The Board of Trustees

Answer choices

1. A

   Unrelated to Goal11% picked this

   The directors of an art museum can generally raise funds for refurbishing the building in which the museum’s collection is housed by means other

   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%
2. B

   Correct83% picked this

   The quality of an art collection is determined not just by the quality of its paintings, but by what its collection demonstrates about the

   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.

   83%
3. C

   Strengthens, if anything3% picked this

   The immature works by Renoir and Cézanne that were purchased by Ms. Federici were at that time thought by some critics

   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".

   3%
4. D

   Unrelated to Goal1% picked this

   Those people who speculate in art by purchasing artworks merely to sell them at much higher prices welcome inflation in the art market, but

   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%
5. E

   No Impact2% picked this

   The best work of a great artist demands much higher prices in the art market than the worst

   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%