Most sci-fi movies released in past few years

Question

Most sci-fi movies released in the past few years have not performed commercially. To address this, scriptwriters need to develop better impressions about the possible future world by reading popular science fiction & even some futuristic science papers. Scriptwriters can then write plots that are more acceptable to general public.

The argument assumes that

A) The possibility shown in plots from popular science fiction are very different from those proposed in futuristic science papers
B) acceptable plot is most crucial factor that decides success of a science fiction movie
C) Making the plot more acceptable to general public shall increase the viewership of the movie
D) acceptable plots are only available in popular science fiction & futuristic science papers
E) all popular sci-fi fiction movies have acceptable plots.

Source- Expert's Global

CrackverbalGMAT · Accepted Answer

Hi Vibha

Let us try to analyze the stimulus.

Premises given:

1) Most sci-fi movies released in the past few years have not performed commercially. 
2) Scriptwriters need to develop better impressions about the possible future by X, Y, Z methods...

Conclusion:  The above measure would successfully address the issue of sci-fi movies not performing commercially.

In order to arrive at the conclusion, we not only need to assess the conclusion but we need to assess the conclusion  given  the premises mentioned in the stimulus ie; the assumption must tell us how the conclusion holds in the presence of the premises, and not only by itself.

Similarly, the negation of the assumption should negate the conclusion  taking into account  the premises. Let us consider option (E).

E) all popular sci-fi fiction movies have acceptable plots.

I would like to point out a couple of errors that you have made in negating option (E). The opposite of "all have X" is not "all do not have X" but "some do not have X". "All" translates to "every single one of". To negate that, it is enough if "some" of the set do not satisfy the criterion - it is not necessary for "every single one of" the set to not satisfy the criterion.

Secondly, option (E) only talks about "popular" sci-fi movies having acceptable plots - in negating, you have missed out the important "popular" qualification for this option.

Given the above, the negated form of option (E) will be:

Some popular sci-fi movies do not have acceptable plots.

As you can see clearly, the above statement does not explain how, given poor commercial performance of recent sci-fi movies and scriptwriters making better impressions about the future, the problem of poor commercial performance  will not be  rectified. Now consider the same approach with option (C).

C) Making the plot more acceptable to general public shall increase the viewership of the movie.
Negated (C): Making the plot more acceptable to general public shall  not  increase the viewership of the movie.

Clearly, if the negated version is true, then developing better impressions of the future (and thereby making the plot more acceptable) will not solve the problem of poor commercial performance of recent sci-fi movies. The conclusion stands negated when taking into account the given premises. This makes (C) the correct answer.

Hope this helps.

aaarti94 · Answer

Most sci-fi movies released in the past few years have not performed commercially. To address this, scriptwriters need to develop better impressions about the possible future world by reading popular science fiction & even some futuristic science papers. Scriptwriters can then write plots that are more acceptable to general public.

The argument assumes that

A) The possibility shown in plots from popular science fiction are very different from those proposed in futuristic science papers
B) acceptable plot is most crucial factor that decides success of a science fiction movie
C) Making the plot more acceptable to general public shall increase the viewership of the movie
D) acceptable plots are only available in popular science fiction & futuristic science papers
E) all popular sci-fi fiction movies have acceptable plots.

kunalsinghNS · Answer

I selected option B :/

can someone explain how C is preferred over B ?

Experts please help on this one.

Diwakar003 · Answer

Hey Kunal,

B) acceptable plot is most crucial factor that decides success of a science fiction movie - This option talks about an extreme case. An acceptable plot "need not" be the most crucial factor in deciding the success of a movie. There can be another factor that's most crucial for a movie's success.

Cheers!

Akshay J · Answer

Answer Choice C.
Negate this and you get-
Making the plot  more less acceptable to general public shall increase the viewership of the movie. This directly attacks the conclusion.

Reema18 · Answer

Most sci-fi movies released in the past few years have not performed commercially. To address this, scriptwriters need to develop better impressions about the possible future world by reading popular science fiction & even some futuristic science papers. Scriptwriters can then write plots that are more acceptable to general public.

The argument assumes that

A) The possibility shown in plots from popular science fiction are very different from those proposed in futuristic science papers
B) acceptable plot is most crucial factor that decides success of a science fiction movie
C) Making the plot more acceptable to general public shall increase the viewership of the movie
D) acceptable plots are only available in popular science fiction & futuristic science papers
E) all popular sci-fi fiction movies have acceptable plots.

Assumption is something that makes the premise intend to the conclusion.
P+A->C

Here the premise talks about sci-fi movies not doing well  commercially . So we need to assume something that will help us reach to conclusion on why scriptwriters need to write more acceptable plots to make it a commercial success. So the focus is not acceptable plots, rather its the commercial success.

writers read popular science fiction & some futuristic science papers -> Acceptable plots -> Commercial success.
 (Intermediate Conclusion) (conclusion)

And in the options only  option C  talks about increase in commercial valuation(by increase in viewership)

nayyarsidharth · Answer

Went with C.

A) The possibility shown in plots from popular science fiction are very different from those proposed in futuristic science papers.  Incorrect. If we negate this, it would mean sci-fi is different from futuristic science papers. But we are concerned with movie plots and not how sci-fi and science papers are different

B) acceptable plot is most crucial factor that decides success of a science fiction movie .  Incorrect - acceptable plot is ONE of the factors. The argument doesn't say it is the MOST IMPORTANT factor. To further understand this, there could be 10 things the film makers are doing right which are absolutely crucial to a movies success but due to the plot the movies fail.

C) Making the plot more acceptable to general public shall increase the viewership of the movie -  Correct. The argument says that movies aren't doing well cos the plots are unrealistic. Therefore, it must be that making the plot more acceptable will increase viewership

D) acceptable plots are only available in popular science fiction & futuristic science papers .  Incorrect. These two sources are two possible places. The argument doesn't mention that these are the only 2 places the script writers can look

E) all popular sci-fi fiction movies have acceptable plots.  Incorrect. Clearly, this isn't true since the first sentence mentions that most sci-fi movies aren't doing well cos of unacceptable plots.

urhowig · Answer

B) acceptable plot is  most  crucial factor that decides success of a science fiction movie
- Most crucial factor, means that there still can be other factors that decides success of a science fiction movie. What if this is true ? If this is true the premise can not be linked to the conclusion properly.

If there would have been a better air-tight assumption besides C), I would have chosen that. Option C links the  acceptability  to  viewership  of the movie. However, there is slight difference between  viewership  of the movie and the  success  of a movie. Also, the argument doesn't mention anything about  viewership . So, it is always better to compare and decide which option is the best.
Arriving to the right answer by crossing out the other options here is the best way to arrive at the option C).

Vibhav10 · Answer

option e : all popular sci fi movies have acceptable plots
negated statement : all sci fi movies do not have acceptable plots
result : the plan to increase viewership by making more acceptable plots will fail
the argument says that to address the issue of movies under performing commercially they need more acceptable plots.
isnt it assuming that acceptable plots is the reason behind movies not performing commercially 
please guide me where i went wrong in my understanding

Saharsh95 · Answer

Negating the assumption should breakdown the conclusion totally.

Conclusion: The author concludes that to improve the commercial success of a sci-fi movie, the Scriptwriters (SW) must write "more acceptable" plots.

Option B: It talks about acceptance of plot being the "most crucial" factor. Negate this. Acceptance of plot is a non-crucial factor,, but it still is a "factor". So any improvement in the acceptance will definitely affect the commercial success of the film (even significantly less improvement but still "improvement") and the conclusion still stands strong. If an assumption is negated, it should have broken down the conclusion implying that acceptance of plot should not have contributed even 1% in commercial success. Hence, B is rejected since its negated form still supports the conclusion without breaking it.

Option C: It says that more acceptance of plot leads to increased viewership. So if u negate it, it implies that more acceptance of plot does NOT lead to increased viewership, hence no "increased viewers", hence no "improved/increased" commercial success which definitely breaks down the conclusion as the core idea of the conclusion is increased commercial success. Hence, C is the right choice.

Remember this rule: If Goal is to just improve something (not necessarily a significant increase but just an increase), then any and every factor (crucial or non crucial) will cause improvement.
But if the goal is "significant improvement", then the crucial factors will have weightage over "non crucial" factors.

krndatta · Answer

KarishmaB  Ma'am,

Lets take a look at option D when negated.

Option D when negated would read "Acceptable plots would not be available only in popular science fiction and futuristic science papers but some other sources too". 
Doesn't the negation weaken the conclusion?

If acceptable plots are not available in science fiction and futuristic science papers, then how would they write an acceptable plot because they would not be reading the correct source. So how would they write an acceptable plot.

Please evaluate my reasoning.

Thanks

KarishmaB · Answer

The negation of "A is only in B" is "A can be in others too". The negation is not 'A is not in B but in others'. A will continue to be in B but it could be in others too.

Hence negation of D states that there can be other sources of acceptable plots too. It doesn't mean that popular science fiction and futuristic science papers do not have acceptable plots. It means other sources may also have acceptable plots. It doesn't negate our conclusion. The author has suggested one way of getting acceptable plots. Even if there are others too, there is nothing wrong with this way.

KarishmaB · Answer

To make sci-fi do well, script writers should develop better impressions.
They can then write plots that are more acceptable to people.

What is the assumption here? That more acceptable plots will lead to better performance. We don't this link given to us but it is assume for the argument to hold. 
Hence, (C) is correct.

A) The possibility shown in plots from popular science fiction are very different from those proposed in futuristic science papers

No such assumption. In fact from the looks of it, it seems that the author believes that popular science fiction & even some futuristic science papers will be on the same (realistic) page about the future.

B) acceptable plot is most crucial factor that decides success of a science fiction movie

The argument does not need to assume that acceptable plots is the MOST crucial factor. It does assume that acceptable plots will increase viewership but it doesn't need to assume that it is the most important.

D) acceptable plots are only available in popular science fiction & futuristic science papers
The argument doesn't assume that these are the only sources. It does say that these are the sources but they don't need to be the only sources. These are the sources that the argument suggests, that's all.

E) all popular sci-fi fiction movies have acceptable plots.
Not necessary. It is assumed that acceptable plots makes them more commercially viable but not that all successful movies have acceptable plots. Some successful movies may have some other characteristics that made them successful inspite of not having acceptable plots. The argument does not imply that acceptable plots are necessary for success. Just that they are likely to improve performance.

Answer (C)

VerbalBot · Answer

Automated notice from GMAT Club VerbalBot: 

A member just gave Kudos to this thread, showing it’s still useful. I’ve bumped it to the top so more people can benefit. Feel free to add your own questions or solutions.

 This post was generated automatically.

Most sci-fi movies released in past few years

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Critical Reasoning (CR) Questions

Most sci-fi movies released in past few years

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards