A consumer survey of independent feature films revealed that the perce

KAPLAN OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

The second question based on this stimulus asks us to locate the one answer choice that doesn't strengthen the author's argument, which means we need to locate the odd-man-out. We therefore want to eliminate the four choices that strengthen the connection between the popular appeal of a director's film and that director's having a past hit film; or that strengthen the connection between lack of a hit film and lesser popular appeal. The right answer will be the choice that doesn't support the author's causal link between previous directorial success and the popular appeal of that director's other films.

An 800 test taker expects that some question stems will not be written in the clearest possible manner. Before proceeding to the answer choices in such questions, she pauses for a moment to consider what she's being asked and what kind of answer choice she's looking for, even when it's impossible to specifically prephrase an answer.

(A) If previous hits indicate talent, then the author's theory of the link between previous hit films and popular appeal of the survey films seems more plausible, and we're more likely to believe that the organizers are wrong, as the author maintains, about the effects of subject matter.

(B), (D), and (E) all strengthen the argument by tying past experience of success to present cinematic successes. (B) links previous experience to ratings directly. (D) takes it from another angle and explains that the films of first-timers do not often achieve the same popular appeal as that attained by previous hit-makers. It still strengthens the argument by offering a direct relationship between past success and appeal. (E) links prior experience of success to the ability to obtain the best actors, offering another benefit that accrues to experienced directors and makes them more likely to produce hit films. Like (A), all of these choices make it seem more reasonable to argue that the organizers have misunderstood the role of subject matter in the survey ratings. That is, they all support the author's alternative explanation.

(C) Why many first-time directors don't make action films has no impact on this argument. The fact remains that of the films in this particular survey, the action films were made by more experienced directors while the romances were made by novices, and the author uses this fact to counter a previous conclusion. (C) gives us one possible explanation for this fact, but has no effect on how this fact is used by the author, which, after all, constitutes the crux of her argument. This is the one choice that does not strengthen (or, for that matter, even affect) the author's argument, so it is the right answer here.­