Self-study
Box office receipts at movie theaters increased 40 percent last year over the previous year. █████ ███ ████ ████████ ███████ █████████ ██ ███████████ ███ █████ ██ ████ █████ ████████ ████ ████████ ████ ████ ██ ██ ███ █████████ ███ █████ █████████
Part v. Whole in RRE
Resolve, reconcile, or explain questions present us two facts that exist in tension, then ask us to provide an additional fact that explains how they could both be true. In this stimulus, the two facts in tension are:
Fact 1: The whole theater industry is thriving.
Fact 2: Many individual theaters are not thriving.
This seeming paradox follows the part v. whole pattern so common in flaw questions – characteristics that apply to the theater industry as a whole needn't apply to every individual theater. You should therefore aspire to anticipate something like:
The explanation will involve some theaters being meaningfully different from others.
12.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ███ ████████ ███████████ ██ ███ ███████████ ██████
a
Films cost, on ████████ █████ ██ ████ ██ ███████ █████ ██ ████ ███ ███ █████ ████
We need an explanation that embraces both facts, but (A) undermines Fact 1 – if production costs have risen, the idea that the theater industry is thriving becomes harder to understand.
It's also irrelevant to Fact 2 – theaters don't pay production costs, so higher costs for movie producers don't explain why a certain subset of theaters are struggling.
b
Ticket prices at ████ ████████ ████ ████ █████
(B) undermines Fact 1 while supporting Fact 2, which doesn't resolve the tension between them. Ticket prices being lower contributes to an explanation for why some theaters are struggling, but it makes the overall success of the theater industry much harder to explain.
c
Those of last ████████ █████ ████ ████ ██████████ ████ ████ ██████████ █████ ████ ████ █████ ██ █████████ ██████████ ██ ████ █ █████████ ██ ███ ███████ █████████
(C) embraces both facts in a way that resolves the tension between them. It says there were indeed many successful films (that's Fact 1), but that those films were only shown at a small selection of theaters, meaning many individual theaters missed out on those ticket sales (that's Fact 2).
d
The amount of █████ █████ ██ ████ ███████████ █████████ ███████ ████ ████ ████ ███ ████ ███████ ███ ███ ████████ ██ ████ ███████ ███ ████████ ██ ███ █████████ ███ ███ ████████████ ██ ██████ ███ ██ ███ ███████ ███████
(D) undermines Fact 2 while supporting Fact 1, which doesn't resolve the tension between them. A dramatic increase in movie advertisements would certainly explain why the theater industry is thriving, especially because theaters themselves aren't paying the ad fees. But this makes the pattern of bankruptcies much harder to understand – how are they struggling so much when they're reaping the benefits of free advertising?
e
In general, an ████████ ██ █ ███████████ ███ ██████ ████████ ███ ███ ████ ██ ███████████ ██ ██ ████████ ██ ████ ███████████ ███████ ████ ██████████ ███ ██████████ █████ ███ ████ █████
(E) reinforces the link between box office receipts and profits, which supports Fact 1 but undermines Fact 2. If high ticket sales also mean high profits in other areas, then why are so many theaters going bankrupt?