Critic: Photographers, by deciding which subjects to depict and how to depict them, express their own worldviews in ...

Naz on September 2, 2015

This is a strengthen with sufficient premise question. Remember that a sufficient premise is sufficient for a conclusion, if and only if the existence of the premise guarantees or brings about the existence of the conclusion. Therefore, we need to find the premise that 100% guarantees the conclusion. The way you want to attack these answer choices is two-pronged. Ask yourself, does it strengthen? If it doesn't, then cross it out and continue to the next answer choice. If it does strengthen, however, then ask yourself whether or not the premise guarantees the conclusion.

Conclusion: "photographs are interpretations of reality."

Why? We are told that through deciding which subjects to depict and how to depict them, photographers express their own worldviews in their photographs, regardless of how realistically those photographs may represent reality.

First, we want to find an answer choice that strengthens.

Answer choice (B) states: "To express a worldview is to interpret reality."

Does this strengthen? Yes.

We know that the passage states that photographers express their own worldviews in their photographs, and that from this the passage concludes that photographs are interpretations of reality. If we take answer choice (B) as true, i.e. if to express a worldview is to interpret reality, then it strengthens the conclusion that photographs are interpretations of reality.

Does answer choice (B) guarantee the conclusion? Yes.

(B): EWV ==> IR
not IR ==> not EWV

The passage tells us that photographers express their own worldviews in their photographs:

P1: EWV

Thus, according to answer choice (B) we must have "IR." So, as you can see, answer choice (B) not only strengthens the argument, but also 100% guarantees the conclusion.

Remember that there is only ever one correct answer. The first step is in identifying the question type and then following the correct steps, i.e. utilizing the correct techniques for that specific question type, will help you eliminate the 4 incorrect answer choices and pinpoint the correct one. For instance, in this question, no other answer choice strengthens the argument.

Answer choice (A), for instance, does not strengthen. It really does nothing to the argument at all. Just because representing a subject realistically CAN involve interpreting hat subject does not mean it DOES involve interpreting that subject. Furthermore, even if it did INVOLVE interpreting that subject, that does not necessarily mean that the representation is an INTERPRETATION OF REALITY. We were never told that something hat involved interpreting a subject is necessarily an interpretation.

I would recommend going over the various lectures of the different question types of the Logical Reasoning section.

Hope that clears things up! Please let us know if you have any other questions.

ZachB on September 11, 2019

D seemed tempting as a sort of restatement of B. Can you explain why B is better?