#8 - A good movie reviewer should be able to give favorable

[Administrator]

Please post below with any questions!

[abrown]

I got stuck with two answers, B & E and could not deduce any further. Can someone please explain why E is wrong?

[nicholaspavic]

Hi abrown,

So here, we have a main point style question and that means our answer choice is going to have to accurately summarize the author's point of view. With this in mind, that first sentence is a very good conclusion restated in a very conditional way in Answer Choice B, which is correct. The reason why Answer Option (E) is incorrect is that it is merely restating a counter-premise offered in the stimulus. You know it's a counter-premise because of the indicator word "yet."

Thanks for the great question and I hope this helps!

[OneSeventy2019]

PowerScore,

I correctly chose choice B but am curious about the breakdown of this argument:

Sentence 1: "A good movie.....to his or her taste" Conclusion
Sentence 2: "Because movie reviewers...those of most moviegoers" premise (directly supporting conclusion)
Sentence 3: "Yet the function...better appreciate movies" counter-premise

Does this look about right? Could the second sentence just be a standalone claim?

Thanks!

[James Finch]

Hi One Seventy,

That last two sentences are actually both premises for the first sentence. I find paraphrasing individual sentences or even clauses in longer sentences can help understand the role they play in an argument. So the way I paraphrased this stimulus would be:

Sentence 1: Good movie reviewers must be able to be objective, not just subjective, when giving favorable reviews.

Sentence 2: Movie reviewers have different subjective tastes than most moviegoers.

Sentence 3: Movie reviewers sole function is to objectively help other moviegoers determine which movies to see.

The last two sentences combine to support the first one, and both are necessary to it; we have to know that movie reviewers have different tastes than most people, and that their function is to tell those other people which movies to see. Combine those two ideas and we see that in order to fulfill their function, they must give good reviews to movies that don't suit their tastes.

Hope this helps!