PrepTest 127, Section 2, Question 21
Tania: A good art critic is not fair(69 more words not shown)
The dialogue most strongly supports(9 more words not shown)
- Aart is not(3 more words not shown)
- Bgood art criticism(3 more words not shown)
- Cart critics should(5 more words not shown)
- Dfairness generally requires(5 more words not shown)
- Ethe passionate engagement(15 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Tania says good art criticism cannot be separated from emotion. She also says truly unbiased opinions are possible only about things that don't interest us. Put those claims together: the engaged, passionate critic cannot give the detached opinion Tania associates with being unbiased.
I'm not sure emotion has to prevent fairness. Couldn't someone care deeply about a work of art and still make a fair judgment? Being indifferent to art wouldn't automatically make someone a good critic, either. We need to keep interest, ability, and lack of bias separate.
Monique offers a way to combine engagement with an unbiased judgment. Her best critics respond passionately to the artwork, then shed their biases and consult general principles of aesthetics before giving their criticism. They can care about art without letting bias control the final assessment.
What we’re looking for
The disagreement question should focus on that possibility. Tania rules out unbiased good criticism; Monique describes excellent critics who produce it. Look for whether good criticism can sometimes be unbiased.
Working the answers
- A
Monique says art is not simply a passion, but Tania only says that art is a passion. Saying something is a passion doesn't say that is all it is. Tania could agree that art is also other things, so the word 'simply' prevents us from establishing opposing views here.
- BCorrect
Tania's account rules out genuinely unbiased good art criticism because it cannot be separated from passionate interest. Monique says the best critics shed their biases before rendering their judgments. That supports at least some good criticism being unbiased. We need this limited disagreement, not a claim that every critic is unbiased.
- C
Neither position requires critics to avoid feeling emotion toward artworks. Tania treats emotion as inseparable from good criticism, and Monique expressly describes passionate engagement. Their dispute is whether bias can be removed from the resulting criticism, not whether critics should feel nothing.
- D
The dialogue doesn't give us conflicting general definitions of fairness. The speakers are addressing the possibility of unbiased art criticism. We shouldn't turn that narrower dispute into an established disagreement about what fairness generally requires.
- E
Passionate engagement matters in both accounts, but neither speaker ranks it as the most important aspect of criticism. Monique's mention of aesthetic principles doesn't by itself establish a competing ranking. The superlative adds a claim the exchange doesn't settle.
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