Q10 - Actor: Bertolt Brecht's plays

[mshinners]

Question Type:
Sufficient Assumption

Stimulus Breakdown:
Brecht's plays make it hard to figure out what's going on with the characters. A successful dramatic play must make people care for at least one character. Therefore, Brecht's plays are not successful.

Answer Anticipation:
This argument clearly lays out a necessary component of a successful drama - caring about a character. What are we told about the plays of Brecht? It's hard to figure out the personalities of his characters. In order to get to the conclusion, then, we have to connect this difficulty in figuring out character personalities with not caring about them. This is a rare Sufficient Assumption question where the gap is between the premises, and not between the premises and the conclusion!

Correct answer:
(A)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) Bingo. This answer choice connects what we know about Brecht's plays (not easily discerning personalities) with what we know about unsuccessful plays (audiences don't care about any characters). While "care" and "interest in" are different terms, it is necessarily true that if you don't have an interest in something, you can't care about that thing.

(B) Out of scope. It doesn't matter how personality is determined since the premise states that Brecht's characters' personalities are hard to discern. This answer is trying to justify a premise, which isn't necessary.

(C) Premise booster. This answer choice boosts the last statement to be biconditional and directly proportional, but it doesn't connect what we know about Brecht's work to what we know about unsuccessful plays.

(D) Premise booster. This answer choice connects the two pieces of information we know about the interpretation of Brecht's characters, but it doesn't connect those premises to whether the audience cares about them.

(E) Tempting! This answer choice establishes that audiences don't empathize with Brecht's characters. For this answer to work, there'd have to be a connection between empathizing with a character and caring about it. So could an audience care about a character with whom they don't empathize? Sure, it's possible to care for a character whose feelings you don't understand or share, so this answer ultimately fails to connect the ideas that this argument needs to connect.

Takeaway/Pattern:
The LSAT has been increasingly using what I call implicit premises on the exam. In this question, for example, there's an implicit premise of, "If an audience doesn't take an interest in a character, they can't care for that character." It's not an assumption or outside knowledge; it's derived from the definition of those words. The LSAT will be very precise with language usage. If you're torn, try to see which jump feels "smaller" to you. "Interest" and "care" are closer to "empathy" and "care".

Also, don't listen to this argument - Brecht is great.

#officialexplanation

[syp]

I initially chose C for this question. I came to the forums to find an explanation for this question and couldn't find one so I wanted to write one up. Please feel free to correct me.

So, this is a sufficient assumption question. The argument structure is as follows:

P1: The roles in Brecht's plays express incongruous motives and beliefs and the audience and actors cannot discern any of the characters' personalities.
P2: But, for a play to succeed as a drama, audiences must care what happens to at least some of its characters.
C: Brecht's plays are not genuinely successful dramas.

We must find an answer that somehow links the idea of an audience discerning the character's personality with caring for some of its character to ensure that the conclusion is 100% justified.

(A) - The correct answer. I initially eliminated this questions during POE because it said interest and not care. I'm assuming interest and care are interchangeable in this manner? Looking at it now, I can see how it justifies the conclusion by making a connection between the "personality" and "caring" concept in premise 1 and 2.

(B)- This does not connect or address a gap in the argument. This is irrelevant.

(C) - I chose this answer. It is wrong because we aren't concerned with the extent or measure the play's success , but rather with the fact that it achieves success or not.

(D) - Just like B, this does not connect the gap in the argument we are looking for. Wrong.

(E) - I was considering this answer choice when I first looked at it, but I thought "all plays" were out of scope. Additionally, it doesn't properly address the gap in the argument I identified earlier.

Would love some feedback on my reasoning for this question. Thanks!

[maryadkins]

Thank you for your explanation! Great job. A few comments on your answer choice analysis:

(C) doesn't give us an assumption anyway, because we were already told that for a play to success, audiences must care. This is a premise booster.

(E) is reversed logic: If care (empathize) --> succeed. This is a flipped premise.

You are correct that "interest in" and "care" are synonymous in order for (A) to work. Even with this synonym shift, it is the best of the five.

[snoopy]

I selected A initially while timed but selected C while blind reviewing.

This is my reasoning, and I would love some insight into my thought process!

Conclusion: Brecht's plays are not successful.
Premise: Audience can't figure out characters. The success of a play is determined by whether or not the audience cares about a play's characters.
Gap: What's the relationship between discerning characters' personalities and caring about them?
Gap filler: Audience can't figure out Brecht's characters. So, they will probably not care about characters. That means Brecht's plays aren't successful.

A fills that gap.

However, I chose C on untimed review because I thought that pointing out a directly proportional relationship between a play's success and how much the audience cares about characters would fill that gap. I also thought that A was a necessary assumption rather than a sufficient assumption. Now that I'm looking at C again, it boosts the already stated premise - that the success of a drama depends on how much the audience cares about the characters.

Also, question: is A a necessary and sufficient assumption? If I negate A ("An audience that cannot readily discern a character's personality WILL take interest in that character"), wouldn't that destroy the argument?