PrepTest 115

Incorrect. This play about the disintegration of a family is noted as featuring guilt and despair, so it's almost certainly a tragedy. If audiences generally don't enjoy such plays, there's reason to believe they won't enjoy this one, weakening the Critic's prediction that audiences will enjoy it.

Incorrect. While the past doesn't determine the future, if the company staging the play is known for not having good performances, then superb acting won't save whatever makes the overall performance dull. This doesn't preclude the audiences from enjoying the play, but it does suggest that they might not, weakening the argument.

Incorrect. If others believe that Ziegler's performance isn't all that great, it undermines one of the reasons for the Critic to say the acting is superb, weakening the argument.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Bizarro Weaken

Stimulus Summary:
In Warner's latest play, the actors' chemistry is intense and the child actor is convincing, so the acting is superb, and thus people will like the play.

Answer Anticipation:
The Drama Critic's argument has three pieces to it.

The first is the information about the acting in the play—there's a lot of chemistry, and the child actor's performance is particularly convincing. These are presented without support, so they're premises.

From these judgments, the Critic concludes that the acting is superb. And she then uses the superb acting to justify a prediction that audiences will enjoy the play.

As such, the argument has an intermediate conclusion (that the acting is superb) and a main point (that audiences will enjoy the play). We can weaken this argument by attacking the jump to the intermediate conclusion or to the main point, so we should anticipate answers for both.

For the first jump, it's possible that the details don't lead to a conclusion that the acting is superb. For one thing, calling out a specific actor's performance as convincing doesn't mean the overall acting of the play was superb. It's also possible that the child actor was convincing in capturing the guilt and despair, but there were other emotions that he failed to convincingly convey and thus his acting was sub-standard. And the acting could be bad despite chemistry between the cast! If they all have great chemistry but flub their lines, that'd be a problem.

For the jump to the main point, audiences won't necessarily enjoy a play just because it has good acting. If other elements—plot, writing, staging—are weak, then the play may not be enjoyable. It also might just be a horribly depressing play that doesn't allow for enjoyment!

Answer Explanation:
This answer doesn't directly connect to audience enjoyment. We don't know if those other plots were enjoyed, or if Warner's other plays were found to be enjoyable, so this answer doesn't affect the argument at all.

Key Takeaway:
Weaken questions with intermediate conclusions have two potential assumptions that can be undermined to weaken the argument. Be sure to anticipate answers addressing both!

Incorrect. If audiences usually find critics' reviews unreliable, that means they disagree with them. If that's the case, then there's reason to believe that audiences will not feel about the play the way that the Critic does and expects the audience to feel, weakening the argument.