saswata4s wrote:
A film is more likely to have a complex storyline when it is directed by a director who has won an Academy Award. Regardless of the awards won by the director, a film with a complex storyline is more likely to do badly at the box-office than a film with a story-line that is not complex. Since other causes of poor box-office performance are not related to the awards won by the director, there must be more films with poor box-office collections with Academy Award-winning directors than with directors who have not won any Academy Awards.
The argument above is most vulnerable to which one of the following criticisms?
Director has won an OSCAR => The film is more likely to have a complex storyline
A film has a complex storyline => That film is more likely to do badly at the box-office.
Presume: Winning OSCAR is the only thing causes the poor box-office performance.
Conclusion: More films with poor box-office and Academy Award-winning directors than films with poor box-office and Academy Award-not winning directors.
A. It ignores the fact that a film that does not do well on the box-office may eventually do well when broadcasted on TV.
The argument focuses on the box-office only.B. It fails to consider a scenario in which the number of films directed by directors who have not won Academy Awards is significantly more than that directed by directors who have won Academy Awards.
Correct. The argument said that the film with Oscar-winning directors is more likely to have poor box-office performance than the file without Oscar-winning directors. Then the argument concluded that there are more poor films with Oscar-winning directors than poor films without Oscar-winning directors.
The logic is that: Likelihood of bad A is more than that of bad B. So bad A must be more than bad B.
The flaw is that we don't know the total number of A and of B. If B is greater than A, then bad B could be greater than bad A.C. It identifies one aspect of the films as the sole determinant of their box office performance without considering other possible aspects.
The argument does care about the box-office performance only.D. It fails to consider a scenario in which directors may be aware of the fact that a complex storyline may not translate into a successful box-office collection.
The awareness of directors is irrelevant.E. It fails to factor in the number of films with poor box-office collections that were directed by Academy Award-winning directors and that ultimately won critical acclaim.
The argument cares about films with poor box-office performance only.