.
ANALYSIS: This already sounds like a pretty good argument. We can strengthen it by showing that a comedy film shouldn’t be criticized as long as it succeeds as a comedy.
___________
- This weakens the argument. Quirks is not realistic.
- This answer is tempting. It’s true that Quirks was popular. But you’re trying to strengthen the reasoning of the argument, and the author wasn’t arguing that Quirks is good because it’s popular. Instead, the author argued that Quirks is good because it’s funny.
- As with B, this doesn’t strengthen the author’s reasoning. Their point was that Quirks was good because it is funny. The fact that the characters are stylized would actually be a bad thing except for the fact that the film is funny.
- CORRECT. This works. Quirks is a comedy, and it was funny. Being funny is what’s important for a comedy.
This answer tells us that Quirks was successful overall, because it was a success as a comedy. And if Quirks was successful, then presumably it shouldn’t be criticized for being unrealistic. - This doesn’t help. We don’t even know if Quirks tried to stay within a single genre. Moreover, this answer doesn’t help prove that we shouldn’t criticize Quirks.
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Matt says
I honestly don’t see how D fills in the gap. I guess its the best answer choice compared with the others, but it’s still such a terrible form of justification for the conclusion. What does success have to do with the charge that something is not being realistic? I can honestly see answer choice D as a flaw.
Critic: This film is a funny, which is important for a comedy.If a film succeeds within its genre, then that film is successful. Therefore, criticism of the film comedy quirks for not being realistic is misguided.
Which one of the following most accurately describes a flaw in the critics argument?
A) fails to consider that even if something is successful within its genre, it could still not be realistic.
Batman is a very popular movie and succeeds in its genre, does that mean that if someone were to say that its not realistic, then their charge is misguided?
MemberSabrina (LSAT Hacks) says
Hi Matt,
You’re not wrong – the question asked for which one of the options best justifies the argument, and (D) was just the best we could do with the options given.
As you pointed out, the main missing link in the question is that it’s basically saying that if an aspect of a film makes it a success then any criticism of that aspect is misguided. This obviously isn’t entirely fair, but it works enough for us to know that it’s the only correct answer.
Hope that helps!
Daina says
I agree with Matt as well – I noticed that we had to make a (not insignificant!) assumption to leap to this answer! Though, after reviewing, it makes sense how the other answer choices weaken or are irrelevant.
FounderGraeme Blake says
I think the key word here is that people criticized the film “for not being realistic”. They weren’t arguing the film was unrealistic. They were arguing it was bad *because it was unrealistic*.
The critic’s reply is that the film was not bad, and that unrealistic is a poor criticism of a comedy if the comedy succeeded as a comedy.
It’s a subtle distinction between “The film is unrealistic and that is bad!” vs. “The film is bad, *because* it’s unrealistic”.