Self-study
Drama critic: Conclusion Audiences will enjoy Warner's latest play, about the disintegration of a family, Support because of the superb acting. ███ █████████ ███████ ███ ██████ █████ ███ ██ ████ ████████ ███ ████████ ███ █████ ███ ██████ ████████ ████████████ ███ █████ ███ ███████ ███████████ ██ ███ ██████ ███████ ████ ████ █████████ ████ ████ ██████
Summarize Argument
The drama critic concludes that audiences will enjoy Warner’s latest play about the disintegration of a family. Her support for this claim about audience enjoyment is based on the high quality acting. She references two aspects of the acting: the intense chemistry between actors, and Ziegler’s representation of the guilt and despair of the family.
Notable Assumptions
In this argument, the critic only discusses one aspect of the play (acting quality) and based on only that, concludes that audiences will enjoy the play. The critic assumes that the play isn’t missing some other aspect, like a strong plot, that is important for audience enjoyment. The critic also assumes that intense chemistry and convincing representations of guilt and despair are enough to demonstrate superb acting.
22.
Each of the following, if █████ ███████ ███ ████████ ███████
a
Generally, audiences enjoy ████████ ████████ ███ ████ █████████ ██████████
This weakens the argument because it gives a reason that audiences may not enjoy the play, even if the play has strong acting. If audiences generally find tragedies upsetting, they may not enjoy the tragic aspects of Warner’s play, thus weakening the argument.
b
The company staging ███ ████ ███ ██ ████████ ███████ ██ ████ █████████████
This weakens the argument because it introduces information that indicates that audiences may find the play dull. Audiences probably won’t enjoy a play that they find dull, so this weakens the argument.
c
Insiders with the ███████ ███████ ███ ████ ████ █████████ █████████ ███████████ ██ ███████████
While Ziegler may convincingly capture guilt and despair, Ziegler could be doing so in a way that is unexciting. Even if a performance is convincing, if it is unexciting, audiences probably won’t enjoy it.
d
The plot of ███ ████ ██ ███████ ██ ████ ████████ ██ █████ ██ ████████ █████ ██████
We don’t know if audiences enjoyed the plots of Warner’s other works, so this information does nothing for the claim about audience enjoyment for this latest play.
e
Audiences usually find █████ ████████ ███████ ███████████
This gives reason to doubt the drama critic’s ability to predict how audiences will receive a play. The drama critic may find the acting superb, but if (E) is true, the drama critic’s opinion isn’t indicative of how audiences will react.