Until recently, experts have been

Answer choices

1. A

   No Impact3% picked this

   The painting of the battle scene depicts several other people who appear to be roughly the same age as the

   The fact that there are several other people around the same age as the self-portrait artist doesn't do anything. Just because they're about the same age doesn't mean that they closely resemble him, so they're not providing alternate explanations.

   3%
2. B

   No Impact11% picked this

   Most of the figures depicted in the painting of the battle scene resemble real

   We already knew that this painting involved aristocrats from a historic battle, hence this answer seems to confirm much of what we'd already suspected: hey, there's a bunch of famous aristocrats in this painting, from that famous battle! This answer just says that most of the figures in the battle scene were famous historic people. As long as it leaves room for one dude who isn't famous and kinda looks suspiciously like that self-portrait artist, it's not really changing the argument.

   11%
3. C

   Too Weak18% picked this

   It was not uncommon in the Renaissance for painters to use live models in depicting

   This is almost drifting towards an Alternate Explanation of "Hey, maybe the figure in the battle scene wasn't the self-portrait artist; it was a live model." - But did the live model look a lot like self-portrait artist? - just because it was "not uncommon" to use live models, is there any reason for us to think that this artist used live models for all the figures in the battle scene? Overall, this is a very weak idea to begin with, so for us to assume it's relevant to this situation is a very dubious stretch.

   18%
4. D

   Correct50% picked this

   It would have been a violation of etiquette for so young an artist to include himself among aristocrats in a

   Why this is right

   This hurts the plausibility of the Author's Story. We're less likely to believe that this self-portrait artist (early in his career, before he was famous) would paint himself into a historic aristocratic battle scene if doing so would have been a violation of etiquette. This certainly doesn't prove it's not him, but Weaken answers don't have to refute the conclusion, they just have to introduce some doubt. If we were like, "Who sent you those roses? I bet it was Kevin; I saw him at the flower shop." it would hurt the plausibility to say anything like, "Kevin is allergic to roses. Kevin is already in a committed relationship. Kevin was at the flower shop to visit his friend Steve who works there. Kevin considers giving flowers to someone to be a trite gesture ... etc."

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

   50%
5. E

   Too Weak17% picked this

   The historic battle that is the subject of the painting took place a number of years before the birth of the

   We might try to stretch this into thinking it weakens the plausibility of the Author's Story that the self-portrait artist painted the battle scene: "How could it be him, if the battle scene happened years before the artist was born?" Well if it's a historic battle, it's gonna get painted a bunch of times for decades / centuries to come. I'm sure there were a bunch of painters this year who painted a scene from the life of Jesus, or painted Marilyn Monroe having her dress blown by street-level grate. When something is iconic, people will paint it for years beyond the event itself.

   17%