PrepTest 106, Section 2, Question 1
Critic: People today place an especially high value(62 more words not shown)
The critic's argument depends on(6 more words not shown)
- APeople who enjoy(17 more words not shown)
- BOnly comedians who(9 more words not shown)
- CMany people disapprove(11 more words not shown)
- DPeople who value(14 more words not shown)
- EPeople today fail(16 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Respecting people in everyday life and laughing at a rude comedy act don't seem automatically inconsistent. We might expect politeness at the grocery store while understanding that a comedian is exaggerating for an audience. So I'm interested in how the critic connects society's ideal to this particular style of comedy.
The middle sentence offers the connection: failing to meet our own standards can be funny. Imagine someone who loudly insists that eating animals is wrong and then gets caught eating a hamburger. The gap between the person's professed ideal and behavior gives a comedian something to exaggerate.
Is that what's happening here? Perhaps the disrespectful acts hold up an exaggerated version of society's own failures to be respectful. That would connect the popularity of these comedians to the point about comedy based on falling short of an ideal. But the connection isn't fully spelled out, and I wouldn't force a precise prediction yet.
What we’re looking for
We're asked what the explanation depends on. We need something the critic must take for granted for this account of the comedians' popularity to work. That is different from choosing anything that sounds plausible about comedians or their audiences.
Working the answers
- A
A person could value respect highly and enjoy a performance exaggerating failures to be respectful. In fact, that contrast fits the critic's proposed explanation. The argument doesn't need the audience to reject the ideal of respect, so it doesn't depend on this claim about those who enjoy the acts.
- B
Disrespect can be one successful approach without being the only successful approach. Physical comedy, for example, might also attract an audience. Explaining why these comedians are popular doesn't require excluding every other route to popularity. “Only” makes a much stronger claim than the argument needs.
- C
Some people might disapprove, but the critic's explanation doesn't require their disapproval. The question is why a style of comedy is popular, and that explanation could work whether or not there is a substantial group objecting to it. A plausible reaction is not automatically a required assumption.
- DCorrect
This is more basic than my initial thought about what the comedians are criticizing. The explanation needs people actually to fall short of ideals they value. The middle sentence tells us what can make successful comedy when such failures occur; it doesn't itself establish that people have those failures.
If people always lived up to every ideal they valued especially highly, there would be no real failures of that kind for this explanation to point to and exaggerate. The critic needs a gap between the ideal and people's conduct. D supplies that modest requirement, without claiming that everyone is always disrespectful.
- E
People need not fail more often now than in the past. Their present failures could provide material for these comedians even if people were improving at living up to their ideals. The argument explains current popularity without making a historical comparison of how often people fall short.
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