PT155.S4.Q6

SECTION 1 · lr

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25

SECTION 2 · lr

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26

SECTION 3 · rc

PASSAGE 1
Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7

PASSAGE 2
Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14 Question 15

PASSAGE 3
Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22

PASSAGE 4
Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26 Question 27

SECTION 4 · lr

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25

PrepTest 155 - Section 4 - Question 6

Question

Explanation

Analytics

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Critic: Linsey has been judged to be a bad songwriter simply because her lyrics typically are disjointed and subjective. ████ ████████ ██ ███ ████████ ████████ █████ ███ ████████ ██ ████ ██████ █████████ █████████ ███ ██████████ ███ ███████████ ███ ███ █████ █████████ ███ ██████ ████ ██ ██ ████ ████████

Attacking the Reasoning, Not the Conclusion

Someone has judged Linsey to be a bad songwriter because her lyrics are typically disjointed and subjective. The critic pushes back on that judgment. He points out that the writings of many modern novelists are also typically disjointed and subjective, yet those novelists are widely considered good writers.

The implicit logic is an analogy: if disjointed and subjective writing doesn't make a novelist a bad writer, then it shouldn't automatically make Linsey a bad songwriter either. The critic isn't saying Linsey is good. He's saying the reasoning used to call her bad doesn't hold up.

Identify the Conclusion

The conclusion is the author's assessment of the original judgment: this judgment is ill founded. Everything after "however" is the author's support. The phrase "since" introduces the premises, which support the claim that the judgment lacks a solid basis.

A common mistake is to think the conclusion must be something more dramatic, like "Linsey is a good songwriter." But the author is making a narrower claim: the reasoning behind calling Linsey bad is flawed.

Analysis by Kevin_Lin

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Which one of the following ████ ██████████ █████████ ███ ██████████ █████ ██ ███ ████████ █████████

Linsey is a ████ ███████████

The author never says Linsey is a good songwriter. His argument is strictly about whether the basis for calling her bad is sound, not about what she actually is. Concluding that a criticism is poorly reasoned doesn't tell us anything about whether the person being criticized is actually good or bad.

The view that ██████ ██ █ ███ ██████████ ██ ██████ ██████████

This is a paraphrase of the conclusion. "The view that Linsey is a bad songwriter is poorly supported" maps directly onto "this judgment is ill founded."

The writings of ████ ██████ █████████ ███ ██████████ ███ ███████████

This is one of the two premises that support the conclusion. The author cites the disjointed and subjective nature of modern novelists' writing to establish the comparison with Linsey's lyrics.

Many modern novelists ███ ██████ ████ ██ ██ ████ ████████

This is the other supporting premise. The author needs us to know that these novelists are considered good writers despite their style, because that's what makes the comparison damaging to the original judgment against Linsey.

Linsey's talent as █ ██████ ██ ██ ████ ████ ████ ██ ████ ██████ ██████████

The author never makes a claim about the relative level of Linsey's talent. The modern novelists appear in the argument only as a counterexample to the idea that disjointed and subjective writing is sufficient to label someone a bad writer. The argument says nothing about how Linsey measures up to those novelists as a writer.

Difficulty

Question

94% of people who answer get this correct

This is a slightly challenging question.

CURVE

Score of students with a 50% chance of getting this right

25% 133

139

75% 145

Analysis

Question Stem Tags

Main conclusion or main point

Stems that ask us to articulate the main conclusion of the author's argument.

Answer Popularity

Popularity Avg. score

150

94%

161

145

142

150

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