Logical Reasoning

PT102 · S4 · Q10 The Board of Trustees

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The Board of Trustees of the Federici Art Museum has decided to sell some works from its collection in order to raise the funds necessary to refurbish its galleries.

Conclusion (Hence)

The board's action (selling some works from the collection to raise refurbishing funds) will not detract from the quality of the museum's collection.

Intermediate Conclusion (so)

The early works of Renoir / Cezanne that would get sold add nothing to the overall quality of the museum's collection.

Evidence

They are unsuccessful immature works of inferior quality.

Evaluate

Given that ... the works we'd be selling are immature / unsuccessful / inferior quality works by Renoir and Cezanne,

How could we still argue that ... selling these works would detract from the museum's collection / they do add something?

Hmm, how can early crappy paintings add value? - Maybe they allow the museum to say "we have a complete set", which is something other museum's can't say. - Maybe Renoir and Cezanne reference these early works or build off them in some way in their later works, so if we didn't have the crappy early ones it would be harder to fully grasp the significance of the later ones.

Goal

Find some answer that allows us to say

10.

Which one of the following, if true, most weakens the argument?

  1. The directors of an art

    Unrelated to Goal

    This isn't giving us a way to argue that selling these paintings will detract from the quality of the collection, since it doesn't talk about these works at all or about the quality of a collection.

    11% picked this

  2. Correct

    The quality of an art

    Why this is right

    We were looking for a way to say, "we shouldn't sell these early, crappy Renoir and Cezanne paintings -- for some reason, they add value to the overall quality of the museum's collection." This answer speaks directly to how we determine quality of a collection. So maybe it's usable for our purposes. Could we say that by getting rid of these early, immature Renoir / Cezanne paintings, the collection would not do as good a job at demonstrating the development of R / C's artistic talent and ideas? Sure! If you have the early crappy ones, you can better demonstrate how these artists developed into the masters we know them as today. You can also see what early themes they explored, and compare that to their later ideas. Essentially, this answer speaks to the move from "these early paintings are low quality, thus getting rid of them won't hurt the collection". It's saying, "the quality of the collection is more than just the sum of the quality of individual paintings -- having a 'complete' set, or a more complete set, helps to better tell the story of the artist's career."

    Skill tested: Weaken · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    84% picked this

  3. The immature works by Renoir

    Strengthens, if anything

    This seems to reaffirm what we were already told -- these paintings they're considering selling are unimportant, immature, juvenile, add nothing, etc. We need a way to argue, "yes that's true, but they're still valuable to the collection".

    2% picked this

  4. Those people who speculate in

    Unrelated to Goal

    This isn't giving us a way to argue that selling these paintings will detract from the quality of the collection, since it doesn't talk about these works at all or about the quality of the collection.

    1% picked this

  5. The best work of a

    No Impact

    This is sort of a no-brainer. Our common sense already told us that best-works would be in higher demand (and thus fetch a bigger price) than would worst-works. We're not selling these worst Renoir and Cezanne paintings because we think they will fetch as much as their masterpieces; we're just thinking we can get away with selling off these crappy ones to raise some money, without harming the museum's collection.

    2% picked this

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