LR Question 6 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Critic: The criticism of the popular film comedy…
QUESTION TYPE: Principle – Strengthen
CONCLUSION: It is wrong to criticize Quirks for not being realistic.
REASONING: Quirks is funny. And the important thing for a comedy is for it to be funny.
ANALYSIS: This already sounds like a pretty good argument. We can strengthen it by showing that a comedy film shouldn’t be criticized as long as it succeeds as a comedy.
___________
- This weakens the argument. Quirks is not realistic.
- This answer is tempting. It’s true that Quirks was popular. But you’re trying to strengthen the reasoning of the argument, and the author wasn’t arguing that Quirks is good because it’s popular. Instead, the author argued that Quirks is good because it’s funny.
- As with B, this doesn’t strengthen the author’s reasoning. Their point was that Quirks was good because it is funny. The fact that the characters are stylized would actually be a bad thing except for the fact that the film is funny.
- CORRECT. This works. Quirks is a comedy, and it was funny. Being funny is what’s important for a comedy.
This answer tells us that Quirks was successful overall, because it was a success as a comedy. And if Quirks was successful, then presumably it shouldn’t be criticized for being unrealistic. - This doesn’t help. We don’t even know if Quirks tried to stay within a single genre. Moreover, this answer doesn’t help prove that we shouldn’t criticize Quirks.
More Resources for Principle Questions
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Principle questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers principle questions.
I honestly don’t see how D fills in the gap. I guess its the best answer choice compared with the others, but it’s still such a terrible form of justification for the conclusion. What does success have to do with the charge that something is not being realistic? I can honestly see answer choice D as a flaw.
Critic: This film is a funny, which is important for a comedy.If a film succeeds within its genre, then that film is successful. Therefore, criticism of the film comedy quirks for not being realistic is misguided.
Which one of the following most accurately describes a flaw in the critics argument?
A) fails to consider that even if something is successful within its genre, it could still not be realistic.
Batman is a very popular movie and succeeds in its genre, does that mean that if someone were to say that its not realistic, then their charge is misguided?
Hi Matt,
You’re not wrong – the question asked for which one of the options best justifies the argument, and (D) was just the best we could do with the options given.
As you pointed out, the main missing link in the question is that it’s basically saying that if an aspect of a film makes it a success then any criticism of that aspect is misguided. This obviously isn’t entirely fair, but it works enough for us to know that it’s the only correct answer.
Hope that helps!
I agree with Matt as well – I noticed that we had to make a (not insignificant!) assumption to leap to this answer! Though, after reviewing, it makes sense how the other answer choices weaken or are irrelevant.
I think the key word here is that people criticized the film “for not being realistic”. They weren’t arguing the film was unrealistic. They were arguing it was bad *because it was unrealistic*.
The critic’s reply is that the film was not bad, and that unrealistic is a poor criticism of a comedy if the comedy succeeded as a comedy.
It’s a subtle distinction between “The film is unrealistic and that is bad!” vs. “The film is bad, *because* it’s unrealistic”.
So I have taught the LSAT for years and I still feel like D is a trash answer. It say unrealistic. It is like the classic popular=acccuracy question. People say the history is inaccurate but they are wrong because the other histories have been wildly popular. Assumption was popularity is evidence of accuracy. This does not link bad to to unrealistic.
I feel like a proper assumption would be since they say the film is funny which is important for a comedy. If funny or achieving genre goal then that is evidence of realism/being realistic.
Am I wrong?
It’s not an airtight answer as discussed in the comment thread below so I won’t spend too much time on that. But your proposed assumption – that being funny is evidence of realism –would actually change the structure of the argument. The critic isn’t trying to show that the film IS realistic (and frankly seems to largely agree that it’s unrealistic). They’re arguing that realism is not the relevant evaluative criterion here. That’s why a genre-relative success principle (even if somewhat thin) is the closest logical bridge among the choices.
Fwiw, I don’t think D is a horrible answer. As Graeme wrote, the criticism referred to isn’t just that the film is unrealistic, it’s that the film is bad BECAUSE it’s unrealistic. So the critic is shifting the standard by saying that it doesn’t matter whether it’s unrealistic, because it’s funny. So D supports that shift – films are properly judged by whether they succeed within their genre. And succeeding within the genre of comedy reasonably means being funny. So D helps justify dismissing a criticism that evaluates a comedy by the wrong standard.
And to circle that back to your assumption, if the critic’s main point is that realism should have no bearing on evaluating a comedy, it wouldn’t make sense for the critic to try to connect being funny to realism.
Not sure if that adds much to the discussion that’s already had in the thread, but feel free to disagree or comment further!