#21 - Kostman's original painting of Rosati was not a

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Mo,

The flaw in Answer C would really be an error of division, often referred to as a whole-to-part flaw. In this case, the fact that a child's eyes resemble the mother's eyes in general/overall/on the whole doesn't mean that they resemble each aspect or feature of the mother's eyes (such as color). It may be possible that the child's eyes resemble the mother's eyes in other ways (such as shape), but are different colors.

The flaw in the stimulus is not an error of division/whole-to-part flaw. Instead, it is mistakenly attributing a characteristic of one thing (the inaccuracy of Kostman's painting in regard to its subject, the person Rosati) to a second thing (the inaccuracy of your reproduction of Kostman's painting in regard to Kostman's painting of Rosati).

In other words, if a reproduction of something perfectly captures the thing that it is supposed to reproduce (including any flaws in the original) that does not mean that the reproduction itself is flawed as a reproduction. In fact, the more accurate the reproduction, the more accurately it would capture the same flaws in the original. So a perfect reproduction of an inaccurate painting would be considered an accurate reproduction of an inaccurate painting.

Answer A parallels this flaw. The fact that George's speech has flaws (half-truths and misquotes) has no bearing on the accuracy (i.e. the sound quality) of the recording. If the sound quality is very good and one can clearly hear George's speech, the fact that speech has flaws doesn't diminish the sound quality/accuracy of the recording as a recording of the speech.

[Let'sMasterLsat]

I eliminated all the wrong answer choices and "A" was my only option, however I am still confused that in the argument both comparisons are regarding the accuracy of the paintings, however in answer choice A, the content (half truths/misquotes) is being compared with sound quality. I don't understand how can this answer choice resemble the same type of flaw in the original argument.
I appreciate the clarification in advance.

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Let'sMasterLsat,

First, if you haven't already done so, I'd recommend reading the entire forum thread for this question, as there have been several explanations that you may find helpful.

While you are correct that the argument in the stimulus concerns the accuracy of the two paintings, it can be helpful to broaden the scope of the flaw in the stimulus to help find the answer that most closely parallels this flaw. (We refer to this as the Test of Abstraction.)

The basic flaw in the stimulus is:

Because the first thing discussed (Kostman's painting of Rosati) has a certain flaw (it's not an accurate portrait of Rosati), the copy/reproduction (your copy of Kostman's painting) of that first thing will be a flawed copy/reproduction.

Now let's see how Answer A follows a similar, but not identical, line of reasoning

Because the first thing discussed (George's speech) has a certain flaw (it contains half-truths and misquotes), the copy/reproduction (the tape recording) of that first thing will be a flawed copy/reproduction (not have good sound quality.)

It may be helpful to first imagine what an excellent copy/reproduction would be. For the painting, it should look as similar as the original painting as possible. For the tape recording, it should record the speech as clearly and accurately as possible. In both of these arguments, the fact that there is a flaw/problem with the original has no bearing on the quality of the recording as a recording.