Logical Reasoning

PT118 · S1 · Q13 If the play were successful

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If the play were successful, it would be adapted as a movie or revived at the Decade Festival.

Conclusion

The play won't become a movie nor will it be revived at the Decade Festival.

Evidence

If the play were successful, it would become a movie or get revived at the Festival. But, it is not successful.

Evaluation

Whenever we see any conditional logic ("If") on a Flaw question, we should immediately be on the lookout for whether the author commits a Necessary vs. Sufficient flaw by reasoning in a backwards or opposite fashion.

The author provided this conditional, successful → adapted or revived

Then proceeded to argue that SINCE successful, adapted and revived

If we're given A → B or C we can't infer ~A → ~B and ~C

Goal

Look for an answer calling out the Necessary vs. Sufficient flaw or one that conversationally explains that there might be more than one possible route to getting adapted or revived (yes, being a successful play is one way, but maybe being a play that is beloved by a famous actor is another way)

13.

The argument's reasoning is flawed because the argument

  1. fails to draw the conclusion

    Not a Flaw

    The author was correct in thinking that when you negate the idea of "adapted or revived", you get the idea that neither one of those occur. This is the familiar rule we know when we write a contrapositive: if you're contradicting "and", it becomes "or", and vice versa. Given the original Successful ? Adapted or Revived We would contrapose and get Adapted and Revived ? Successful

    5% picked this

  2. fails to explain in exactly

    Not a Flaw

    Answers that ask for an exact definition, or exact measurement, or to name the author's sources, are never right. We accept the truth of the premises. You tell me it was unsuccessful in the premise, I accept that. I don't need you to explain how it was unsuccessful. I'm here to judge your reasoning — the accuracy with which you are using that conditional rule about successful plays.

    2% picked this

  3. equates the play’s aesthetic worth

    Out of Scope: aesthetic worth

    Nothing in the argument is in any way evaluative. The author never implies any feeling about the aesthetic worth of the play. If anything, the "regrettably" suggests that the author liked the play and wanted it to become a movie or a revival, but we would have no idea if the author wanted that based on aesthetic worth. Not to mention, the author would be seemingly saying the play did not have commercial success, but did have aesthetic worth.

    1% picked this

  4. presumes, without providing justification, that

    Not The Flaw

    This sound like it's describing a False Choice, where the author illicitly assumes that there are only two options. But nothing the author says rules out the idea of the play being used in some other way.

    11% picked this

  5. Correct

    fails to recognize that the

    Why this is right

    Being a "successful" play was a condition that was sufficient to guarantee that the play would be adapted or revived, but there might be other sufficient conditions (i.e. "a famous actor with connections loves this play and insists on doing it in a movie or at that festival") that would also lead to the play's being adapted or revived.

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

    81% picked this

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