Q25 - It is likely that most of the new

[wei_qi_qi]

Could anyone explain why D rather than C is correct?
P: (1) most of the new shows produced last year by WW were canceled;
(2) this year's new shows are all police dramas, and few police dramas have been popular in recent years
C: most of this year's new shows will be canceled
To strengthen, we want to make last year and this year more similar. So it is better to find sth like last year's police dramas were cancelled.
C： police drama --> cancelled
D: cancelled --> police drama
I feel both C and D could fulfill the gap.

[jm.kahn]

I eliminated D and choice C.

C says that "if police drama, then cancelled" (Police drama -> cancelled)
D says that "if cancelled, then police drama" (Cancelled --> Police drama)

The argument is:
Premises:
Most new shows last season that W&W produced were cancelled due to insufficient viewers.
Most of their new shows this season are police dramas (PD)
Few police dramas have been popular recently

Conclusion: most of the new shows by W&W this season will likely be cancelled

it's an inductive argument that bases the conclusion that most of their shows this year will be cancelled on 2 different lines of support.
1. few PDs are popular and most of their shows are PDs
2. most of their shows last years were cancelled, and the assumption (that all their PDs last year were cancelled)

If an answer choices states the yet unstated assumption in (2), then that'd strengthen the argument.

it seems C fits this perfectly. It says if it was a W&W PD last year, then it was cancelled. (PD->Cancelled)

D says all Cancelled -> PDs, but it could be that there were PDs last year that were not cancelled. So C is much stronger than D.

Can an expert explain this issue?

[pbookworm]

I'm not an expert, but this may help.

The stimulus states that:

Premise 1: "Most of the new shows...produced last season were canceled..."
Premise 1: All of W&W's new shows are police dramas, and few police dramas are popular.
Conclusion: It is likely that most of W&W's new shows for this season will be canceled.

A. Irrelevant comparison.
B. Incorrect. The new shows that W&W produced last year could make up a very, very small percentage of all of the shows that W&W produced last year. We don't know whether or not if most (or all) of the shows W&W produced last year were not canceled. Thus, this answer choice is irrelevant (it could strengthen or weaken depending on what assumptions you make).
C. Incorrect. Again, this answer choice refers to all of the shows W&W produced, and not just the new shows. Even if you interpreted it as "None of the new shows that W&W produced...were not canceled were police dramas" (i.e, All of the new shows that were allowed to continue playing were not police dramas), you would have to assume that W&W produced new police dramas last year. Maybe they didn't. Maybe this season is the first time W&W is producing police dramas. Thus, it may strengthen or weaken depending on what assumptions you make.
D. Correct. This answer choice only references the new shows, and it states that all of the shows that were canceled last year were police dramas. This makes it very probable that the shows that W&W produces this season (which are all police dramas), will not be join the list of being one of the few police dramas that are popular.
E. Incorrect. This is just relevant. We don't care about the most popular television shows, we just care about their popularity to the extent that the show will not be canceled (if even).

Hope this helps!

[maryadkins]

The conclusion is that it's likely that most of the new TV shows this season will be canceled.

The premises are that most of the new shows they produced last season were canceled, and their new shows are all police dramas, which hardly anybody likes nowadays.

Note that all of our premises and our conclusion are about NEW TV shows.

(C) tells us that of all of the shows produced last year, if it was not canceled last year, it was not a police drama. This is the same as saying:

If it was a police drama, it was canceled.

ALL of the police dramas were canceled?? Wait, that means if it is a police drama that exists THIS year, it must be brand new, because last season all the police dramas were abolished! Not just all the new ones...ALL the police dramas.

Then we get to (D).

(D) tells us:

If a NEW SHOW was canceled last year, it was a police drama.

Their new shows this year are all police dramas.

That is double the overlap: new, and a police drama. Hmm. Which is better, (C) or (D)?

What if, in the world of (C), they canceled all of the old police dramas in order to replace them with new ones? And so the new police dramas are better than the old ones, because that was the point? This is possible under (C). (C) is really about a much larger body of shows than (D) and the stimulus are about. On the other hand, if last year as (D) says all of the new shows that were canceled were police dramas, not even the OLD ones, that's a better suggestion this year the same thing will happen.

Tricky!

As for the others:

(A) doesn't strengthen! Why would this make it more likely they'd cancel?

(B) So? Were those new, and were they canceled or not?

(E) We were told this already. This is a premise booster.

[haeeunjee]

Not sure if this was touched upon before, but (C) is also wrong because if it were true and none of the non-cancelled shows were police dramas, that still leaves open the possibility that there were no police dramas at all last year. And what if there were no police dramas at all? That wouldn't necessarily hurt our argument that this year's new police dramas will fail.

[Ghoorch]

I wanted to add a different explanation as to why this answer is correct.

Here's what we know (Premises):

-Most new shows (WW) called last year
-New shows (WW) police dramas

Conclusion:
-Likely Most new TV programs (WW) will be canceled.

We're asked to strengthen this conclusion....


I believe a lot of people get stuck between answer choice C and D, and I do feel the explanation for why C is incorrect is sufficient. But here's what makes answer choice D a clear winner.

As a conditional it reads like this:

new and was canceled -> Police Drama
-What do we know about most the new shows that WW produced last year? ... why they were canceled of course. To infer further, if it was new and cancelled.... it had to have been a police drama. So last year, most of the new shows that were canceled and put out by WW were police dramas.

that seems to add credibility to the idea that most of the new shows this year will follow a similar pattern, possibly. Because the fact is that most of the shows that were new, and canceled were police dramas. It doesn't seem as unsubstantiated.

[ben]

Hey, just to clarify, the discussion about the word “new” in answer C is incorrect.

In other words, answer C is not wrong because it doesn’t have the word “new.” That doesn’t make answer D better. That can be a problem, as it was in answer B, but not here. The key difference is that answer B says “most,” while answer C says “none.”

When answer C talks about “none” of the shows that Wilke & Wilke produced last year, it’s talking about all of them, including the “new” ones.

In a strengthen question, it’s okay to have a super strong answer as long as it covers whatever it needs to cover. Here, it covers the new shows that Wilke & Wilke produced last year, so we’re good on that issue. In short, the missing “new” is not why answer C is worse than answer D.

So why is answer C wrong?

The problem in the argument is that we don’t know much about the new shows that were produced last year. Were they also police dramas? Or were they comedies? Or something else?

Given that most of them were canceled, if they were police dramas, then this year’s shows, which are also police dramas, would probably be similar and thus canceled. That would strengthen the conclusion.

The problem with answer C, though, is that it effectively says… IF

IF they were police dramas, then they would have been canceled.

Great, but were they?

We have no idea. We can’t just assume that they were. Maybe they were comedies. And if so, how do last year’s cancellations—of comedies—support the conclusion that most of this year’s new shows—which are police dramas—will also be canceled?

Answer D, on the other hand, says…

IF they were canceled last year, then they were police dramas.

Unlike in answer C, however, we know that most of the shows were canceled. So, according to answer D, those canceled shows must have been police dramas. That’s not a good sign for this year’s police dramas. That poor performance suggests that this year’s police dramas might be canceled, too, simply because it happened to similar shows before. The past, of course, doesn’t prove anything. But it does “strengthen” the conclusion.

In short, answer C doesn’t do much, while answer D does.

It’s also interesting that these two answers are basically false contrapositives of each other:

Answer C:
police drama --> canceled

Answer D:
canceled --> police drama

The problem is that the “if” clause in answer C, as far as we know, was never triggered. So it’s pretty useless and thus wrong.

I hope that helps!

[AriW788]

Why is E incorrect!?

This answer removes the possibility that the top 5 shows last year were police dramas. Granted, most police dramas fail but the best ones do better than any other show type.

The fact, that police dramas are the most successful shows, push a network not to cancel the show thereby making it unlikely that the network will cancel the show. (An additional support to this reasoning is the fact that WW keep trying to make police dramas.)

Answer D on the other hand just strengthens the premise that few police dramas are successful by including all of WW shows in the ones that were canceled last year. It does not tell us anything about the likelyhood of WW shows getting canceled this year.

Please advise!

Thank you

[AyakiK696]

I thought C was wrong because it only tells us about the shows that WEREN'T cancelled last year, which we don't actually care about? Whereas D strengthens the correlation between this year and last year, since it tells us WHICH type of shows last year were cancelled, and makes it more likely that similar shows will be cancelled this year. Please clarify if this reasoning is correct. Thank you!

[ohthatpatrick]

It might be a little strong to say "we don't care about the shows that weren't canceled."

If I were trying to convince you that "it's unlikely that any of Pam's watercolor drawings will sell at this year's exhibit", would it make you somewhat more convinced if I said

"everything she sold at last year's exhibit were charcoal drawings" ?

By itself, it doesn't quite do anything to convince me I should be pessimistic about Pam's watercolor drawings. I need to know that Pam had both watercolor and charcoal drawings at last year's exhibit in order for "everything she sold was charcoal" to seem like a negative reflection on watercolors.

So you're mostly right! I think information about the shows that weren't canceled COULD be relevant to our understanding, but only if we knew that police dramas were among the shows that were canceled.

[KenM242]

Hey, just to clarify, the discussion about the word “new” in answer C is incorrect.

In other words, answer C is not wrong because it doesn’t have the word “new.” That doesn’t make answer D better. That can be a problem, as it was in answer B, but not here. The key difference is that answer B says “most,” while answer C says “none.”

When answer C talks about “none” of the shows that Wilke & Wilke produced last year, it’s talking about all of them, including the “new” ones.

In a strengthen question, it’s okay to have a super strong answer as long as it covers whatever it needs to cover. Here, it covers the new shows that Wilke & Wilke produced last year, so we’re good on that issue. In short, the missing “new” is not why answer C is worse than answer D.

So why is answer C wrong?

The problem in the argument is that we don’t know much about the new shows that were produced last year. Were they also police dramas? Or were they comedies? Or something else?

Given that most of them were canceled, if they were police dramas, then this year’s shows, which are also police dramas, would probably be similar and thus canceled. That would strengthen the conclusion.

The problem with answer C, though, is that it effectively says… IF

IF they were police dramas, then they would have been canceled.

Great, but were they?

We have no idea. We can’t just assume that they were. Maybe they were comedies. And if so, how do last year’s cancellations—of comedies—support the conclusion that most of this year’s new shows—which are police dramas—will also be canceled?

Answer D, on the other hand, says…

IF they were canceled last year, then they were police dramas.

Unlike in answer C, however, we know that most of the shows were canceled. So, according to answer D, those canceled shows must have been police dramas. That’s not a good sign for this year’s police dramas. That poor performance suggests that this year’s police dramas might be canceled, too, simply because it happened to similar shows before. The past, of course, doesn’t prove anything. But it does “strengthen” the conclusion.

In short, answer C doesn’t do much, while answer D does.

It’s also interesting that these two answers are basically false contrapositives of each other:

Answer C:
police drama --> canceled

Answer D:
canceled --> police drama

The problem is that the “if” clause in answer C, as far as we know, was never triggered. So it’s pretty useless and thus wrong.

I hope that helps!

This is such a solid explanation. The best one.

Too bad I will never be able to deduce this in real time, or ever.

Thanks!

[PrateekP79]

Hey, just to clarify, the discussion about the word “new” in answer C is incorrect.

In other words, answer C is not wrong because it doesn’t have the word “new.” That doesn’t make answer D better. That can be a problem, as it was in answer B, but not here. The key difference is that answer B says “most,” while answer C says “none.”

When answer C talks about “none” of the shows that Wilke & Wilke produced last year, it’s talking about all of them, including the “new” ones.

In a strengthen question, it’s okay to have a super strong answer as long as it covers whatever it needs to cover. Here, it covers the new shows that Wilke & Wilke produced last year, so we’re good on that issue. In short, the missing “new” is not why answer C is worse than answer D.

So why is answer C wrong?

The problem in the argument is that we don’t know much about the new shows that were produced last year. Were they also police dramas? Or were they comedies? Or something else?

Given that most of them were canceled, if they were police dramas, then this year’s shows, which are also police dramas, would probably be similar and thus canceled. That would strengthen the conclusion.

The problem with answer C, though, is that it effectively says… IF

IF they were police dramas, then they would have been canceled.

Great, but were they?

We have no idea. We can’t just assume that they were. Maybe they were comedies. And if so, how do last year’s cancellations—of comedies—support the conclusion that most of this year’s new shows—which are police dramas—will also be canceled?

Answer D, on the other hand, says…

IF they were canceled last year, then they were police dramas.

Unlike in answer C, however, we know that most of the shows were canceled. So, according to answer D, those canceled shows must have been police dramas. That’s not a good sign for this year’s police dramas. That poor performance suggests that this year’s police dramas might be canceled, too, simply because it happened to similar shows before. The past, of course, doesn’t prove anything. But it does “strengthen” the conclusion.

In short, answer C doesn’t do much, while answer D does.

It’s also interesting that these two answers are basically false contrapositives of each other:

Answer C:
police drama --> canceled

Answer D:
canceled --> police drama

The problem is that the “if” clause in answer C, as far as we know, was never triggered. So it’s pretty useless and thus wrong.

I hope that helps!

This is definitely the best explanation so far. Thank you so much!

[NaW319]

Could anyone explain why D rather than C is correct?
P: (1) most of the new shows produced last year by WW were canceled;
(2) this year's new shows are all police dramas, and few police dramas have been popular in recent years
C: most of this year's new shows will be canceled
To strengthen, we want to make last year and this year more similar. So it is better to find sth like last year's police dramas were cancelled.
C： police drama --> cancelled
D: cancelled --> police drama
I feel both C and D could fulfill the gap.

I am no expert but this one may help(if it is not too late).
So why D not C?
You made it very clear that in order to strengthen, this year’s situation must parallel last year’s, which is correct. But if you took a closer look at C, you’ll find out that in fact C and the premises aren’t alike at all. Let’s make an example of C to make it clear, if none of the show which were cancelled last year were police drama, can we conclude that the cancelled ones were police drama? No, the cancelled ones could be talk shows, movie review, etc. And the left ones could be anything. C actually has nothing to do with police dramas, the cancelled ones and the left ones have no connections with police drama.
Let’s take another look at D, if all of last year’s cancelled shows were police drama(PD), then it shows that PD is more likely to be cancelled Due to insufficient viewership, this matches the premises(PD aren’t popular these years.)
Now to make this more clear, we can compare last year and this year to see what’s missing and how to make them similar:

This year: 1.all the shows are PD
2. PD isn’t popular in recent years, which means “insufficient viewership”
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Lsat year: 1.most of the cancelled show are due to insufficient viewership.
2. Nothing, and that’s it?

Now to make them similar, we have to prove that in last year, 1.there are PD 2. PD are among those cancelled ones. If that’s the case, we can conclude that since PD aren’t popular and won’t bring much viewership, chances are good that most(or all) of them will be cancelled, just as last year.
Now D makes much more sense than C.

Hope this will help you and others, apologize for the grammar mistakes(English isn’t my mother tongue)

[IrisH894]

I think the correct answer is one that supports the highest percentage of cancelled police drama/police drama in total. Because this year's shows are all police dramas, so the higher that percentage is, the more likely it is that most of this year's shows will be cancelled.
A is irrelevent.
B is extremely weak. B+stimulus=most of the shows produced last year were police dramas + most of the shows produced last year were cancelled. Think about what this means. The overlap could be infinitely small. It means that in an extreme scenario only one police drama was cancelled last year, making the percentage extremely low. For example, they produced 2001 shows last year, 1001 shows were police dramas, 1 of them was cancelled, the other 1000 shows were not police dramas and were all cancelled. This satisfies all the conditions, yet the chances of a police drama being cancelled last year was less than 0.001.
C is actually irrelevant. What it says is basically, if there was a police drama last year, it was cancelled. What if they didn't produce any police dramas last year? If that's the case, what happened last year isn't really relevant to what happens this year.
D is very strong! It means that the percentage we talked about above, cancelled police dramas/police dramas in total, range anywher between 50% to 100%. Why is this the case? Because D says that last year, every cancelled show was a police drama, and we know that more than half of the shows were cancelled. So last year, more than half of the shows were cancelled and they were police dramas. The other half could all be police dramas, in which the likelihood of police dramas being cancelled was above 50%, or they could all be other kinds of shows, in which the likelihood of police dramas being cancelled was 100%.