Actor: Bertolt Brecht's plays

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct60% picked this

   An audience that cannot readily discern a character's personality will not take any interest

   Why this is right

   We're told that audiences invariably find it difficult to discern any of BB's characters' personalities. This rule says, "well then for BB's plays, an audience will not take interest in any of the characters." And according to the last sentence, when an audience doesn't take interest, it's not a successful drama. Formally, here are the two premises and answer choice combining to yield our conclusion. Premise Answer (A) Premise BB's → can't → don't → unsuccessful plays discern care abt drama personality characters C O N C L U S I O N BB's ---------------------------→ unsuccessful plays drama

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

   60%
2. B

   Unrelated to Goal3% picked this

   A character's personality is determined primarily by the motives and beliefs

   If an answer doesn't establish for us that audiences don't care what happens to any of the characters in BB's plays, then it's functionally useless for us. That's the only way we have of proving that a drama is unsuccessful.

   3%
3. C

   Unclear Impact27% picked this

   The extent to which a play succeeds as a drama is directly proportional to the extent to which the play's

   This is mostly a reiteration of the final sentence, a premise. It takes what was a conditional on/off relationship between success and audience-caring and turns it into a "volume dial" (the more X, the more Y) relationship. Thanks, but no thanks, (C)! We were fine with the on/off relationship. We just haven't yet established that BB's audiences don't care about any of the characters. In fact we have no idea to what degree BB's audiences care about the characters, so we can't apply the rule in this answer choice to derive how successful his plays are or aren't.

   27%
4. D

   Out of Scope7% picked this

   If the personalities of a play's characters are not readily discernible by the actors playing the roles, then those personalities are not

   Out of Scope: actors' discernment Unrelated to Goal If an answer doesn't establish for us that audiences don't care what happens to any of the characters in BB's plays, then it's functionally useless for us. That's the only way we have of proving that a drama is unsuccessful. This answer, uselessly, examines whether or not actors can discern the personalities of the characters they're portraying.

   7%
5. E

   Empathize With vs. Care What Happens3% picked this

   All plays that, unlike Brecht's plays, have characters with whom audiences empathize

   This answer is part conditional and part factual. The factual part is telling us that BB's plays have characters with whom audiences do not empathize. So is it the same to say "audiences don't empathize with the characters in BB's plays" as it is to say "audiences don't care what happens to the characters in BB's plays"? To empathize is to understand / share someone else's feelings (usually from having had similar experience). I don't empathize with Batman's feelings -- I don't understand or share the feelings of what it's like to be a billionaire whose parents were killed in front of him, who now secretly fights crime with technologically futuristic weaponry. But I still care what happens to Batman! Since this answer is only addressing whether audiences empathize with BB's characters (and since empathy ≠ care about what happens to you), this answer tells us nothing about whether audiences do / don't care about what happens to the characters in BB's plays.

   3%