Matthew D. Rocklage and team examined whether consumer ratings of movies can predict box office success. The team considered both numeric star ratings and written reviews in their research. To analyze the written reviews, the team measured the emotionality—the degree to which a written review expresses an emotional reaction—of user reviews on a movie rating website, assigning each review an emotionality score. After reviewing this research, a student argues that the emotionality of movie reviews is unrelated to a movie’s success at the box office.

Question

Which finding, if true, would most directly weaken the student’s conclusion?
Choose 1 answer:
Choose 1 answer:
(Choice A) The average emotionality score of a movie’s reviews was a positive predictor of that movie’s box office earnings.
A
The average emotionality score of a movie’s reviews was a positive predictor of that movie’s box office earnings.
(Choice B) More than half of the movies that the team examined received an average star rating of 3 out of 5 stars.
B
More than half of the movies that the team examined received an average star rating of 3 out of 5 stars.
(Choice C) The movies that were most successful at the box office tended to have high average star ratings.
C
The movies that were most successful at the box office tended to have high average star ratings.
(Choice D) Movies that had the highest average emotionality scores received the lowest average star ratings on the movie rating website.
D
Movies that had the highest average emotionality scores received the lowest average star ratings on the movie rating website.

Answer 1

The student is arguing that the emotionality of movie reviews is unrelated to a movie’s success at the box office. To weaken this conclusion, we need a finding that suggests a relationship between emotionality and box office success.

The most directly relevant choice is:

(Choice A) The average emotionality score of a movie’s reviews was a positive predictor of that movie’s box office earnings.

If true, this finding indicates that higher average emotionality scores are associated with higher box office earnings, directly contradicting the student’s claim that emotionality is unrelated to box office success.

Thus, the correct answer is A.