PrepTest 102, Section 3, Question 23
A museum director, in order to finance expensive(90 more words not shown)
The reasoning in the argument(14 more words not shown)
- AIt concludes that(20 more words not shown)
- BIt rejects the(20 more words not shown)
- CIt rejects a(15 more words not shown)
- DIt bases a(20 more words not shown)
- EIt bases its(20 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Maybe the second buyer paid too much.
The director thought the paintings were inferior; the critics called them first-rate. Neither opinion settles that disagreement just by being stated. Then we learn that the paintings resold for two to three times what the museum received. That makes the original sale look questionable, but does the higher price prove the critics' judgment was right?
Imagine selling a house for $1 million. Its buyer later finds someone willing to pay $3 million. Maybe I sold too cheaply. Or maybe the last buyer paid far more than the house was worth. The second sale establishes that someone paid more, not that the higher price was the right price.
The same possibility matters for the paintings. An otherwise stagnant market rules out a general market rise as an obvious explanation, but it doesn't rule out an individual buyer overpaying. Price also isn't automatically a verdict on artistic quality.
What we’re looking for
I would separately want to know what the museum bought with the proceeds before judging the overall trade. Losing one painting might help acquire something more valuable to the collection. But the argument tries to settle the critics' evaluation through the resale prices. For the flaw question, stay with that move: the prices could have another explanation, so they don't prove the evaluation.
Working the answers
- A
The argument does endorse an opinion, but it doesn't count how many people hold each opinion. Its stated evidence is the resale price. Even if the critics outnumbered the director, the argument doesn't say their numbers make them right. A gets the general kind of conclusion but invents the reason offered for it.
- B
The argument accepts the critics' evaluation rather than rejecting expert judgment across the board. And we aren't told that expert opinion is the only useful guide to a painting's quality. The disagreement between the director and the critics doesn't by itself establish the particular error B describes.
- C
We aren't evaluating a general proposal for how museums should raise money. The director sold paintings to finance acquisitions, but the argument concludes that the critics correctly evaluated the sold works. It doesn't reject a proven fundraising method and owe us a substitute. C changes the subject of the dispute.
- D
The resale already happened. The argument isn't speculating that the paintings might someday fetch higher prices and treating that forecast as fact. Its problem is what the actual higher prices establish. D describes a future-prediction issue that the passage doesn't contain.
- ECorrect
The facts are the higher resale prices. The argument treats them as confirmation that the paintings were first-rate, but the prices could instead reflect a later buyer's willingness to overpay. That is a concrete alternative explanation for the same observed outcome.
We don't have to show that anyone actually overpaid or that the director was right. We only need to see why the price increase doesn't settle the disagreement as conclusively as the author claims.
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