#16 - Must Be True

[beniakc]

#16
I dont understand why D is correct and not C.

Where does impermanent come into play and how?

[Steve Stein]

The author's point is that no metals other than gold were reliable; the distinction drawn is between gold and other metals, as provided by correct answer choice C. Since the author's distinction is not between a metal and nonmetallic materials, answer choice D can be safely eliminated.

Let me know whether this is clear--thanks!

~Steve

[lhd33]

Hi,

I don't understand why C exactly is the correct answer. Where in the passage does the author explicitly state that the reason gold is different than other metals is because it does not lose its reflective properties over time?

Thanks!

[Steve Stein]

Hi,

That's a good question, and one that speaks to the fact that you can't always rely on the test makers to point you directly to the answer, even when dealing with Specific Reference questions such as this one. In lines 25 - 27, after mentioning that Noguchi spent hours polishing brass and bronze sculptures, the author states that "no metals, other than the expensive, nonoxidizing gold, could be relied upon to give off positive light reflections." At the end of the following paragraph, regarding chrome-nickel steel, the author provides, "Here, finally, was a permanently reflective surface, economically available in massive quantities."

Tough question! Please let me know whether this is clear—thanks!

~Steve

[lhd33]

Thank you so much! That clears it up perfectly!

[Steve Stein]

Hi,

Thanks very much for your message! I appreciate your response, and I'm really glad that was helpful!

~Steve

[Rita]

Hi Steve,

Could you please explain why B is incorrect? I took the permanently reflective surface to mean that gold was "technically suited for sculpture," something true of no other metals at that time (hence all other highly reflective metals were not so suited).

Thanks,
Rita

[Rita]

One follow up question - does the word order of the answer need to match that of the question? In other words, since "no metals" comes first in the question, must that be the first element described in the response? I noticed this is the case in C "metals that can be made..." comes first, but not in B, so I'm wondering if that might be a rule to follow?

Thanks,
Rita

[Adam Tyson]

Hey Rita, let me deal with your follow up first and say that word order here probably doesn't matter in a question like this. At least, it doesn't matter in this case, and they could have flipped the order of the items being compared in correct answer C and it still would have been correct. However, I think it's likely that you will usually see the order being mirrored, so you might consider that a "red flag" just to draw your attention and consider whether there might be a problem there.

As to your original question now, I think you may have missed something in the passage, because we have direct evidence that other metals ARE suited to sculpture - Noguchi polishing Brancusi's bronze and brass sculptures was just mentioned a few lines before. Also, at no point does the author tell us, or even imply, that nonoxidizing gold is suitable for sculpting, just that it was apparently the only metal that could be relied on to give positive light reflections. That's the key reason for bringing up the gold - to compare it to other metals, like brass, that apparently could not be relied upon to be suitably reflective.

Be careful not to read too much into the text!

Keep up the good work!

[Rita]

Thanks Adam - that was really helpful!