#10 - Stage performances are judged to be realistic

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Assumption. The correct answer choice is (B).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[JennuineInc]

Hi,

I'm having trouble verbalizing why C is wrong. I thought the answer was C because if realism isn't an essential criterion for evaluating the performances of both types of actors then the argument doesn't work because audiences judge performances of method actors to be more realistic than traditional ones.

Is "judge the performances" the same as "evaluating the performances"? or am I misunderstanding the linkage there.

I think I'm misunderstanding the conclusion of the stimulus. I guess realism doesn't have to be ESSENTIAL for the audience to judge method actors as more realistic?

Thanks!

[David Boyle]

Hi,

I'm having trouble verbalizing why C is wrong. I thought the answer was C because if realism isn't an essential criterion for evaluating the performances of both types of actors then the argument doesn't work because audiences judge performances of method actors to be more realistic than traditional ones.

Is "judge the performances" the same as "evaluating the performances"? or am I misunderstanding the linkage there.

I think I'm misunderstanding the conclusion of the stimulus. I guess realism doesn't have to be ESSENTIAL for the audience to judge method actors as more realistic?

Thanks!

Hello JennuineInc,

"Judge" and "evaluate" do seem to be relatively synonymous.
As for realism, there is a subtle thing going on here maybe: the issue is more about what audiences find to be realistic, than what genuinely is realistic. For example, maybe in real life people don't cry two buckets of tears every time they get sad, but for some reason audiences think it's realistic for them to cry that much when they're sad. One person's judgment of what's realistic, may not really be realistic!!
(Also, answer C doesn't help explain or flesh out differences between traditional and Method acting, as a viable answer likely should.)

Hope this helps,
David

[nmgee]

So is it the case that (A) is incorrect because Method acting only "affects an audience's emotions", whereas (B) more specifically describes the actors' behavior as "conforming" to audience's emotional associations?

Thanks!

[Alex Bodaken]

nmgee,

Thanks for the question! I think you've basically got it - the issue with answer choice (A) is that the conclusion isn't about how the audience's emotions are affected, which is what answer choice (A) is discussing. The conclusion instead is about how audiences judge the level of realism of an actor's portrayal, which is the connection that answer choice (B) helps to make.

Hope that helps!
Alex

[nickp18]

I also selected C as an answer choice, but got down to B and C. Would be also be a better answer because in the stimulus we see "emotional" but it is not present in the conclusion of the argument? If I see a "rogue" or "new" element in the premises which I do not see in the conclusion, should I try to make the connection/linkage this way and look for an answer that contains "emotion"?

Thank you,

Nick

[Paul Marsh]

Hi Nick! You're on the right track for how to think about this problem.

The first premise tells us that audience members think a performance is realistic if the actors behave in accordance with how the audience thinks about those emotions. The second premise tells us that Method actors experience those emotions. The conclusion tells us that the audience must therefore think Method actors' performance are more realistic.

There's a gap in the argument - it assumes that the way the audience thinks about those emotions is in line with the way that Method actors experience them. In other words, it assumes that the language in the second premise (Method actors experiencing those emotions) is the same as the language in the first premise (the way the audience thinks about those emotions). But that's a big assumption, since audience members are, believe it or not, wrong all the time. For example, a Method actor could legitimately experience grief on stage and respond by compensating with overly outward cheer and productivity. But an audience member might not associate those behaviors with grief, and therefore think the Method actor's performance is unrealistic.

So I think you're getting at the correct thing here, which is that (B) ties together "loose ends" of the first two premises (it ties together the Method actor experiencing emotions, and the way the audience thinks about the emotions) in order to shore up the assumption made by the conclusion.

But be careful. Not every rogue element in the stimulus needs to be accounted for by the conclusion. Some sentences in the stimulus are just background noise. (However, if there is any rogue or new element in the conclusion that didn't appear earlier in the premises, that almost always involves some assumption that needs to be cleared up. That's not what's happening in this problem - again, here the issue is that the conclusion improperly assumes that the two premises are talking about the same thing [Method actor experiencing an emotion vs. what the audience thinks about that emotion]).

Hope that helps!