Alexisvargas10 wrote:
Hello, could you please explain a doubt I have in the following question?
Theater Critic: The play La Finestrina, now at Central Theater, was written in Italy in the eighteenth century. The
director claims that this production is as similar to the original production as is possible in a modern theater.
Although the actor who plays Harlequin the clown gives a performance very reminiscent of the twentieth-century
American comedian Groucho Marx, Marx’s comic style was very much within the comic acting tradition that had
begun in sixteenth-century Italy.
The considerations given best serve as part of an argument that
(A) modern audiences would fi nd it hard to tolerate certain characteristics of a historically accurate
performance of an eighteenth-century play
(B) Groucho Marx once performed the part of the character Harlequin in La Finestrina
(C) in the United States the training of actors in the twentieth century is based on principles that do not differ
radically from those that underlay the training of actors in eighteenth-century Italy
(D) the performance of the actor who plays Harlequin in La Finestrina does not serve as evidence against the
director’s claim
(E) the director of La Finestrina must have advised the actor who plays Harlequin to model his performance on
comic performances of Groucho Marx
DOUBT:
I understand that the actor who performed the harlequin has a similar style to Marx’s performance.
Marx, who has a similar style to the 16th tradition in Italy.
However I do not see why answer D in correct I think the actor who performs the harlequin is actually against of the director’s claim since the argument states that the original production of the Finestrina was written in 18th and Marx performed in the 16th century. This option might be true, if we were sure that the 16th tradition was followed int eh 18th century, but the statement does not say anything about that. I would understand if the answer would say “ The performance of the actor who plays Harlequin in La Finestrina MIGHT NOT SERVE as a evidence against the director’s claim. However the answer says “DOES NOT SERVE” as it were for sure that in the 18th the 16th tradition was followed
I saw the solution in the explanation in the private forum of
E-gmat, but I do not see the explanation for my doubt.
Thank you,
Alexis
Hi Alexis,
You are perfect in your understanding of the passage and the possible inference from it.
If this were an inference question, I would have heartily agreed to what you said.
However, this is not an inference question. This is a conclusion question. So, while an inference is bound within the boundaries of the passage, a conclusion might not be. It is just like a conclusion in normal argument questions in GMAT CR. Do you think the conclusions in "Assumption, Weaken or Strengthen" questions are actually inferences?
No.
Isn't it?
If the conclusions were inferences, then given that we cannot challenge the premises, we would not be able to weaken the conclusion and there would actually be no assumptions required for the conclusion to hold.
So, conclusions are not same as inferences.
For example: If you are given that Joe scored 200 on GMAT. Then, you can possibly conclude that Joe is not an intelligent guy, but you cannot infer this.
As you can see while making the conclusion about Joe, we are making several assumptions such as "GMAT score is a correct measure of intelligence" and "Joe was not terribly ill during his GMAT, a condition which could have significantly impacted his score".
Now, while these assumptions can be made while drawing conclusions, you cannot make such assumptions while drawing inferences.
So, while option D is not an inference but it is a valid conclusion. (As you said, it requires an assumption that 16th century tradition was followed in 18th century also)
Now, one pertinent question to ask here is: how do we know that this is a conclusion question and not an inference question?
The answer is simple: by reading the question stem carefully.
"The considerations given best serve as part of an argument that"
As you can see, the question is asking you to find "argument" in the option statement. We know that conclusion is chief objective of an argument. So, essentially, we are looking for a conclusion.
If the question stem had been "The considerations given above best supports which of the following statements", then I don't think we can have option D as the correct answer. Because in this case, we are more or less looking for an inference and option D cannot be conclusively inferred from the given passage.
Does it help?
Thanks,
Chiranjeev
That is a great explanation that I will keep in mind, so the key is understanding the question stem. However, I might have problems understanding the difference in a inference question and conclusion question. Is there some article, or something I can read about it? In the concept about inference questions this is not explained at all. Actually, this question is part of the practice for inference questions suggested in the study plan of the online verbal course. Please let me know