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605-655 (Medium)|   Weaken|      
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Bunuel
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­Film critic: The documentary film The Decline of English Literature 27 Jul 2026, 19:00
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D
Be sure to select an answer first to save it in the Error Log before revealing the correct answer (OA)!

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45% (medium)

Question Stats:

68% (02:06) correct 32% (02:22) wrong based on 305 sessions

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­Film critic: The documentary film The Decline of English Literature presents the view that contemporary British writers lack the basic narrative skills common among nineteenth-century British authors. The film's comparison is persuasive because it analyzes 20 popular, critically respected British novels, 10 from the nineteenth century and 10 from the past two decades, and demonstrates that the contemporary novels are not nearly as well-written as the nineteenth-century novels.

Which of the following, if true, casts the most doubt on the argument above?

(A) A film viewer who was not familiar with literary criticism may not be convinced by the film’s analysis of 20 novels.

(B) The film critic may favor nineteenth-century fiction and may therefore be biased in favor of the filmmaker’s view.

(C) The film’s title may predispose viewers to accept the film’s conclusion even before viewing the comparisons in the film.

(D) The filmmaker could have chosen to analyze only books that support the position she was trying to establish.

(E) The literary methods used by contemporary British authors could require less narrative skill than methods used by writers in other parts of the world.


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D
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­Film critic: The documentary film The Decline of English Literature Updated on: 30 Jul 2026, 04:56
Originally posted by dhart on 27 Jul 2026, 23:18.
Last edited by dhart on 30 Jul 2026, 04:56, edited 6 times in total.
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B,Dlook to weaken but then the passage talks more that film presents the views and . So, i think


B ) The film critic may be bbiased with the nineteenth-century fiction and may therefore be biased in favor of the filmmaker’s view. Known film critics works on reputation and sp it sounds a littlle preposterous. Incorrect

C) is about viewers and stuff - Incorrect

D.) the filmmakers could have chosen the subjects which she was trying to portay( being an art/entertainment industry they are given freedom to let flow their creative juices lol ) sounds more proper - Correct
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­Film critic: The documentary film The Decline of English Literature 28 Jul 2026, 00:14
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D...? --She could have picked the weakest links of 100s of critically respected novels from the past 2 decades
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­Film critic: The documentary film The Decline of English Literature 28 Jul 2026, 04:30
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A. Whether some viewers find the analysis convincing has no bearing on whether the film's conclusion is actually valid.
B. The critic's possible bias doesn't weaken the evidence presented in the film itself.
C. A catchy title might influence viewers, but the argument is based on the film's analysis, not its title.
D. Yup, If the filmmaker cherry-picked novels that fit her conclusion, the comparison isn't a fair sample. That seriously weakens the argument. Seems correct.
E. The argument compares contemporary and nineteenth-century British writers. Writers from other countries are irrelevant.

I ll go with D
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­Film critic: The documentary film The Decline of English Literature 28 Jul 2026, 15:22
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Confused between B and D.
B - Can we say that author is wrong and biased? I do not know.

I will go with D.
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­Film critic: The documentary film The Decline of English Literature 29 Jul 2026, 01:31
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Hi officiisnobis,

Good instinct going with D; let me show you exactly why B doesn't do the job.

First, pin down what the critic's argument actually rests on. The claim is that the comparison is persuasivebecause the film analyzes 20 novels and shows the contemporary ones are worse. So the real support is the evidence - those 20 chosen books. Anything that weakens the argument has to attack that evidence.

Why B falls short.

Read B literally: "The film critic may favor nineteenth-century fiction and may therefore be biased." Notice what B does - it questions the person's attitude, not the evidence. But someone can be biased and still be pointing at real facts. Even if the critic personally loves old novels, that tells us nothing about whether the 20 novels in the film were fairly chosen. Attacking the arguer instead of the argument is a classic true-but-irrelevant trap: it never touches the logical link.

Why D lands.

D says the filmmaker "could have chosen to analyze only books that support the position she was trying to establish." This goes straight at the hidden assumption - that the 20 novels fairly represent each era. If she cherry-picked the weakest recent novels and the strongest old ones, the comparison proves nothing about the eras as a whole. The evidence itself collapses. That's what Sarath070 was hinting at above: she could have picked the weakest links out of hundreds.

Feel the difference with a quick swap:

- "The scientist may personally dislike coffee, so he's biased against it." - attacks the person, evidence still stands (weak).
- "The scientist tested only the three worst coffee brands." - attacks the sample, conclusion crumbles (strong).

Same structure as B vs. D. When a choice targets who is arguing rather than what they measured, it almost never weakens a GMAT argument.

Answer: D

officiisnobis
Confused between B and D.
B - Can we say that author is wrong and biased? I do not know.

I will go with D.
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­Film critic: The documentary film The Decline of English Literature 30 Jul 2026, 03:51
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The main thing to observe that film critic was not the point of obersvation but the film maker which chose those novels so it come down to that B talk about film critic but i thought it about the film maker whi chose the novels to compare
Bunuel
­Film critic: The documentary film The Decline of English Literature presents the view that contemporary British writers lack the basic narrative skills common among nineteenth-century British authors. The film's comparison is persuasive because it analyzes 20 popular, critically respected British novels, 10 from the nineteenth century and 10 from the past two decades, and demonstrates that the contemporary novels are not nearly as well-written as the nineteenth-century novels.

Which of the following, if true, casts the most doubt on the argument above?

(A) A film viewer who was not familiar with literary criticism may not be convinced by the film’s analysis of 20 novels.

(B) The film critic may favor nineteenth-century fiction and may therefore be biased in favor of the filmmaker’s view.

(C) The film’s title may predispose viewers to accept the film’s conclusion even before viewing the comparisons in the film.

(D) The filmmaker could have chosen to analyze only books that support the position she was trying to establish.

(E) The literary methods used by contemporary British authors could require less narrative skill than methods used by writers in other parts of the world.


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­Film critic: The documentary film The Decline of English Literature 30 Jul 2026, 07:44
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That is right. This can commonly happen in such questions that the subjects may be confused with each other with the second subject not having any kind of implication on the core argument.
DropletMaverick
The main thing to observe that film critic was not the point of obersvation but the film maker which chose those novels so it come down to that B talk about film critic but i thought it about the film maker whi chose the novels to compare

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­Film critic: The documentary film The Decline of English Literature 02 Aug 2026, 04:45
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Bunuel
­Film critic: The documentary film The Decline of English Literature presents the view that contemporary British writers lack the basic narrative skills common among nineteenth-century British authors. The film's comparison is persuasive because it analyzes 20 popular, critically respected British novels, 10 from the nineteenth century and 10 from the past two decades, and demonstrates that the contemporary novels are not nearly as well-written as the nineteenth-century novels.

Which of the following, if true, casts the most doubt on the argument above?

(A) A film viewer who was not familiar with literary criticism may not be convinced by the film’s analysis of 20 novels.

(B) The film critic may favor nineteenth-century fiction and may therefore be biased in favor of the filmmaker’s view.

(C) The film’s title may predispose viewers to accept the film’s conclusion even before viewing the comparisons in the film.

(D) The filmmaker could have chosen to analyze only books that support the position she was trying to establish.

(E) The literary methods used by contemporary British authors could require less narrative skill than methods used by writers in other parts of the world.
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Official Explanation



Identify the Question Type:

The phrase "if true, casts the most doubt" indicates that this is a weaken question.

Untangle the Stimulus:

The documentary concludes that the modern novelists lack “basic narrative skills” possessed by their nineteenth-century counterparts.

As evidence, the documentary compares 10 contemporary British novels unfavorably to 10 from the 19th century.

The film critic assumes that the documentary's pool of 20 hand-selected novels is representative of the work of both nineteenth-century and contemporary writers, respectively.

Predict the Answer:

The right answer will likely involve the fact that the 20 novels chosen aren't necessarily representative of the writings of nineteenth-century and contemporary British novelists in general.

Eliminate the Wrong Answer Choices:

If (D) were true, then the pool of 20 novels would not necessarily represent the work of contemporary and nineteenth-century writers as a whole, so it's correct.

(A) is irrelevant. The film’s effectiveness in convincing its viewers in general doesn't matter; what matters is whether the film's argument is sound.

(B) is incorrect because whether or not the critic is biased in a particular direction is irrelevant. Even with a bias, the argument could be sound if the novels were representative.

(C) is irrelevant as well; viewers’ inability to view the film objectively does not weaken critic’s argument.

The methods used by writers outside of Britain are irrelevant to this argument, which focuses only on Britain, so (E) is incorrect.

TAKEAWAY: This question involves one of the three special cases: Representativeness. In this special case, the central assumption is that the group looked at is representative of the group concluded about. Such an argument can be weakened by pointing out that the first group is not actually representative of the second.­
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