PrepTest 141, Section 4, Question 9
Fraenger's assertion that the artist Hieronymus Bosch belonged(49 more words not shown)
The statement that there is(21 more words not shown)
- AIt is a(14 more words not shown)
- BIt is used(13 more words not shown)
- CIt is used(8 more words not shown)
- DIt is intended(13 more words not shown)
- EIt is intended(11 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Painting a religious subject doesn't necessarily make the artist a member of that religion.
Suppose an artist paints a religious leader. Membership in that leader's religion might help explain the choice, but someone outside the religion could paint the same subject. An explanation that fits the artwork isn't automatically proof of the artist's beliefs or affiliations.
That's the tension here. Fraenger proposes that Bosch belonged to the Brethren, and the proposal explains much of Bosch's unusual subject matter. The author grants that advantage, then points to evidence of membership in a mainstream church and no evidence of membership in the Brethren.
Could Bosch have belonged to the Brethren secretly? Perhaps. That possibility prevents us from treating the evidence as a guarantee that Fraenger is wrong. The author's conclusion is the more limited claim that Fraenger's assertion is unlikely to be correct.
What we’re looking for
We're asked about the role of the missing evidence. It's a reason to doubt Fraenger's membership claim. Keep that destination in mind: this sentence supports the author's skepticism about the hypothesis, even if we haven't yet found the perfect wording for its role.
Working the answers
- A
'Guarantees' is too strong. Evidence of mainstream church membership and no evidence of Brethren membership don't make secret membership impossible. The author argues that Fraenger is unlikely to be right, not that the other premises conclusively prove the assertion false.
- B
The two observations provide separate support for doubting Fraenger. The author doesn't use a lack of evidence for Brethren membership to establish mainstream church membership. The passage says there is evidence for the latter; it doesn't infer it by eliminating the former.
- C
This would attack Fraenger as a source—for example, by giving a reason not to trust his reporting. The author instead questions the support for this particular hypothesis. A person's evidence can be inadequate without the person being dishonest or generally unreliable.
- DCorrect
Explaining the unusual artwork isn't enough, the author suggests, to establish membership when there is no evidence that Bosch belonged to the group. That is what questioning the 'sufficiency' of the evidence means here: asking whether the support really gets us to the membership claim. The sentence helps cast doubt on Fraenger's hypothesis.
- E
The conclusion concerns whether Bosch belonged to the Brethren, not whether anyone can explain his subject matter. Rejecting one proposed account of his membership doesn't establish that the paintings remain unexplained. The author could regard some other explanation of the art as perfectly adequate.
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