Literary critic: Often the heirs of a successful writer decide to publ

Question

Literary critic: Often the heirs of a successful writer decide to publish the manuscripts and the letters the dead writer left behind, regardless of the merit of the work. However, many writers have manuscripts that they judge to be unworthy of publication and with which they would not like to be publicly associated even after they die. Hence a successful writer who decides not to publish a recently completed manuscript should destroy it immediately.

Which one of the following statements, if true, most calls into question the soundness of the literary critic’s advice?

(A) Some writers whose work becomes both popular and respected after they die received no literary recognition during their lifetimes.

(B) Writers who achieve a certain degree of fame can expect that some of their personal correspondence will become publicly available after they die.

(C) Most successful writers’ judgments of their recently completed work is unnecessarily harsh and is often later revised.

(D) Many posthumously published books would have been published by the author had the author lived.

(E) Some heirs of successful writers do not consider themselves qualified to judge the merits of a literary work.

Bunuel · Accepted Answer

EXPLANATION FROM Fox LSAT

This question, like many questions on the LSAT, should ideally be over before you reach the answer choices.  You must argue  with the literary critic. If you can tell the literary critic why his argument is bogus, you’ve already won.

Like this: Let’s pretend I’m a successful writer of LSAT books. (Hey, I’m working on it!) And let’s say I write some LSAT explanations that I judge unworthy of publication. This definitely happens from time to time. And let’s say that after I die, Christine might be tempted to publish those subpar explanations, in order to take herself to Majorca. She’d be more than justified in doing this, in exchange for putting up with all my bullshit while I was alive. But let’s say I wanted to prevent this from happening, because I’m such a prima donna that I actually care about my reputation  even after I’m dead . OK. Here’s the literary critic’s solution: In order to avoid this risk to my precious posthumous reputation, the literary critic wants me to  immediately  burn these explanations.

Wait.  Immediately  burn? Immediately  burn ?! Those are both a little extreme, don’t you think? Couldn’t I wait a little bit, instead of acting immediately? Or couldn’t I lock them in a safe, instead of torching them with lighter fluid?

The problem with this solution is that I’d never have a second chance; once the explanations were burned, I wouldn’t be able to get them back. What if I wished, later, to send them to my editor for polishing? What if I wanted to go through and edit or rewrite them myself? What if I simply put them away for a year, then came back to them with fresh eyes and said, “Hey, these actually don’t suck that bad after all”? None of these scenarios would be possible if all I had was a pile of ashes.

So the critic is an idiot for suggesting the nuclear option.

We’re asked to weaken the critic’s argument. Let’s see if we’ve already answered the question.

A) I don’t think this applies to the question at hand. The argument was about writers who are already successful. Even if it is true that some writers only gain acclaim after their deaths, the literary critic would say, “Yeah, I’m sure this happens from time to time, but Nathan already has a reputation, and we wouldn’t want to take the chance that **** explanations published after his death might tarnish that reputation. So let’s burn the bad explanations now.”

B) This wouldn’t weaken the argument at all. If this was true, the literary critic would say, “Yes, it’s true that some of Nathan’s correspondence will inevitably be published after his death, but it will be awful hard for these **** explanations to be published after we burn them.”

C) Yep. This points out the fact that burning the explanations is a decision from which there is no recovery. What if I’m just having a bad day when I want to burn the explanations? “I’m a terrible writer, I’m a terrible teacher, I want to kill myself, I’m going to burn these **** explanations…” What if tomorrow I am in a better mood, and decide that the explanations aren’t so bad after all? There won’t  be  a tomorrow for these explanations if I burn them today. This is a great weakener.

D) This answer, using the word “many,” might not be about the **** explanations we’re concerned with. If this answer is true, the literary critic would say, “Well obviously, if Nathan died today, Christine would want to publish whatever book Nathan was working on today. It’s a great book! But if Nathan has completed something ****, he should burn it immediately so that Christine doesn’t publish it after he’s dead.”

E) This might strengthen the argument, and we were looking for a weakener.

Our answer is C, because it points out how stupid it would be to  burn  something that I didn’t like today.

loh · Answer

Bunuel  isn’t option c attacking the premise? I was under the assumption that one shouldn’t weaken the premise for weaken the argument type of question

Bunuel · Answer

loh  please check another solution. Hope it helps.

EXPLANATION FROM POWER SCORE

Weaken. The correct answer choice is (C)

The literary critic points out that often the heirs of a writer will publish much of that writer’s remaining work, regardless of merit. Because many writers possess manuscripts they consider unworthy and would not want published, the critic concludes that a successful writer who decides not to publish a recently completed manuscript should destroy it immediately.

Note that the last word of the stimulus—immediately—is rather extreme (remember, always look for words that seems absolute or overly strong for the situation). You may have had a strong reaction to the critic’s recommendation because of that extremity, and that reaction is relevant to the flaw in the critic’s reasoning. Destroying a manuscript immediately seems like a severe step, and one that does not allow for any reassessment of the work. Over time, there might be many benefits to be derived from keeping an initially dissatisfactory manuscript (especially if the probability of immediate death is low, as would be the case for most authors).

Since you are asked to undermine the critic’s reasoning, you should seek an answer choice that suggests that writers might not want to destroy their completed manuscripts immediately.

Answer choice (A): The argument is about  successful  writers, and the suggestion that successful living writers should immediately destroy works that they decide not to publish. This answer choice is about writers who become successful  after  they die, so even when this answer is taken as true it does not impact the argument made by the critic (once you are dead, you can’t go back and destroy your manuscripts, obviously).

Answer choice (B): This is a classic Shell Game answer. The stimulus specifically discusses  manuscripts  and whether they should be destroyed. This answer, on the other hand, discusses personal  correspondence , and the two are not the same.

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice. If many successful writers will change their views of their recently completed works, then those writers might come to see their initial assessments as overly critical and then choose to publish a manuscript. That eventuality could not occur if they had immediately destroyed the manuscript upon completion, so this choice represents an effective attack on the critic’s argument.

Answer choice (D): This is the most frequently selected incorrect answer. The key to avoiding this answer is to understand that many of the posthumously published books were judged worthy by the author prior to his or her death. For example, say that an author completed a manuscript and determined it was worthy of publication, but then died before the book was published. Does the existence of this scenario undermine the critic’s argument? No, because the critic argues that manuscripts that are  not  going to be published should be destroyed, and the manuscripts in the answer choice do not fall into that category.

Answer choice (E): If anything, this answer agrees with the critic since it suggests that the heirs of a successful writer will not be able to discern a quality work from an inferior work. According to the argument, the heirs publish the works regardless of merit, so whether they deem themselves qualified to judge the works is not relevant.

Vatsal7794 · Answer

C is great weakner. As per the suggestion of the critics writer should destroy their work but option C says that writer should not destroy it as there judgement for the recently completed work is harsh and that can be revised later. But once they destroy it , they won't be able to revise it anytime.

Thanks.

Thanks.

unraveled · Answer

Literary critic: Often the heirs of a successful writer decide to publish the manuscripts and the letters the dead writer left behind, regardless of the merit of the work. However, many writers have manuscripts that they judge to be unworthy of publication and with which they would not like to be publicly associated even after they die. Hence a successful writer who decides not to publish a recently completed manuscript should destroy it immediately.

Which one of the following statements, if true, most calls into question the soundness of the literary critic’s advice?

(A)  Some  writers whose work becomes both popular and respected after they die received no literary recognition during their lifetimes. - WRONG.

(B)  Writers who achieve a certain degree of fame   can expect  that some of their personal correspondence will become publicly available after they die. - WRONG.

(C) Most successful writers’ judgments of their recently completed work  is unnecessarily harsh and is often later revised . - CORRECT.

(D)  Many  posthumously published books would have been published by the author had the author lived. - WRONG.

(E)  Some  heirs of successful writers do not consider themselves qualified to judge the merits of a literary work. - WRONG.

Some, many and words that have similar meaning as far as scale is concerned almost never contribute anything significant to the choice's strength for it to be considered as an answer.
Thus, A, D and E are out.
B deals in a scope that shifts from the core of the passage.

Answer C.

vasu1104 · Answer

heirs of successful writers decide to publish manuscripts and letters the dead writer left behind, regardless of the merit of work.
but many writers felt that many of their work is unworthy of publication and they dont want them to be published even after they die.
conclusion- successful writers who decides not to publish a completed manuscript should destroy it immediately.

so author is assuming that if this writers are thinking that the work shouldnt be published then he is assuming that the writers is feeling he is not satisfied with work. thats why he is not interested in publishing it. so author is saying the writer should be destroying it immediately otherwise his heir would publish bit later when he dies.

(A) Some writers whose work becomes both popular and respected after they die received no literary recognition during their lifetimes. 
 not concerned with them getting recognition or not after their death. so reject.
 
 (B) Writers who achieve a certain degree of fame can expect that some of their personal correspondence will become publicly available after they die. 
 but we are not sure whether this writer is going to get any fame or not. and its actually out of context with regards to arguments and its context. reject.
 
 (C) Most successful writers’ judgments of their recently completed work is unnecessarily harsh and is often later revised. 
 this is the thing. if the writers are very harsh on their work then they are wrong in deciding not to publish their work. and if thats the case the conclusion breaks down. keep it.
 
 (D) Many posthumously published books would have been published by the author had the author lived. 
 who cares? reject.

(E) Some heirs of successful writers do not consider themselves qualified to judge the merits of a literary work. 
 yeah may be because they were not writers either so thats why. but this one has no impact, reject.

Literary critic: Often the heirs of a successful writer decide to publ

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Literary critic: Often the heirs of a successful writer decide to publ

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