#16 - Cézanne’s art inspired the next generation of artists

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Must be true. The correct answer choice is (C)

The final three problems in this section are harder than the previous five. This problem is answered
correctly by about 45% of test takers and is classified as difficult (the hardest LSAT questions have
success rates under 20%. Fortunately, questions this difficult appear infrequently). Students can miss
questions for a variety of reasons:

1. The stimulus is difficult to understand.

2. The question stem is difficult to classify (very rare) or confusing.

3. The correct answer is deceptive, causing students to avoid it.

4. One (or more) of the incorrect answers is attractive, drawing students to it.

Given that the stimulus is a simple fact set and that none of the incorrect answers attracted more than
15% of test takers, the difficulty in this problem apparently lies in the correct answer.

Answer choice (A): The controversy in the stimulus is about the categorization of Cézanne
as an artist, not about Cézanne’s work. Further, even if the answer did correctly reference the
categorization controversy, the answer would still be suspect because of the word “highly.” The
stimulus indicates that only a small few reject the categorization of Cézanne as an early modernist
and most experts accept it.

Answer choice (B): The stimulus asserts that Cézanne inspired the creators of abstract art, not that
Cézanne himself created abstract art.

Answer choice (C): This correct answer is a paraphrase of the first sentence. The deceptiveness of
this answer lies in two areas:

1. The substitution of “develop” for “inspire.” Some students feel the word “develop” is too
strong, but if Cézanne inspired the creators of the next generation of art then he helped
develop it.

2. The use of the word “modernism.” Some students are thrown off by “modernism” because
they expect to see “abstract” instead. The stimulus is careful about saying “twentieth-century
modernist creators of abstract art.” Notice how the test makers use answer choice (B)—which
mentions “abstract”—to subtly prepare you to make this error.

Answer choice (D): The first sentence indicates that Cézanne’s art inspired the modernist creators.
The rest of the stimulus discusses a disagreement about the categorization of Cézanne that is not
resolved in favor of either group. Hence, there is no way for us to determine if modern art owes less
to Cézanne than many experts believe.

Answer choice (E): The word “tends” is the problem in this answer choice. Logically, “tends” means
“most.” So, according to answer choice (E), Cézanne’s work is usually misinterpreted as modernist.
The stimulus disagrees with this view: only a “small few” reject the categorization of Cézanne as
a modernist whereas the majority accepts it. Further, the disagreement in the stimulus involves art
experts, and from their view we would dispute answer choice (E). Answer choice (E) can also be
understood as involving all interpretation of Cézanne’s work—whether by art expert or not—and
from this perspective the answer is still unsupported since the views of others are not discussed in
the stimulus.

[kwcflynn]

In regards to (E), I completely understand that it translates to, "Cezanne's work is usually misinterpreted as modernist." However, I do not understand how that disagrees with "a small few reject this idea." I am under the impression that the "most experts" are doing the "misinterpreting" (Cezanne's work as modernist).

THANK YOU!

Kevin

[Adam Tyson]

The issue with answer E, kwcflynn, is that we have no idea which group is right! Are most experts correct, that Cezanne is an early modernist? Or is the small group that rejects that interpretation correct? Who is doing the misinterpreting here? The author takes no position, but just tells us that there is a disagreement on the point.

Where the author does take a position, however, is in the first statement of the stimulus, that "Cezanne's art inspired the next generation of artists, twentieth-century modernist creators of abstract art." Regardless of whether or not Cezanne was himself a modernist, the author clearly believes that he had some influence over the development of modernism. That gets us all we need to select answer C.

[faysun1007]

I think the following question has been discussed in this forum but from a different light, so I'm still confused about it.

[admin note: full text of LSAT question removed from original post due to LSAC copyright regulations]

The correct answer is C. However, imo,is doesn't take into consideration the latter part of the stimulus, namely, where Francoise Cachin says that Cezanne as an early modernist is "overplayed" and Cezanne's work is "too often observed from a modern point of view". If one argues that "overplayed" implies there's still possibility that Cezanne's work had inspired modernism in some degree, what about the statement that "Cezanne's work is too often observed from a modern point of view". I think this statement, even though it's one person's opinion, nonetheless is detrimental to answer C.

Could you please help clarify? What am I missing here?

Many thanks,

Fay

[Claire Horan]

Hi Fay,

This is a difficult question!

We need to identify which parts of the stimulus support or detract from each answer choice. When we do that for answer choice (C), we note that this answer choice is a paraphrase of the first sentence of the stimulus. Also notice that "helped to develop modernism" is not very strong language at all. It is an easier statement to support than (E), which states that Cezanne's work "tends to be misinterpreted" and, therefore, requires a judgment of how often this misinterpretation happens.

As for your objection to (C), let's look more closely at what (C) doesn't claim. The statement in (C) that Cezanne's work "helped to develop modernism" does not claim that Cezanne's work was or wasn't a modernist, or that he created or didn't create modernist art. Choice (C) doesn't require that Cezanne be classified at all, so the second and third sentences in the stimulus have no bearing on the strength of the statement in (C).

I hope this explanation helps!

[faysun1007]

Thanks for the clarification, Claire. This is an interesting question with tricky answer choices indeed lol. Although it makes sense now, but I feel like I won't have enough time to think it through on the day of the exam.

What do you think is the best approach to tackle this particular question, or what would your thought process be to solve this particular question, on the day of the exam. Any thoughts would be much appreciated!

[James Finch]

Hi Fay,

The best way to approach a question like this, a Must Be True or Most Strongly Supported without any identifiable reasoning, is to Personalize or paraphrase what is being said. This way you can distill down the key points being made. Here, we have a description of a controversy over how much of a role Cezanne's works played in inspiring modernist abstract art. The majority say that Cezanne was a major inspiration for modernism, while a small minority disagrees with that assessment, with one particular member of the minority giving a reason for her disagreement with the majority.

There's not a lot to Prephrase off a stimulus like this, which is why the correct answer choice is deceptively simple. This is a common way the LSAT increases the difficulty on these MBT/MSS questions, as many test takers will try to force inferences that simply aren't supported by what is given in the stimulus. So you have to be prepared with a paraphrased summary of the stimulus and be mentally prepared to stick strictly to that and not try and go beyond that basis for drawing inferences. In this case, this means just going with the majority and accepting that their viewpoint is more likely true than that of the small minority. Not my favorite question as it comes dangerously close to an appeal fallacy, as there is no reason given as to why the majority's viewpoint would be true, but it's also the only answer choice that has any textual support in the stimulus.

Hope this helps!

[sdb606]

I'm still having a hard time accepting C. Imagine if I replaced "modernism" with America. C becomes, "Cezanne's work helped to develop America" while the stimulus says [paraphrasing] "Cezanne's work helped to develop American creators of abstract art." Clearly not the same thing so C should be wrong.

What's wrong with this logic?

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi sdb,

If we replace modernism with American, we would have something that says that Cezanne inspired the next generation of artists, American creators of a specific sort of art. It would be fine to say from there that Cezanne's work helped to develop the specific American art. Our stimulus tells us that Cezanne's work was the inspiration for the next generation, and it's not a stretch to say that means that his work helped to develop that next generation of art.

Hope that helps!

[jonwchalmers99]

Hi I don't understand why B is wrong on this question. You say that it is because Cezanne is never described as a creator of abstract art yet in the stimulus it explicitly starts with, "Cezanne's art inspired the next generation of artists." How is he not an early creator of abtract art???