PrepTest 103, Section 2, Question 24
Monica: The sculpture commissioned for our town plaza(113 more words not shown)
Monica's and Hector's statements commit(10 more words not shown)
- APublic opinion of(14 more words not shown)
- BWorks of art(16 more words not shown)
- CThe only reason(23 more words not shown)
- DThe sculpture cannot(15 more words not shown)
- EIn determining whether(19 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
The townspeople are the ones who have to look at the sculpture. Why wouldn't their reaction matter?
Monica says their dislike tells us nothing about artistic merit because they know little about contemporary art. Maybe she's right about that limit. People could dislike something that an informed critic values. But why should that make their dislike irrelevant to keeping the work in a public plaza?
Hector picks up that concern. He is willing to accept Monica's point about popularity and merit, yet he says public art should benefit the public. He treats the public's view as decisive here: if people feel as Monica reports, remove the sculpture.
What we’re looking for
My initial reading is that they disagree about whether public dislike gives a reason to take it down. The stem asks for a principle behind their disagreement, so look at how each decides that issue. Monica makes artistic merit central to evaluating the objection; Hector says the public's response can settle the decision even while granting her point about merit.
Working the answers
- A
This asks whether public opinion helps determine artistic merit. Hector allows that Monica may be right that it doesn't. His response doesn't require the public to be competent art critics; he shifts to whether this public work benefits them. We don't have opposing positions on A.
- B
This makes a certain level of artistic merit a requirement for benefiting the public. Neither speaker establishes that particular relationship. Hector could think public art offers benefits people value without deciding whether artistic merit is a prerequisite for every such benefit. Their disagreement about removal doesn't tell us how each would answer B.
- C
Hector treats the public's opposition as enough to call for removal in this case. He doesn't say it is the only possible reason ever to remove a public artwork. Monica likewise doesn't give us an exhaustive list of reasons. C changes a discussion of whether this reason counts into a rule excluding every other reason.
- D
This also makes artistic merit necessary for public benefit. Monica's point is that uninformed dislike doesn't establish a lack of merit; Hector's point concerns using public opinion in the removal decision. Neither gives the required opposing commitments about whether a sculpture without merit could benefit people. We also aren't told as a fact that this sculpture has merit.
- ECorrect
Monica's defense depends on treating artistic merit as a central consideration: the public's criticism supposedly provides no reason to remove the sculpture because it doesn't tell us anything about that merit. Hector rejects that way of deciding this case. Even granting her point about merit, he thinks public opposition calls for removal.
The disagreement isn't about which artistic score the sculpture deserves. It's about whether artistic merit should be central to the decision to keep it. E states the principle behind the different responses we noticed.
More Disagreement questions
Learn the LSAT our way
Our platform drills Disagreement questions at your level and adjusts as you improve.