Q5 - Many scholars are puzzled

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Question Type:
Most Supported

Stimulus Breakdown:
We know the following two facts about the abridgment of Shakespeare's Hamlet contained in the First Quarto:
1. The person who wrote the adbridgment did not have a copy of Hamlet.
2. The abridgment is quite accurate regarding the speeches of one of the characters, but rather slipshod regarding the speeches of other characters.

Answer Anticipation:
One wants to jump to the conclusion that the abridgment was written by an actor of the play, since an actor is someone who would most likely be familiar with one character's speeches, while not being familiar with the other characters' speeches. If this question asked for what must be true, we wouldn't allow our suspicions to be so strong, but this question asks for what is most supported.

Correct Answer:
(C)

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) is contradicted. Shakespeare surely would have been familiar with the speeches of the other characters.

(B) is unsupported. Nothing in the statements suggest that the abridgment was created to make production of the play easier.

(C) is correct. Who else would be familiar with one character's speeches, but not those of other characters?

(D) is contradicted. A spectator of the play would be just as likely to know the speeches of the other characters as of the one character.

(E) is too strong. The claim of intent is stronger than what can be supported.

Takeaway/Pattern: Reasoning: Causation

#officialexplanation

[ian.saporita]

Hello,

I am curious as to how one could be an actor in Hamlet but 'not possess a copy of Hamlet.' Are we to assume the actor only had pages for his/her scenes?

[KirstenK671]

I have the same question as Ian. Can someone reply?

[ohthatpatrick]

Yeah, I guess that's one possibility (and that actually IS common in the world of acting ... they're called "sides")

Another possibility is that the actor just memorized his/her part by listening to it.

Another possibility is that the actor had access to a copy of Hamlet while learning/memorizing his parts, but later when he wrote this abridgment, he did it from memory (he no longer POSSESSED a copy).

[VendelaG465]

Can you please go into a little more detail as to why E couldn't have worked?

[ohthatpatrick]

We're looking for the most provable answer available.

It would be hard to call (E) the most provable answer, because if the abridgement was produced by an actor trying to improve the play, then it seems like we're already accepting what (B) says.

What's easier to prove,
"Jen goes to UCLA"
or
"Jen goes to UCLA because she's trying to lead the pre-law club"

The 1st one is easier because it's a subset of the 2nd one. In order to prove the 2nd one, along the way you prove the 1st idea.

Technically, (C) isn't a subset of (E), because the actor in (E) who's trying to improve the play wasn't necessarily previously playing a role in Hamlet.

The support for (C)'s notion that the actor played a role is that
- One of the characters' speeches is very accurate, and all the others are handled in a slipshod way

An actor who played a specific role in Hamlet would be way more likely to know his own lines than anyone else's, so the "played a role" hypothesis fits the facts well.

Meanwhile, the negative support for (E)'s notion that the actor wanted to improve the play is that
- The other characters were handled in a slipshod (messy, hasty) fashion

An actor who was trying to improve a play probably wouldn't think he was improving things by making one character sound good and all the other characters sound sloppy.

[christian.zeigler]

What tripped me up here is the two pieces and the strength around each. I chose D, actually.

We know:

1) Person who abridged didn't possess Hamlet copy
2) Person who abridged knew one part well, and not the other parts

I liked D because an audience member certainly wouldn't typically have a copy (1), and maybe that audience member fell in love with one of the characters and their speech, to the point of ignoring the other parts (2); or the audience member came early or late in the play and only caught a part of it (2); or the audience member came to see a famous actor play a particular part and didn't pay attention to the rest of the play (2).

With respect to B, I don't think these above are really any more of a stretch than B. I've never heard of "sides," (in every play I've been in, I've had the entire script; and it's relatively common knowledge that audiences of Shakespeare's time weren't necessarily sophisticated and erudite and invested intellectually in the play), and I'd think an actor would want to understand their relationship to the play as a whole and other characters in order to do the best performance.

It's somewhat like B, but reversing the strength of (1) and (2). In B, it's easy to see why premise (2) is well supported, but that someone didn't possess the play as an actor (1) seems to me to have the same strength as D with respect to (2).

So in other words:
AC B has 100% support for (2) and 50% support for (1)
AC D has 100% support for (1) and 50% support for (2)

This is dumb. Go eff yourself, LSAC. It should be much more clear than this. If D said "a spectator who was able to see the play a few times, but was not literate" or something, then it would be clear.

[aydanl569]

What tripped me up here is the two pieces and the strength around each. I chose D, actually.

We know:

1) Person who abridged didn't possess Hamlet copy
2) Person who abridged knew one part well, and not the other parts

I liked D because an audience member certainly wouldn't typically have a copy (1), and maybe that audience member fell in love with one of the characters and their speech, to the point of ignoring the other parts (2); or the audience member came early or late in the play and only caught a part of it (2); or the audience member came to see a famous actor play a particular part and didn't pay attention to the rest of the play (2).

With respect to B, I don't think these above are really any more of a stretch than B. I've never heard of "sides," (in every play I've been in, I've had the entire script; and it's relatively common knowledge that audiences of Shakespeare's time weren't necessarily sophisticated and erudite and invested intellectually in the play), and I'd think an actor would want to understand their relationship to the play as a whole and other characters in order to do the best performance.

It's somewhat like B, but reversing the strength of (1) and (2). In B, it's easy to see why premise (2) is well supported, but that someone didn't possess the play as an actor (1) seems to me to have the same strength as D with respect to (2).

So in other words:
AC B has 100% support for (2) and 50% support for (1)
AC D has 100% support for (1) and 50% support for (2)

This is dumb. Go eff yourself, LSAC. It should be much more clear than this. If D said "a spectator who was able to see the play a few times, but was not literate" or something, then it would be clear.

That's exactly what I think!