PTF97.S1.Q20 - "In North America there has been.."

mmorehouse20

Hi everyone!
I searched for this question on the forums and had not found a topic, even though its marked as a difficult question (171 level). After review the AC is fairly obvious, but I am posting to help people that may be confused by this question, and if I say anything wrong, please correct me!

This question is a Necessary Assumption question, basically meaning that if the answer choice is not true, the argument totally falls apart.
A: Incorrect, this does not have to be true for the argument to stay together.
C Incorrect: Who cares about other arts?
D : Incorrect: It does not need to have increased for the argument to be ok, more shows with the same amount of people also works as an increase in public interest.
E: Incorrect: My AC during the test. This is incorrect because it does not matter what the intentions of the opera companies were when they established their companies. All the argument talks about is an explosion of public interest for opera, and that 45 companies founded in the last 30 years, is evidence for this. Assuming E is false, it does not destroy the argument.

Therefore the correct answer is B Which must 100% be true. If its not true, that at a minimum, 45 opera companies opened and ceased operations in the time period where the argument is saying public interest EXPLODED. Do you see the problem here? If all 45 of those founded companies went out of business in the same time period, can you really claim this to be the reason opera exploded in public interest?

kwillar9

I think your reasoning is great. I approach necessary assumption questions by negating each AC and seeing if the argument falls apart, so it's nice to look at another persons reasoning reasoning to have an even better artillery to attack NA questions. Here's my negated AC's -

A. WHAT IF - one of the operas is not commercially viable? WHO CARES? We could still have renewed interest in opera over the past 30 years via the remaining 44 new operas.
B. WHAT IF - there were greater than or equal to 45 professional opera companies that had been active 30 years ago and that ceased operations during the last 30 years? ARGUMENT WRECKED! That means we have about the same or equal amount of operas we began with 30 years ago!!! Now it DOESN'T seem like that has been an explosion in public interest over the past 30 years.
C. WHAT IF - There has been a corresponding increase in the number of professional companies devoted to the public arts? WHO CARES? We could still have renewed interest in opera over the past 30 years.
D. WHAT IF - the size of the average audience at performances by professional opera companies has increased or stayed the same over the past 30 years? This arguably could strengthen our argument! Or at least do nothing to it.
E. WHAT IF - the 45 most recently founded opera companies were not all established as a result of enthusiasm on the part of a potential audience? Say five weren't. So what? We could still have 40 that were based on the enthusiasm of their potential audiences.