PrepTest 137

Incorrect. Marife believes the movie is bad, but Nguyen only takes issue with her reasoning behind that conclusion, not the conclusion itself. Nguyen never states his opinion of the film.

Incorrect. Nguyen believes this was the focus of the film. While Marife believes the murder was central to the film, she doesn't talk about this relationships, so she might believe it was important to the film even though the focus should have been on the murder.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument/Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed/Flawed

Question Type:
Point at Issue

Stimulus Summary:
M: The movie didn't give viewers all the info they needed to solve the murder, so it broke murder mystery rules and thus was a bad movie.

N: The director wanted to focus on relationships, and so the murder was not a "defining characteristic" of the film.

Answer Anticipation:
Both Marife and Nguyen talk about this one movie, so it's worth going through their statements to see where they overlap. Let's use Marife's argument as a baseline and see what she discusses that Nguyen does, as well.

Marife starts with a judgment on the film—it was bad. Nguyen takes issue with the rationale behind this conclusion, but he never actually states his opinion on the film. He could believe it's a bad movie for different reasons.

Marife then states that the movie doesn't provide all information needed for viewers to solve the mystery, which Nguyen doesn't discuss at all. And, finally, she states that the movie violated a requirement of murder mysteries. Nguyen doesn't talk about requirements for murder mysteries, and so this is also out of scope of his argument.

So where's the point at issue? Well, since there are no individual statements that are points of disagreement, it must be the connection between them. Marife believes that the movie fails to meet the requirements for a murder mystery, making it a bad movie. Nguyen disagrees with that reasoning for the movie being bad because the murder wasn't the point—it "should not be taken as a defining characteristic" because it was about a relationship, with the murder only providing context. So the two disagree over how central the murder was to the movie, and whether failing to follow the rules of murder mysteries makes this movie bad.

Answer Explanation:
Marife believes that the movie is bad because it fails to meet the requirements of a murder mystery, so she must believe this movie is properly classified as one (otherwise, it's nonsensical to knock the movie for failing to follow murder mystery rules). It can be harder to see Nguyen's opinion of this, but he states that the murder shouldn't be considered a "defining characteristic" of the film—and classifying a movie as a murder mystery would require the murder defining that genre. He must, therefore, believe it isn't properly classified as a murder mystery. This answer highlights a point at issue between them.

Key Takeaway:
If there are no individual points that the two speakers disagree on in a Point at Issue question, then their disagreement is over how the premises relate to the conclusion. If you can't find a statement that the two disagree on, look for disagreements over the underlying logic.

Incorrect. Marife raises a "rule" for murder mysteries, presumably believing that it's appropriate to do so. Nguyen, however, doesn't discuss criteria for a murder mystery, so this answer is out of scope of his argument.

Incorrect. Marife doesn't discuss the desires of the filmmaker, so this answer is out of scope. Even Nguyen only establishes what the filmmaker wanted the audience to focus on—he could believe that she wanted the viewers to be able to solve the murder.