Critic: People today place an especially

Answer choices

1. A

   Too Strong16% picked this

   People who enjoy comedians who display disrespect in their acts do not place a high value

   The author doesn't need to assume that the entire audience of disrespectful comedians is filled with people who don't place a high value on respect for others. The author could make her same argument while believing that the audience of disrespectful comedians does place a high value on respect for others, but allows for an exception (especially in comic settings) when it comes to exaggerating the failings of people who fail to live up to their highest ideals.

   16%
2. B

   Too Strong: only6% picked this

   Only comedians who display blatant disrespect in their acts are

   The author has alerted us that there are some currently popular disrespectful comedians, and she is unsurprised that they are finding success. But she has never gone to an extreme place of acting like there is not one single respectful comedian who is successful. This trap answer is playing the familiar game of Only Thing Mentioned → Only Thing Necessary Assumption will use the fact that we only mentioned disrespectful comedians who were successful to create a trap answer that acts like "only disrespectful comedians are successful".

   6%
3. C

   Not Necessary3% picked this

   Many people disapprove of the portrayal of blatant disrespect for others

   From the author's first sentence about people generally valuing respect for others, it's very plausible that many people don't like it when comedians are disrespectful. But that idea isn't necessary to the author's argument. If we negate this idea, does it hurt the author's argument to say, "almost no one disapproves of comedians' being disrespectful"? No, it doesn't. The author would say, "yeah, even though they place a high value on respect, they don't demand it out of comedians / they are willing to suspend that preference when it comes to mocking someone at a comedy show who has failed to live up to their ideals."

   3%
4. D

   Correct69% picked this

   People who value an ideal especially highly do not always succeed in living up

   Why this is right

   This is tough for a Question 1! They certainly didn't give the pure Linking answer we anticipated. This is more of a Defender answer. Whenever we see Necessary Assumption answers ruling out an idea with the word "not", we should lovingly slow down and see if the negation would weaken. If we negate this, we're saying, "Hey, author, people who value an ideal especially highly do always succeed in living up to this ideal." Does that weaken? Well, people today value the ideal of "respect for others" especially highly. If they always succeed in living up to this ideal, then "people today always succeed in living up to this ideal of respecting others". That alone seems to weaken the conclusion. It makes it seem like the current popularity of comedians who display disrespect to others is very surprising! It also sort of hurts the connection between the premise and the conclusion. The premise is a conditional that's never been triggered. WHEN you have people failing to live up to their highest ideals, then disrespecting their failings often makes for successful comedy. But according to this negation, people are always succeeding in living up to the ideal they hold in highest esteem, so comedians won't have any targets for their disrespect that will trigger this conditional that provides successful comedy. In a nutshell, negating this answer making it seem like "people today always succeed in living up to their ideals", so the conditional premise never gets triggered.

   Skill tested: Necessary Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   69%
5. E

   Out of Scope Comparison7% picked this

   People today fail to live up to their own ideals more frequently than was the

   Out of Scope Comparison: now vs. past This argument is relying on any shift from past to present. Although it says "people today place an especially high value on respect", you can't infer from that that people of yesteryear placed less value. f.e., People today watch sports with their families sporadically. Yup. And they did in the past, too. Similarly, the conclusion is talking about the current popularity of disrespectful comedians, but not saying anything to suggest that they have more people failing to live up to ideals than before. Our author has to assume that they do have some targets for their disrespectful mockery (that's what D is getting at), but she doesn't need to assume they have more targets than before.

   7%