Self-study
Teresa: Conclusion If their goal is to maximize profits, film studios should concentrate on producing big-budget films rather than small-budget ones. ████ ██████ ██████████ ██████ ████████████ █████ █████ ███████ ████ ██████████ █████ ████████████ █████ ███ ████ █████████ ██ ███████ ████ ██████ ███████ ████ ████ ██ ███████████████ ████ ██████████ ██████ ███ ██████████ █████ ██ ███ █████████ ███ ███████ ████████ ████████
Summary
If a film studio wants to maximize profits, they should prioritize big-budget movies over small-budget. Why? Because small-budget never attracts a big crowd, and they don’t guarantee the highest possible profits.
Notable Assumptions
Teresa invokes the importance of big audiences in her support, but we don’t know how this applies to profit. We need to know that having a large audience is necessary for maximizing profit, because then small-budget movies will have failed that condition.
18.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ████████ ██ ████████ █████████
a
Each big-budget film ██ ██████████ ██ ███████ █ ████ █████████
The support is about small-budget movies failing to do this. It may help the argument if (A) is true (and again, referring to our analysis, it would only help if we make another assumption about the importance of a big audience), but (A) isn’t necessary.
b
A film studio ██████ ████ ████ ██████████ █████ ███ ████████████ ██████
Teresa’s conclusion is about focusing on one over the other, not choosing one in exclusion of the other. It isn’t necessary that a film studio must choose between them.
c
A film studio ████ ███ ████████ ███ ███████ ██████ ██ █████ ████ ██ ███ █████ ███████ ████ ██████████
If negated, (C) is “A film studio can maximize its profits whether or not some of its films attract mass audiences.” Attracting a mass audience is what distinguishes small and big-budget movies; if that has no effect on maximizing profit, the argument is ruined.
d
It is impossible ██ ███████ █ ██████████ ████ ██ █ ███████████ █████████ ███████
The negation of (D) actually helps the argument. The argument is advocating for big-budget movies, and the negation of (D) would as well.
e
A film studio's ███████ ████ ██████ ██ ██ ████████ ████████
The recommendation in the conclusion is explicitly qualified: “If their goal is to maximize profits...” We don’t need for that to be their goal, Teresa is just making the recommendation to studios that happen to have that goal.