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Powerscore Question - Art Historian

by vineetbatra » Tue Mar 09, 2010 4:34 pm
Art historian: Great works of art have often elicited
outrage when first presented; in Europe,
Stravinsky's Rite of Spring prompted a riot, and
Manet's Déjeuner sur l'herbe elicited outrage
and derision. So, since it is clear that art is often
shocking, we should not hesitate to use public
funds to support works of art that many people
find shocking.
Which one of the following is an assumption that the
art historian's argument requires in order for its
conclusion to be properly drawn?
(A) Most art is shocking.
(B) Stravinsky and Manet received public funding
for their art.
(C) Art used to be more shocking than it currently
is.
(D) Public funds should support art.
(E) Anything that shocks is art.


OA is D why not B
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by Phirozz » Tue Mar 09, 2010 6:03 pm
vineetbatra wrote:Art historian: Great works of art have often elicited
outrage when first presented; in Europe,
Stravinsky's Rite of Spring prompted a riot, and
Manet's Déjeuner sur l'herbe elicited outrage
and derision. So, since it is clear that art is often
shocking, we should not hesitate to use public
funds to support works of art that many people
find shocking.
Which one of the following is an assumption that the
art historian's argument requires in order for its
conclusion to be properly drawn?
(A) Most art is shocking.
(B) Stravinsky and Manet received public funding
for their art.
(C) Art used to be more shocking than it currently
is.
(D) Public funds should support art.
(E) Anything that shocks is art.


OA is D why not B
IMO D. Stravinsky and Manet 's art are are the example of shocking art and they are neither assumption nor any further information available on them. Since the conclusion is works if art theat find people shocking shoud be supported without hesitation, B is clearly the assumption.
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by reply2spg » Tue Mar 09, 2010 9:37 pm
I have the question, Why D, since it is mentioned in passage.
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by Phirozz » Tue Mar 09, 2010 10:18 pm
reply2spg wrote:I have the question, Why D, since it is mentioned in passage.
I didnt find D mentioned anywhere in passage. As per the passage, we should not hesitate to use public funds for arts which is based on the assumption that "public funds should support art".

Look the difference, if there is clear guidelines that public fund cannot be used for art, our argument to use public fund for art is invalid. To make our argument valid it must be assumed that "public funds should support art".
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by kstv » Tue Mar 09, 2010 11:38 pm
So since it is clear that art is often shocking, we should not hesitate to use public funds to support works of art that many people find shocking. (D) Public funds should support art.
The issue is whether public funds should be used to support controversial art. If Public fund was not supporting art then why should funding of controversial art even be discussed. Unless,to imply Art if not controversial should not be supported.
(A) Most art is shocking. - it is clear that art is often shocking it is a premise not assumption.
(B) Stravinsky and Manet received public funding for their art - The mention of these two artist is cos ' if they were contemporary then they should not have been denied support just because they are controversial. Controversial art may be Masterpiece and should not be denied support. Whether they received support in their time, cannot be assumed, only they should have been.
(C) Art used to be more shocking than it currently is. - We can just conclude there at present there are fair no of controversial art, that is why we are talking of supporting them. Relation with past cannot be inferred.
E) Anything that shocks is art -Great works of art have often elicited outrage & that art is often
shocking. Often is not always. A=> B but does not mean B => A. I guess this is Syllogism in Logic.
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by gilliamwibson » Wed Mar 10, 2010 11:20 am
Phirozz, i think you are just memorizing what the book says and you try to fix the idea of the correctness by defending it here.
however, "we should not hesitate to use" could also and more readily infer " we should use ..." So please be kind and post something that has a simple logical sequence to explain the facts to people, what you do is just telling something you believe is true without any sound base and comparison. you say " I didnt find D mentioned anywhere in passage "
IMO both of these mean nearly the same if not exactly by logic.
And i think this is just the perfect example how GMAT will try to frack us with its uncommon usage of logical prepositions and clauses... And also it is a good example of the kind of a question we are likely not to face in the exam.

just get the logic how they got to "D" and be prepared.

IMO the correct answer is B, which is wrong but I can also base it on very sound foundations.
In this question examples of Stravinsky and Manet are given as the creators of "Great works of art" that elicited derision and outrage at their time. If we assume that they have received public funding for their art we can also deduce that by receiving public funding these artists created "Great works of Art" so it is only natural to promote the funding of the art regardless of its initial negative effects on public...
However in choice "D" it almost repeats without solid grounds that the art should be supported by public funds. And it is really very hard to find a place in the argument to place this sentence, just try and see for yourself. Wherever you'd insert the sentence it will sound awkward and unnecessary because of the last sentence... however "B" proves the reason for funding to be sound by bringing to our attention the intrinsic value that art brought in the long term: priceless masterpieces...
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by vineetbatra » Wed Mar 10, 2010 2:50 pm
gilliamwibson, I totally agree with you and that is the reason I selected B, I did not even understand the reasoning given in the book. Maybe I should ping an expert

The reasoning given in the book is :

However, because the structure of the last sentence in the stimulus ("So, since...") suggests that the author uses the Second premise to prove the conclusion, you should focus on the relationship between those two pieces. For the author to say that art is shocking and therefore art should be publicly funded, the author must assume that art is worthy of public support. This assumption is reflected in answer choice (D), the correct answer.


Answer choice (B): This is the most popular wrong answer choice. In the argument, is the author committed to believing that Stravinsky and Manet received public funding? Does the author need this statement in order for the rest of the argument to work? No. The author uses Stravinsky and Manet as examples of artists whose work caused shock, but the author never assumes that those individuals received public funding. Think for a moment-does the conclusion rest on the fact that Stravinsky and Manet received public funding?
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by Testluv » Wed Mar 10, 2010 3:54 pm
Stravinsky and Manet are not given as examples of artists who receieved public funding, and nor does the author's argument commit him to that view. Instead, they are only given as examples of artists whose works of art were so shocking that they often elicited outrage.

Let's look at the first sentence:
Art historian: Great works of art have often elicited
outrage when first presented; in Europe,
Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring prompted a riot, and
Manet’s Déjeuner sur l’herbe elicited outrage
and derision.
Notice that I have emboldened the semi-colon. Semi-colons often function as illustration keywords. Examples of illustration keywords are: "for example" and "for instance". Illustration keywords illustrate the idea in the preceding sentence. But if you already understand the idea in the preceding sentence, you can speed up your reading if the next sentence starts with an illustration keyword because you already know why that sentence is written--to illustrate that which you have already understood. This is especially helpful in RC.

Here, the sentence may as well have read: "Great works of art have often elicited outrage when first presented. For examples, XXX." Notice that since we can comprehend the first sentence without the assistance of the examples, we can actually just ignore the examples completely. And, in the same way, in the original sentence, we can comprehend the first clause (before the semi-colon) without the second, so we can in fact ignore the second clause entirely.

One important skill with these arguments is cutting through all the verbal filler to get to the ideas in the evidence and conclusion--paraphrasing. Usually, GMAT questions don't have too much unnecessary verbiage (this must be an LSAT question). Nonetheless, paraphrasing is still a very important skill in GMAT arguments. You want to reduce the argument to:

"X because of Y" or "Since X, Y"

A good paraphrase of this argument is:

"Because shocking art can be great, let's use public dollars to support shocking art".

As you can see, in the paraphrased version, we can ignore Stravinsky and Manet entirely--they are outside the scope of the argument, and that's why choice B is wrong.

We can use the Kaplan denial test to prove that the argument depends on choice D:

If public funds should NOT support art, what happens to the argument that we should use public funds to support shocking art?

Well, since shocking art is a subset of all art, clearly the argument falls apart. Thus, choice D is an assumption the art historan's argument requires in order for its conclusion to be properly drawn. (I think this is what Phirozz meant, and Phirozz' reasoning is correct).

On the other hand, if you deny any of the other choices (including choice B), the argument remains unaffeced.
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by Phirozz » Wed Mar 10, 2010 5:39 pm
gilliamwibson wrote:Phirozz, i think you are just memorizing what the book says and you try to fix the idea of the correctness by defending it here.
however, "we should not hesitate to use" could also and more readily infer " we should use ..." So please be kind and post something that has a simple logical sequence to explain the facts to people, what you do is just telling something you believe is true without any sound base and comparison. you say " I didnt find D mentioned anywhere in passage "
IMO both of these mean nearly the same if not exactly by logic.
And i think this is just the perfect example how GMAT will try to frack us with its uncommon usage of logical prepositions and clauses... And also it is a good example of the kind of a question we are likely not to face in the exam.

just get the logic how they got to "D" and be prepared.

IMO the correct answer is B, which is wrong but I can also base it on very sound foundations.
In this question examples of Stravinsky and Manet are given as the creators of "Great works of art" that elicited derision and outrage at their time. If we assume that they have received public funding for their art we can also deduce that by receiving public funding these artists created "Great works of Art" so it is only natural to promote the funding of the art regardless of its initial negative effects on public...
However in choice "D" it almost repeats without solid grounds that the art should be supported by public funds. And it is really very hard to find a place in the argument to place this sentence, just try and see for yourself. Wherever you'd insert the sentence it will sound awkward and unnecessary because of the last sentence... however "B" proves the reason for funding to be sound by bringing to our attention the intrinsic value that art brought in the long term: priceless masterpieces...
dude,
I have not yet referred any GMAT materials. Few days back I started preparing for the same and I dont have any study materials as of now. If you dont find the difference between option D and what is mentioned in passage then you need to strengthen ur reasoning. B is completely out of scope. I could not have framed my explanation properly to make u convinced, sorry for that. While solving CRs just open ur mind to receive input from all angles rather than sticking to ur own reasoning, it will help u to broaden ur skill. What I believe is memoraizing rules from study materials and approaching question may not always help, I may be wrong because I have not yet referred any !!!
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by jpjp » Wed Mar 10, 2010 11:01 pm
I came up with D.

I don't have some mind blowing technical explanation on how I came to my answer.. but my reasoning is as follows....


Conclusion: we should not hesitate to use public funds to support works of art that many people find shocking.

A: irrelevant, does not address funding (out of scope)
B: tempting because it addresses funding, but whether or not the two artists received funding does not really impact the conclusion one way or the other. You can still maintain your conclusion that public funding should be given to support great art work, regardless of whether the two artist mentioned actually received public funding, if that makes sense. Their great art could have NOT been supported by public funds, but the author could still argue that great art SHOULD be publicly funded (perhaps it wasn't but it should have and should going forward). I guess you could classify my logic as using the denial test method
C: does not address funding
D: bingo. The author argues that public funds to support art that people find SHOCKING, which is worded in a way that assumes that public funds are already used to support ANY art, shocking or non shocking.
E: does not address funding

my 2 cents anyway
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by gilliamwibson » Thu Mar 11, 2010 1:51 am
Ok, please anyone tell me if the conclusion "So, since it is clear that art is often shocking, we should not hesitate to use public
funds to support works of art that many people find shocking" doesn't mean "We should support shocking art because it is clear that it sometimes can be shocking" this doesn't make any sense.
And phirozz, if I were operating by memorizing I wouldn't be this much confused.

The only closest expanation is of Testluv's where he mentions that art as a whole that should be funded also covers the shocking art ok but again.

Negating the choice B does weaken the conclusion. If the creators of shocking art were not funded then the deduction made thereby would render only contradictory.
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by jpjp » Thu Mar 11, 2010 8:13 am
The conclusion reads to me that they should publically fund shocking art because it is still art. This assumes that art as a whole is publically funded.

B does not weaken the conclusion because whether or not they were funded has no bearing on if they should fund in the future. You can still argue that tehy weren't funded in the past but that does not change the argument that they should now.
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by vineetbatra » Thu Mar 11, 2010 2:08 pm
Testluv wrote:
Well, since shocking art is a subset of all art, clearly the argument falls apart. Thus, choice D is an assumption the art historan's argument requires in order for its conclusion to be properly drawn. (I think this is what Phirozz meant, and Phirozz' reasoning is correct).

On the other hand, if you deny any of the other choices (including choice B), the argument remains unaffeced.
Amazing explanation Testluv. Thanks a lot for the response.

Vineet
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by Testluv » Thu Mar 11, 2010 7:08 pm
This:
Ok, please anyone tell me if the conclusion "So, since it is clear that art is often shocking, we should not hesitate to use public
funds to support works of art that many people find shocking" doesn't mean "We should support shocking art because it is clear that it sometimes can be shocking" this doesn't make any sense.
isn't a great paraphrase because it isn't clear how the evidence supports the conclusion.

A better paraphrase is the one in my original post:

"Because shocking art can be great, we should use public funds to support shocking art."

Does denying choice B have any impact on this paraphrased version? How about denying choice D?....this is why, in my original post, I emphasized the importance of using keywords and paraphrasing!

____

Negating the choice B does weaken the conclusion. If the creators of shocking art were not funded then the deduction made thereby would render only contradictory.
You have misunderstood what role Stravinsky and Manet play in the argument. (Do eithr of those artists appear in the paraphrased version?) ...Study my original post!
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by kashefian » Wed Nov 10, 2010 11:03 pm
We can use the Kaplan denial test to prove that the argument depends on choice D:

If public funds should NOT support art, what happens to the argument that we should use public funds to support shocking art?

Well, since shocking art is a subset of all art, clearly the argument falls apart. Thus, choice D is an assumption the art historan's argument requires in order for its conclusion to be properly drawn. (I think this is what Phirozz meant, and Phirozz' reasoning is correct).

On the other hand, if you deny any of the other choices (including choice B), the argument remains unaffeced.
I put answer choice A under denial test: most art is not shocking. OK! if most art is not shocking then why spend public funds on those few works of art which are shocking (please pay attention that the whole conclusion rests on the facts that works of art are often shocking.)

Please explain why answer choice A is wrong?
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