Many scholars are puzzled about who created the seventeenth-century

Question

Many scholars are puzzled about who created the seventeenth-century abridgment of Shakespeare’s Hamlet contained in the First Quarto. Two facts about the work shed light on this question. First, the person who undertook the abridgment clearly did not possess a copy of Hamlet. Second, the abridgment contains a very accurate rendering of the speeches of one of the characters, but a slipshod handling of all the other parts.

Which one of the following statements is most supported by the information above?

(A) The abridgment was prepared by Shakespeare.
(B) The abridgment was created to make Hamlet easier to produce on stage.
(C) The abridgment was produced by an actor who had played a role in Hamlet.
(D) The abridgement was prepared by a spectator of a performance of Hamlet.
(E) The abridgment was produced by an actor who was trying to improve the play.

Source: LSAT

rajamech · Answer

we can eliminate A, B and E directly as these points are totally irrelevant.
Between C and D we can look that if the spectator had seen the play then he cannot give an accurate rendering of the speeches of one of the characters. hence answer is C as only the actor can give an accurate rendering of the speeches of one of the characters.
Answer is C

anothermillenial · Answer

Conclusion: Many scholars are puzzled about who created the seventeenth-century abridgment of Shakespeare’s Hamlet contained in the First Quarto. 
Premise: Two facts about the work shed light on this question. 
Premise: First, the person who undertook the abridgment clearly did not possess a copy of Hamlet. 
Premise: Second, the abridgment contains a very accurate rendering of the speeches of one of the characters, but a slipshod handling of all the other parts.

Which one of the following statements is most supported by the information above?

Basically we’re told that scholars are confused. Why are they confused? Because of two facts. One, the person didn’t have a copy of Hamlet and two, only one speech was accurate, the rest was crappily remembered. So it seems that the person did it from memory….or only remember his/her part. If we scan the answers, we see that they are all revolved around the suspected author of the abridgement.

(A) The abridgment was  prepared by Shakespeare . 
Well, Shakespeare wouldn’t known the other character’s parts….since he wrote it.

(B) The abridgment was created to make Hamlet  easier to produce on stage . 
This does not address why the parts were shoddily done. To make it easier? No.

(C) The abridgment was produced  by an actor  who had played a role in Hamlet. 
This supports the idea of why one speech was fine (you have to memorise your part!) but the rest were terribly done.

(D) The abridgement was prepared  by a spectator  of a performance of Hamlet. 
OK, this could support (A) but if they saw the show, then they would remember the rest of the parts, no? 
 
(E) The abridgment was produced by an actor  who was trying to improve the play . 
If an actor was trying to improve the play...how would that support the fact that only one part was perfect. Is he improving only one part of the play? Not supported by facts.

sony1000 · Answer

I do not get C, how do we know that the actor who had played a role in Hamlet did not possess a copy of Hamlet.

Bombsante · Answer

Pardon me for my ignorance but I believe there is no conclusion in the argument. In fact we are trying to find a conclusion in this question.
The author presents us with series of premises:
1. Scholars are confused.
2. Fact 1: The person who produced abridgement didn't have the copy of hamlet.
3. Fact 2: There is a very accurate rendering of the speeches of one of the characters, but a slipshod handling of all the other parts.

An assumption implicit to this is that the abridgement was produced by someone who had only a one sided view of the play. Therefore, we can conclude that it was produced by an actor who had played a role in Hamlet (i.e. why one part was absolutely fine while all others were terrible).

I hope my explanation provides a different line of thought

ravigupta2912 · Answer

(A) The abridgment was prepared by Shakespeare.
(B) The abridgment was created to make Hamlet easier to produce on stage.
(C) The abridgment was produced by an actor who had played a role in Hamlet.
(D) The abridgement was prepared by a spectator of a performance of Hamlet.
(E) The abridgment was produced by an actor who was trying to improve the play.

Remove A, B and D as completely loser choices since they cannot be remotely inferred from the passage. Between C and D, C is "most" strongly inferred from the passage (got the roles of character the actor played right and other parts wrong). Spectator could not reproduce "accurately" one part of speech and "slipshod" other parts. He would have been (logically speaking) slightly more balanced.

Also, I have a question on this  AndrewN  if you can help - the answers to "must be true" question types should directly be borne out of the passage. The answer choices provided in this question are not directly influenced by the passage (for eg: there is no reason to say that the actor would not have had a copy of Hamlet). Your thoughts?

AndrewN · Answer

First off,  ravigupta2912 , well done if you answered correctly. The reasoning that led to your decision is more important than any categorization of the question itself. Although this one is labeled as a  must be true  question, you should really stick to what the question actually says:   most  supported by  is not synonymous with  must be true . As a point of fact, this one apparently comes from the LSAT, which, although not a poor-quality source of questions by any means, is a different test from the GMAT™. As such, consider this material extra practice, but make sure to center your studies on official GMAT™ material. (As an aside, I had a lot of fun with the question.)

Thank you for thinking to ask me about the question. Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew

Many scholars are puzzled about who created the seventeenth-century

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