Logical Reasoning

PT151 · S4 · Q8 A good movie reviewer

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A good movie reviewer should be able to give favorable reviews of movies that are not to his or her taste.

Conclusion

A good movie reviewer should be able to give favorable reviews of movies that are not to his or her taste.

Evidence

While critics might try to help people appreciate better movies, the function of movie reviewers is to help people determine which movies they might enjoy seeing.

Movie reviewers' tastes are very different and usually better informed than those of most moviegoers, because they've seen so many movies.

Evaluate

Whenever we do Main Conclusion and Role questions, we start by priming our brain with the reminder that the conclusion is almost always earlier than the Supporting ideas.

So as we read the arguments on these two question types, we're specifically asking ourselves:

- Is the first sentence the conclusion (#2 most common pattern)? - Is there an early attribution and then the author rebuts that idea (#1 most common pattern)?

When we read this first sentence, does it sound like the author's opinion?

Sure! It says "should", which is opinionated. If the paragraph starts with an opinion from the author, 99% of the time that's your main conclusion.

Does the author provide support for why a good movie reviewer should be able to give good reviews of movies they don't like?

Yes -- the job of movie reviewers is to help people figure which movies the people would like, not which movies the reviewer likes. And the reviewer doesn't have the same tastes as most people (because the reviewer has seen so many movies).

Goal

As long as we correctly find the conclusion, the hard part is done. We just have to find a meaning match for the first sentence, which is our main conclusion.

Which one of the following most accurately expresses the overall conclusion drawn in the argument?

Movie reviewers' tastes in movies
Unrelated to Goal
This does not look like the first sentence. It doesn't even mention "good movie reviewer". This answer shows us one of the supporting ideas; we might call this an intermediate conclusion because it's supported by the "because movie reviewers have seen so many movies".
1% picked this
Correct
If a movie reviewer is
Why this is right
This is our best available match for the first sentence, which was the main conclusion. We know it's the main conclusion because it's an opinion from the author, and it's supported by other ideas (the rest of the paragraph, in this case).
Skill tested: Main Conclusion · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
74% picked this
The function of a movie
Unstated Inference Last Sentence Trap
This answer choice presents a claim that was never said. We can infer that the function of a movie reviewer is different from that of a film critic because we were told the function that each one plays, and they were different. Questions asking us to find the conclusion aren't asking us to find any invisible but derivable inference/assumption. They just want us to identify which of the explicit claims was the main conclusion, and the first sentence was that.
3% picked this
Movie reviewers see many more
Premise
This doesn't look anything like the first sentence, so we don't need to think about it beyond that. It happens to be a premise, which is clearly indicated by the fact that it's prefaced by a Support Indicator, "because".
0% picked this
The role of movie reviewers
Premise Last Sentence Trap
This does not match the first sentence, which was the main conclusion. Since the conclusion is almost never the final claim (on Main Conclusion and Role questions), we want to always be a little nervous if we're picking an answer that matches the final claim. We can tell that this isn't the main conclusion because it's not supported. Why should we believe that the role of movie reviewers is to guide people to movies the people would like, rather than to help people appreciate better movies? ? ? We don't know why, because no support was offered for that claim.
22% picked this

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