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Tough CR question

by mahajans » Sat Oct 20, 2012 11:41 pm
To classify a wok of art as truly great, it is necessary that the wok have both originality and far-reaching influence upon the artistic community.
The principle above, if valid, most strongly supports which one of the following arguments?

A) By breaking down traditional schemes of representation, Picasso redefined painting. It is this extreme originality that warrants his work being considered truly great.

B) Some of the most original art being produced today is found in isolated communities, but because of this isolation these works have only minor influence, and hence cannot be considered truly great.

C) Certain examples of the drumming practiced in parts of Africa's west coast employ a musical vocabulary that resists representation in Western notational schemes. This tremendous originality, coupled with the profound impact these pieces are having on musicians everywhere, is enough to consider these works to be truly great.

D) The piece of art in the lobby is clearly not classified as truly great, so it follows that it fails to be original.

E) Since Bach's music is truly great, it not only has both originality and a major influence on musicians, it has broad popular appeal as well.

Experts please help, I narrowed down on 2 choices finally opted for a wrong choice , will post OA after some discussions.
Thanks.
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by anuprajan5 » Sun Oct 21, 2012 12:43 am
A) By breaking down traditional schemes of representation, Picasso redefined painting. It is this extreme originality that warrants his work being considered truly great. - Lacks anything about far reaching influence.

B) Some of the most original art being produced today is found in isolated communities, but because of this isolation these works have only minor influence, and hence cannot be considered truly great. - This is a keeper.

C) Certain examples of the drumming practiced in parts of Africa's west coast employ a musical vocabulary that resists representation in Western notational schemes. This tremendous originality, coupled with the profound impact these pieces are having on musicians everywhere, is enough to consider these works to be truly great. - Originality and profound impact. That is different from far reaching influence.

D) The piece of art in the lobby is clearly not classified as truly great, so it follows that it fails to be original. - This is a cause and effect argument. The art needs originality and far reaching influence to be truly great. Not the other way around and also this does not talk about far reaching influence.

E) Since Bach's music is truly great, it not only has both originality and a major influence on musicians, it has broad popular appeal as well. - This is a cause and effect argument. The art needs originality and far reaching influence to be truly great. Not the other way around.

Answer B
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by The Iceman » Sun Oct 21, 2012 8:04 am
anuprajan5 wrote:A) By breaking down traditional schemes of representation, Picasso redefined painting. It is this extreme originality that warrants his work being considered truly great. - Lacks anything about far reaching influence.

B) Some of the most original art being produced today is found in isolated communities, but because of this isolation these works have only minor influence, and hence cannot be considered truly great. - This is a keeper.

C) Certain examples of the drumming practiced in parts of Africa's west coast employ a musical vocabulary that resists representation in Western notational schemes. This tremendous originality, coupled with the profound impact these pieces are having on musicians everywhere, is enough to consider these works to be truly great. - Originality and profound impact. That is different from far reaching influence.

D) The piece of art in the lobby is clearly not classified as truly great, so it follows that it fails to be original. - This is a cause and effect argument. The art needs originality and far reaching influence to be truly great. Not the other way around and also this does not talk about far reaching influence.

E) Since Bach's music is truly great, it not only has both originality and a major influence on musicians, it has broad popular appeal as well. - This is a cause and effect argument. The art needs originality and far reaching influence to be truly great. Not the other way around.

Answer B
The correct ans should indeed be B. However, your reasoning to rule out C does not seem sound.

We have, Truly gr8 = Originality + far reaching influence

All LHS art types must have RHS properties. But having RHS properties does not necessarily qualify the art to be of LHS type. This is where problem lies with option C.

B says that one of RHS items does not hold. Hence LHS will never happen. Hence it is the correct ans choice.

Hope this is clear.
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by mahajans » Sun Oct 21, 2012 10:32 am
Thanks for the reply OA is B ,I narrowed down to B and C and finally selected C , but I am still not able to figure out why C is incorrect

Choice C says

Certain examples of the drumming practiced in parts of Africa's west coast employ a musical vocabulary that resists representation in Western notational schemes. This tremendous originality, coupled with the profound impact these pieces are having on musicians everywhere, is enough to consider these works to be truly great

Well the first bold part is what is the necessary condition.

Is there the second bold part(red) that creates the problem ?
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by David@VeritasPrep » Sun Oct 21, 2012 2:19 pm
This is an LSAT question. I have taught this one many times in LSAT classes as a way to explore sufficient and necessary conditions.

This question is pretty tough and is probably as tough as anything that you could get on the GMAT. It also relies on formal logic more than the GMAT does.

With that said, here is the explanation:

The argument is stating that if I tell you that this work of art is truly great you can tell me that it is has originality as well as far-reaching influence.

It is like saying that if you tell me that you have been admitted to business school I can say that you have completed an application and have submitted letters of recommendation. The applications and the recommendations are required for the admission, but they are not sufficient for admission. So you can imagine someone completing an application that does not get them admitted to Stanford, for example.

So the same is true with this argument. What is being said is that originality and far-reaching impacts are required for something to be truly great, but that these qualities do not guarantee greatness. Again, you could imagine a work of art that is very very hideous. But it is original in its awfulness and has a far-reaching impact in that people vow not to create such hideous art. So this would not be truly great even though two of the conditions are met (who knows what the others might be).

This is why C is wrong. Not as described above..."Profound impact on musicians everywhere" is not, in fact, different from "far reaching influence." Actually this is a pretty strong statement of far-reaching influence. C is wrong because the two necessary conditions of originality and influence do not GUARANTEE greatness.

B is correct because these two conditions are NECESSARY for greatness. Since in B, one of the conditions is missing we can conclude that the work is not truly great.

By the way, don't worry. Less than 1/2 of LSAT students get this one right!!

Hope that helps clarify.
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by Practicegmat » Thu Oct 25, 2012 8:10 pm
I marked E as the answer. Could someone elaborate why E is wrong? I am not convinced with the above explanation
Thanks!
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by David@VeritasPrep » Fri Oct 26, 2012 4:08 am
I am not surprised that you are unconvinced by the explanation I gave. This is not a GMAT question and the answer is not the type of thing that one would have studied on the GMAT. It is called the contrapositive and is a main concept on the LSAT. You can get a perfect score on the GMAT without truly understanding this. However, I want to fully explain it for you...

This is how you would diagram the argument IF truly Great (TG) THEN both original (O) and far-reaching influence (FRI). IF TG then O and FRI. This is the "positive" form of the argument. Meaning that you tell me TG THEN I can conclude that O and FRI are true. This also works with real life examples such as you tell me that you were just elected President of the United States I will know that you were born in the U.S. and that you are at least 35 years old since these are two of the requirements.

Now the contrapositive is pretty simple, you just take away one of the required conditions. So in my example if you are not at least 35 years old then you cannot be President of the U.S. That makes sense right?

On this problem, what choice B is saying is that one of the requirements is not there and so the work is not truly great. It is saying NOT FRI so NOT TG. This is the contrapositive.

Choice C is the improper reversal. Remember our argument is "TG therefore O and FRI." But we do not know that these are the only requirements. There might be others such as quality or ability to appeal to people over a number of decades or something. So when choice C says O and FRI therefore TG this is reversing the argument in an improper way.

After all in my real world example, I am both 35 years old and born in the U.S. so I must be the President right? No. There are other qualifications, such as actually running for President and having people vote for you. I think that President Obama is a little too busy to answer these questions (although he did go to law school so I bet he is good at CR!).

One difference between Choice B, which is the correct answer and choice E, which is not, is that Choice E adds an unnecessary condition. E is very close to being correct but it goes a little too far.

Remember TG means O and FRI. Answer Choice E adds a third thing "broad popular appeal (BPA)." This is not part of the stimulus! Suddenly choice E is saying that TG means O, FRI, and BPA. Where did this come from? It is not part of the stimulus and is not true. This is why E is wrong.

I hope that was more convincing...
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by mahajans » Sun Oct 28, 2012 9:51 am
Thanks for the great explanations :)
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