- PowerScore Staff
- Posts: 8950
- Joined: Feb 02, 2011
- Fri Mar 24, 2017 2:02 pm
#33682
Complete Question Explanation
Flaw in the Reasoning. The correct answer choice is (A)
In this stimulus, the author starts off with a version of the “some people say...” rhetorical device. Typically, an author will introduce some other party’s viewpoint and then will immediately conclude that it is incorrect. Here the application of that technique is a bit different. Rather than talking about what some other person thinks, the author tells us what some other people do. Here, some video game makers sell the movie rights for their popular games, which the author concludes is “rarely good from a business perspective.” In support of that conclusion, the author offers the example of video game maker StarQuanta, which sold the movie rights to its game Nostroma. Although Nostroma was a popular game, the movie adaptation was not. In fact, critics and fans hated the movie, and subsequent better made versions of the Nostroma game sold poorly.
This argument is flawed, because it reaches a general conclusion, that selling the movie rights to a popular game is rarely good, based on just one example, that of the Nostroma movie adaptation debacle. While it may be the case that StarQuanta’s experience with Nostroma is typical of what occurs when game makers sell off their film rights, we do not have any reason to think that is the case. For all we know, StarQuanta had a uniquely poor experience.
The question stem identifies this as a Flaw in the Reasoning question. Our prephrase is that the correct answer choice will describe the author’s error in basing a general conclusion on a single, potentially atypical example.
Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice, and it closely follows our prephrase.
Answer choice (B): Here, the answer choice is inconsistent with the stimulus. The author’s inference is that it is not a good business idea to sell the movie rights to a popular video game, not that something will be disliked by the public solely because the critics did not like it.
Answer choice (C): This answer choice describes a circular argument. However, the argument was not circular because the evidence, about StarQuanta’s experience, was not the same as the generalized conclusion.
Answer choice (D): As with answer choice (B), this answer choice is inconsistent with the stimulus, since the author does not assume that the movie adaptation of the game will be as popular as the game itself.
Answer choice (E): This answer choice is incorrect because it describes a Mistaken Reversal, which is a conditional reasoning error. However, the conclusion did not result from an application of conditional reasoning.
Flaw in the Reasoning. The correct answer choice is (A)
In this stimulus, the author starts off with a version of the “some people say...” rhetorical device. Typically, an author will introduce some other party’s viewpoint and then will immediately conclude that it is incorrect. Here the application of that technique is a bit different. Rather than talking about what some other person thinks, the author tells us what some other people do. Here, some video game makers sell the movie rights for their popular games, which the author concludes is “rarely good from a business perspective.” In support of that conclusion, the author offers the example of video game maker StarQuanta, which sold the movie rights to its game Nostroma. Although Nostroma was a popular game, the movie adaptation was not. In fact, critics and fans hated the movie, and subsequent better made versions of the Nostroma game sold poorly.
This argument is flawed, because it reaches a general conclusion, that selling the movie rights to a popular game is rarely good, based on just one example, that of the Nostroma movie adaptation debacle. While it may be the case that StarQuanta’s experience with Nostroma is typical of what occurs when game makers sell off their film rights, we do not have any reason to think that is the case. For all we know, StarQuanta had a uniquely poor experience.
The question stem identifies this as a Flaw in the Reasoning question. Our prephrase is that the correct answer choice will describe the author’s error in basing a general conclusion on a single, potentially atypical example.
Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice, and it closely follows our prephrase.
Answer choice (B): Here, the answer choice is inconsistent with the stimulus. The author’s inference is that it is not a good business idea to sell the movie rights to a popular video game, not that something will be disliked by the public solely because the critics did not like it.
Answer choice (C): This answer choice describes a circular argument. However, the argument was not circular because the evidence, about StarQuanta’s experience, was not the same as the generalized conclusion.
Answer choice (D): As with answer choice (B), this answer choice is inconsistent with the stimulus, since the author does not assume that the movie adaptation of the game will be as popular as the game itself.
Answer choice (E): This answer choice is incorrect because it describes a Mistaken Reversal, which is a conditional reasoning error. However, the conclusion did not result from an application of conditional reasoning.
