PrepTest 102, Section 4, Question 10
The Board of Trustees of the Federici Art(92 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(6 more words not shown)
- AThe directors of(27 more words not shown)
- BThe quality of(32 more words not shown)
- CThe immature works(23 more words not shown)
- DThose people who(32 more words not shown)
- EThe best work(20 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Which paintings will actually be sold?
The curator has identified some immature Renoir and Cézanne works as dispensable. The board has decided to sell some works. Those descriptions might refer to the same paintings, but the argument hasn't made that connection explicit. If the board sold different works, the curator's comments about the early paintings wouldn't justify the sale.
Even if those are the paintings being sold, I still have a concern. Could an early work add something to a collection even when it is an inferior painting? Imagine displaying a master's early attempts beside later work. Visitors might learn something about how the artist's ideas or technique developed. An individual work needn't be a masterpiece to serve that purpose.
What we’re looking for
Now we're asked to weaken the conclusion that the sale won't detract from the collection. Either concern suggests a route: show that the board may sell works outside the supposedly dispensable group, or show that those early works contribute something the curator overlooks. Keep the target as the quality of the remaining collection, rather than whether the sale is the museum's only fundraising option.
Working the answers
- A
Other ways to raise money might make the sale unnecessary. But the argument doesn't say selling paintings is the only way to finance refurbishment. It says the sale won't hurt the collection's quality. The existence of another funding option doesn't show that this option causes the harm the argument denies.
- BCorrect
A collection's quality depends partly on what it shows about artists' development, not just on the standalone quality of each painting. That gives the early works a potential contribution the curator's dismissal overlooks.
Seeing an immature work beside a mature one could reveal a change in the artist's skill or thinking. Removing the early work can remove that comparison. B therefore challenges the move from “inferior individual paintings” to “nothing lost from the collection.” We don't have to declare the early works masterpieces to explain why selling them could matter.
- C
Some critics also regarded the works as unimportant when they were purchased. That doesn't undermine the curator's current view that they are inferior. More importantly, the old assessment doesn't establish what those works contribute to the present collection. It gives us no clear reason the proposed sale will reduce its quality.
- D
Art speculators and museum curators can disagree about rising market prices without settling whether these paintings add to this collection. The answer concerns their financial interests in market inflation. It doesn't identify any contribution that selling the paintings would remove.
- E
A great artist's best work commanding more money than the worst work tells us about relative sale prices. It doesn't show that an early, less expensive work lacks value to a museum's collection—or that selling it removes such value. Market price and contribution to the collection are different issues. B speaks directly to the latter.
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