#14 - Most popular historical films are not documentaries;

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[ahhe223]

I spent too much time on this question and ended up selecting the correct answer, but I got it by largely due to process of elimination.

1. Pop Historical films -(most)--> ~Documentary
2. Pop Historical films ----> Dramatic presentatio of hist events ---> ~present evidence for accuracy
C. Uninformed viewers dramatic hist film ----> ~Accurate. (CP: Accurate ---> ~uninformed viewers dramatic hist film)

(E) Accurate ---> considered evidence
I chose (E) because it was the best answer. But it seemed like it was close to the contrapositive of the conclusion. I would appreciate any further insight on this question.

[Adam Tyson]

You might be working a little too hard to put every aspect of this stimulus into conditional diagrams, ahhe223. For example, the first sentence sets up a formal logic claim rather than a purely conditional one ("most" tells us that), and then the rest of the stimulus ignores documentaries and only tells us some things about dramas. For that reason, we should focus on the conditional rules about dramas, which are:

1. Premise: Drama Evidence

2. Conclusion: Drama Regard as Accurate

Now we can see more clearly that the missing link is that if there is no evidence, you should not regard them as accurate!

Look for the heart of the conditional claims when you know conditionality is present. Not every statement or claim in the stimulus is conditional, and they don't all need to be broken into diagrams in order to find that key bit of info that you need to answer the question. Cut out the extraneous stuff and get to the core of what they are saying. Some stimuli with conditional reasoning may have several sentences of non-conditional facts, and just one conditional claim buried in it! When you find that claim, it's special and deserves attention, and shouldn't get unnecessarily tangled up with all the non-conditional stuff. Just diagram the bits that need it, analyze those, and build your prephrases around them, and you'll be less likely to get lost in the weeds.

Good luck, keep at it!

[g_lawyered]

Hi P.S.,
I was successfully able to connect the link between regarding historical films with evidence as accurate historical films. Which is how I chose E. However, I contemplated with answer B before choosing E. I ended up eliminating B because of "present all evidence". I distinguished that as B states"all evidence" and the argument states "accurate evidence" doesn't mean the same thing. Is this why B is incorrect or what part makes B an incorrect answer choice?
Thanks in advance

[Adam Tyson]

There's another way to eliminate answer B, g_lawyered, and it's by noticing that it's about what documentaries "should" do. Our argument has nothing to do with what the documentaries should do! It's about what the viewers should (or should not) do!

Answer B isn't wrong because of "all the evidence." Another principle that would also have strengthened the argument could have been "viewers should not accept as accurate any presentation that fails to present all the evidence in support of that presentation." And "all" is implied in answer E, anyway - "the evidence on which it is based" means all of that evidence, not just some of it.

It's the focus on the wrong thing - the documentaries, rather than the uninformed viewers - that is the real problem in answer B.

[g_lawyered]

Hi Adam,
Would B be classified as incorrect answer choice as outside scope? As you mentioned B focuses on the wrong group- the documentaries- instead of the uninformed viewers. Is this answer choice an example of outside scope answers choices?
Thanks for your help!

[miriamson07]

Hi, I see that answer choice E reveals why a historical films should not be regarded as accurate portrayals of historical events. However, I don't see a connection between answer choice E and the relevant party in question, the "uninformed viewers." Am I missing the connection, or does it not matter that the correct answer choice doesn't specifically address the specific party spoken about in the stimulus? To me, it feels wrong not to address "uninformed viewers." After all, that is what the stimulus is about. It's not about just any viewer.

[Luke Haqq]

Hi miriamson07!

You are right that uninformed viewers are a focus of the stimulus. However, to your question, for a justify question, it doesn't necessarily count against an answer choice if it speaks in broader terms than are used in the stimulus. So here, it's not a fatal flaw that the answer choice doesn't mention them, because (E) gets to what the overall conclusion (final sentence of the stimulus) is about. More to the point, (E) allows that conclusion to follow from the premises if (E) were added as a premise.

(E) can be combined with the second sentence of the stimulus, which states that popular historical films "cannot present the evidence for the accuracy of what they portray." (E) is saying that, in such a situation, one should never regard a historical account as accurate. That allows one to get to the conclusion that uninformed viewers of these films should not regard them as accurate portrayals of historical events.