Surviving seventeenth-century Dutch

Answer choices

1. A

   Weakens, if anything4% picked this

   Technically gifted seventeenth-century Dutch landscape artists developed recognizable styles that were

   This hurts the plausibility of the author's hypothesis. If the works of the major artists (I'm fudging an assumption that "major = technically gifted") had recognizable styles, then it is less likely that you would have incorrect attributions of who painted a given landscape.

   4%
2. B

   No Impact3% picked this

   In the workshops of major seventeenth-century artists, assistants were employed to prepare the paints, brushes, and other materials that

   Learning about what assistants did within a major artist's workshop is totally irrelevant. This is like learning that their assistants normally put one lump, not two, of sugar into their tea.

   3%
3. C

   Weakens6% picked this

   In the eighteenth century, landscapes by minor seventeenth-century artists were often simply thrown away or else

   This provides an Alternate Explanation like what we were thinking of --- maybe the surviving landscapes are 1/2 major artist because a high volume of the ones created by minor artists didn't survive (they were thrown away or damaged).

   6%
4. D

   Correct80% picked this

   Seventeenth-century art dealers paid minor artists extra money to leave their landscapes unsigned so that the dealers could add phony signatures and pass

   Why this is right

   This adds plausibility to the Author's Explanation. We're more likely to believe that many of these Dutch landscapes have been incorrectly attributed to a major artist, if we know that there was a strong financial incentive for art dealers to incorrectly attribute an unsigned painting by a minor artist to a major artist.

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

   80%
5. E

   Nothing New7% picked this

   More seventeenth-century Dutch landscapes were painted than have actually survived, and that is true of those executed by minor artists as well as

   This seems like a very hollow truth. It is literally just saying, "At least one Dutch landscape from a major artist didn't survive, and at least one Dutch landscape from a minor artist didn't survive". Well, of course. When you woke up this morning, were you thinking that 100% of the Dutch landscapes painted in the 17th century have survived? Of course not. So, this is just telling us what we already know -- not all paintings survive, three centuries later.

   7%