#17 - Film historians often find it difficult to determine

[Administrator]

Please post below with any questions!

[CCLSAT1995]

Hello,

I am having trouble choosing between answer choice C and D (the correct one). I understand why D could be true, but isn't C also supported by the passage? The passage states that box office figures help little, because they only show financial success etc.

Thanks in advance!!

[Francis O'Rourke]

Hi CCL,

The stimulus states that box office figures do not indicate what audiences found funny, frightening, or moving. Answer choice (C) however states that box office figures do not depend on finding it "funny, frightening, or moving."

This small shift in language makes a big difference. It is possible that the box office success does depend on audiences finding a film to be at least one of those three - funny, frightening, or moving - but we still wouldn't be able to tell what the the audiences of the day thought exactly. For example, we could see that The Wizard of Oz was a success, but we would not know whether the audience found it frightening because of the flying monkeys, funny because of the Tin Man, or moving because of Dorothy's desire to get home.

[Bigfoot]

Could someone explain how D) is the correct answer choice?

Thanks!

[James Finch]

Hi Bigfoot,

Answer choice (D) is correct because it essentially restates the final sentence, which states that "newspaper and magazine reviews fail to provide much insight" according to film historians.

While this might seem too basic to be the correct answer, this is a fairly common tactic used by LSAT test makers to increase the difficulty of a question, especially when the correct answer immediately follows an attractive wrong answer, like we have here with (C).

Hope this clears things up!

[chance123]

Hi Bigfoot,

Answer choice (D) is correct because it essentially restates the final sentence, which states that "newspaper and magazine reviews fail to provide much insight" according to film historians.

While this might seem too basic to be the correct answer, this is a fairly common tactic used by LSAT test makers to increase the difficulty of a question, especially when the correct answer immediately follows an attractive wrong answer, like we have here with (C).

Hope this clears things up!

Hi, James, very helpful suggestion about the difference between one indicates sth. and one depends on sth. However, I still get confused about why C is not the correct answer.

Here's my reasoning:
In stimulus, the author says that "they( Box office figures) do not show what audiences found funny."
This means that Box office figures are not sufficient condition for audiences found funny, which means it is possible that Box office figures high whereas audiences not found the movies funny. (BOX OFFICE FIGURES HIGH SLASH AUDIENCE FOUND FUNNY)

In answer choice C, it says that the box office figures' success does not depend on its viewers finding it funny. By this, the answer choice points out that viewers found funny is not a necessary condition for box office figures high, which means that even if box office figures high, that does not need audience found the movies funny. (BOX OFFICE FIGURES HIGH SLASH AUDIENCE FOUND FUNNY)

What's wrong with C?

Thank you in advance!

[Jeremy Press]

Hi chance,

Be careful with the statement you're focusing on from the stimulus, because it doesn't reduce to the form (or the formal logic diagram) you've reduced it to. The sentence says this: "[Box office figures] do not show what audiences found funny, or frightening, or moving." This actually means the box office figures cannot tell us which specific content in the movies the audiences found funny, or frightening, or moving. You reduced that to: "This means that Box office figures are not sufficient condition for audiences found funny." But you're missing the word "what" in your interpretation of the meaning of the statement. The "what" is key. It's distinguishing the stimulus statement from answer choice C. Answer choice C only focuses on whether the audiences found the film funny, etc. Whether I find a film funny (in other words, did I think it funny at all?) is a different question from what specific things I found to be funny in the film (Did I laugh at the jokes? The physical comedy? The scenarios?). This is what's wrong with answer choice C: it changes to a different issue than the one being discussed in the stimulus (as Francis also discusses in her post above).

I hope this helps!

[chance123]

Thank you, Jeremy! I should be more careful about the words using in LSAT

[alexander madison]

the last sentence: These historians also find that newspaper and magazine reviews fail to provide much insight. not rule out provide little insight, right?
if reviews can provide little insight, they can reveal little typical film audience members' views. right?
if little, how can the choice D infer nothing from little?

thank you a lot

[Adam Tyson]

If those reviews "fail to provide much insight," that does not mean that they must provide some insight, alexander madison. They might provide none at all! But what we can say if that if they believe that the reviews fail to provide much insight, then they must believe that the reviews do not usually indicate the audience's views. After all, if the reviews DID typically indicate the views of the audience members, then they would provide a lot of insight into what they found funny, or frightening, or moving, right?