#4 - Art critic: Nowadays, museum visitors seldom pause to

[Administrator]

Please post below with any questions!

[jennie]

Why is D not correct? D eliminates the possibility that people still engage with artworks just in a different way, i.e., looking at snapshots. I think D and E are both necessary assumptions.

[James Finch]

Hi Jennie,

So this is a stimulus that is missing a supporter assumption, requiring us to tie something new in the conclusion to the premises. Here, the new element in the conclusion is "engagement," which isn't present in any of the premises. (E) ties engagement to amount of time spent looking at a work, clearly tying the conclusion to the premises. (D), however, only deals with whether someone who takes a snapshot (which are only some of museum goers) is likely to look at that picture, which is ultimately irrelevant--we still need to know that time spent on a piece shows the level of engagement with that piece. To test this, we can use the Assumption Negation technique:

Snapshots often looked at People not necessarily less willing to engage with art

This would perhaps weaken the argument, but it doesn't work to 100% negate the conclusion, so it doesn't work as a necessary assumption.

Contrast this with (E):

Time spent not a reliable measure of engagement with art People not necessarily less willing to engage with art

As we see, this eliminates the only premise for the conclusion and effectively negates the argument.

Hope this clears things up!

[younghoon27]

I had a tough time choosing C and D although I did end up choosing D I was unsure if got rid of C for the right reasons. I thought by the answer choosing C it was too specific or rather I felt that the answer choice was insinuating that it was only good for window treatment.

[Adam Tyson]

The correct answer here is actually E, younghoon27, and it can be tested by using the Assumption Negation Technique. What if the time spent looking at a work of art doesn't tell us anything about the viewer's level of engagement with it? If that's so, then the author's conclusion about people being less willing to engage has no support at all, and the argument falls apart. That's the proof we need that E is the correct answer - the author must believe that it is true, or else their argument makes no sense!

Try that with answer C: taking more time would not lead to more enjoyment. Does this ruin the argument, which is about our willingness to engage with works of art and has nothing to do with our enjoyment of them? Not at all, so this answer is a loser.

Now with answer D: visitors who take snapshots frequently look at them later. Does that undermine the author's claim about our level of engagement? Not really - we could still overall be spending less time with the art, even accounting for time spent by some people looking at snapshots later, and that could still indicate that we are less willing to engage with that artwork.

The correct answer to an Assumption question is like the correct answer to a Must Be True question - it is necessary in the mind of the author if we are to accept what we read in the stimulus. Any answer choice that is not absolutely required by the argument is a wrong answer, and we can test it by seeing if the argument still stands up when the answer choice is negated, which is another way of saying the answer is made false. Try that on your contender answers and you cannot go wrong on these questions!