PrepTest 156, Section 4, Question 22
An effective acting performance does not call the(42 more words not shown)
The argument's conclusion follows logically(11 more words not shown)
- AAn audience will(16 more words not shown)
- BAs long as(28 more words not shown)
- CIf a performance(24 more words not shown)
- DAn effective dramatic(12 more words not shown)
- EA dramatic performance(22 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Does making empathy harder necessarily make the play harder to appreciate?
I can see why drawing attention to the acting might pull an audience out of the character's experience. Instead of following the character, people might notice the actor's performance. The passage says that makes it harder to empathize. But why must it also detract from appreciation? Someone might admire a performance's skill without feeling close to the character.
What we’re looking for
The author concludes that effective acting doesn't draw attention to itself. The support is that effective performances don't detract from appreciation, combined with the claim about attention making empathy harder. Those pieces need a connection: making empathy harder must detract from appreciation. That is my prediction for the assumption that proves the conclusion. Once that link is supplied, calling attention to the performance will produce a result that an effective performance cannot produce.
Working the answers
- A
This says complete appreciation requires every acting performance to be effective. It doesn't connect difficulty empathizing with reduced appreciation. Even with A, we haven't established why an effective performance cannot call attention to itself. The missing connection remains.
- B
This tells us what happens when the acting doesn't call attention to itself: it won't detract from appreciation. What happens when it does call attention to itself? B leaves that case open. Both kinds of performance might avoid detracting from appreciation, and the original conclusion would still be unsupported. We need to show why the attention-drawing kind fails the requirement for effectiveness.
- C
The conclusion isn't about whether the play as a whole becomes better when one performance enhances appreciation. It is about a restriction on effective acting. C doesn't connect the difficulty of empathizing with any loss of appreciation, so it doesn't complete the argument.
- D
This gives effective performances an additional benefit: they enhance appreciation. But why couldn't a performance enhance appreciation even while making empathy harder? The same question remains. Describing effective acting more favorably doesn't supply the missing relationship involving empathy.
- ECorrect
Now the chain connects. Calling attention to the performance makes empathy harder. Under E, making empathy harder detracts from appreciation. But the passage tells us an effective performance doesn't detract from appreciation.
So a performance that calls attention to itself produces something incompatible with being effective. An effective performance therefore cannot call attention to itself, which is exactly the conclusion. Notice that we didn't need to require perfect empathy or complete appreciation; we needed the stated link between greater difficulty and reduced appreciation.
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