PrepTest 124, Section 3, Question 10
Artist: Avant-garde artists intend their work to challenge(70 more words not shown)
The reference to the claim(15 more words not shown)
- AIt serves to(5 more words not shown)
- BIt identifies a(8 more words not shown)
- CIt identifies a(9 more words not shown)
- DIt provides support(7 more words not shown)
- EIt provides support(7 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Successful at what? Becoming popular and changing society's beliefs are different achievements.
The artists described here intend to challenge mainstream beliefs and bring about change. Some collectors, meanwhile, call a work successful when it becomes popular in its own time. I can see a disagreement forming about how to judge the work: by its popularity or by whether it accomplishes the artist's purpose.
The author sides against the collectors. Because mainstream beliefs generally change slowly, the author concludes that a popular avant-garde work has failed to fulfill its creator's intentions. I'm not convinced popularity shows that failure. A work might become popular now and influence people's beliefs later. Slow change doesn't establish that popular art cannot contribute to it.
What we’re looking for
But the question asks what role the collectors' claim plays, so we don't need to fix the argument. What does the author do with that claim? Disputes it. The collectors say popularity indicates success; the author argues that popularity indicates a lack of success. That's the relationship our answer needs to capture.
Working the answers
- A
A statement that bolsters the main conclusion supplies a reason to believe it. The collectors' claim points the other way: it calls popular work successful, while the author's conclusion calls it unsuccessful. The author introduces that view to oppose it, not to use it as support.
- BCorrect
This is a view the argument ultimately disputes. Keep the two voices separate: some collectors offer popularity as a sign of success, and the artist argues against that assessment. We can identify the disagreement without accepting the artist's reasoning.
- C
The initial premise tells us what avant-garde artists intend: challenging beliefs and initiating change. That doesn't support the collectors' view that popularity establishes success. We'd need a connection between becoming popular and achieving those intentions, and the initial premise doesn't give us one.
- D
Saying that some collectors judge a popular work successful doesn't establish what its creator intended. D puts the collectors' claim in the role of evidence for the opening statement. In this argument, its job is to introduce the position the author will challenge.
- E
The author doesn't use the collectors' view to argue against the initial premise about artists' intentions. The author accepts those intentions and uses failure to fulfill them as the basis for calling a work unsuccessful. The dispute is about the collectors' assessment of success, not whether the artists intend to change society.
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