Film Director: It is true that certain characters and plot twists in

NOTE: This prompt appears in the OG 2019; however, note that option E is different!

Film Director: It is true that certain characters and plot twists in my newly released film The Big Heist are similar to characters and plot twists in Thieves, a movie that came out last year. Pointing to these similarities, the film studio that produced Thieves is now accusing me of taking ideas from that film. The accusation is clearly without merit. All production work on The Big Heist was actually completed months before Thieves was released.

Which of the following, if true, provides the strongest support for the director’s position?

A. Before Thieves began production, its script had been circulating for several years among various film studios, including the studio that produced The Big Heist.

B. The characters and plot twists that are most similar in the two films have close parallels in many earlier films of the same genre.

C. The film studio that produced Thieves seldom produces films in this genre.

D. The director of Thieves worked with the director of The Big Heist on several earlier projects.

E. Production work on Thieves began before production work on The Big Heist was started.

BID (Boil It Down): Big Heist Before Thieves -> Big Heist didn’t copy Thieves

Conclusion: The director did not copy characters and plot from Thieves when making The Big Heist.
Proof: Production work on The Big Heist was completed before the release of Thieves.

Big 3 GMAT Assumptions:

1. Success - N/A
2. Relevance - Relevance of time frame: time frame of finished production relevant to issue of stealing (what if the director had a copy of the Thieves script before production)
3. No Other Factors - N/A

The Goal: We are asked for support of the position/conclusion that the director did not copy from Thieves. We need to reinforce the notion that the time frame of the finished production of The Big Heist is relevant to issue of stealing from Thieves.

Choice B is correct. If the characters and plot used in The Big Heist that most resemble those of Thieves have been used in many films, this suggests strongly that the director is correct: There was no copying from Thieves. The ideas are common to the genre. This helps to point to an exonerating factor, although it is no slam dunk reinforcement of his assumption. B doesn’t prove the director is right, but it does lend support, which is what the question is asking for.

Choice A is a smoking gun, 180. It actually opens an avenue to make the director’s assumption that the time frame exonerates him totally irrelevant. In other words, this option could be used to say that the director DID have access to the script of Thieves before making The Big Heist, thus supporting the idea that copying did take place.

Choice C is an irrelevant comparison: The relation of Thieves to other films made by the studio does diddly to support the director’s claim, or even the studio’s argument for that matter. This is a complete left-field option.

Choice D does not have any kind of known impact on the argument by itself. For this option to be relevant, we’d have to lend the option the unwarranted assumption that the directors shared ideas, and even then, it would WEAKEN the director’s claim rather than support it.

Choice E would require us to make the unwarranted assumption that the director learned something about Thieves before making The Big Heist.



The Bigger Picture

There's an important lesson in this question: the assignment we're actually asked to complete.

Option B is not a slam dunk case for the director, but we're not actually asked to find a slam dunk case. What is this question asking us to do?

"Which of the following, if true, provides the strongest support for the director’s position?"

In that light, although B provides some support for the director, the other 4 options provide none, so B is 100% the answer to the assigned task even the it merely provides a shade of support.

Remember this lesson! The GMAT lavishly rewards those who actually follow instructions.