#16 - A popular complaint about abstract expressionist

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[Lsat180Please]

Hi! Can you please break this question down and specifically discuss A vs. B? thanks! I knew the shift in wording from "aesthetically better" to "aesthetically pleasing" in the conclusion was the leap, but I still found this question tricky and would appreciate a breakdown. Thanks!

[James Finch]

Hi Lsat180Please,

Good catch on the wording! The conflation of relative qualities with absolute ones ("aesthetically better" vs "aesthetically pleasing") is a commonly tested subject on the LSAT, and test takers should always have it in the back of their minds whenever a comparison between two things is made in a stimulus. That is what is being tested here, not as a flaw, but as a necessary assumption to make the argument work. This leads to a powerful prephrase: in order for us to know the abstract impressionist paintings are "pleasing," rather than just better (but still bad!), we have to assume the preschoolers' paintings are good enough that anything better is automatically above the "aesthetically pleasing" threshold.

Only (B) does this, and we can test it out by using the Assumption Negation method:

Most of the preschoolers' painting were aesthetically displeasing



abstract expressionist paintings are not necessarily aesthetically pleasing

This works perfectly, confirming that (B) is the correct answer choice.

Hope this clears things up!

[Lsat180Please]

Thank you so much. That was really helpful. Could you also explain why answer choice A was wrong? B was definitely closing the holes in the argument but why does A not have to be true for the argument? thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

Since this is an Assumption question, Lsat180Please, let's try our virtually infallible Negation Technique on it! What would it do to the argument if people are not any better at judging a painting when comparing it to another painting than they are when just looking at it in isolation? What if the comparison made no difference? Well then these people might still have determined that they liked the abstract expressionist painting, or not, with no reference to anything being "better" than anything else. So what? Could it still be true that abstract paintings are aesthetically pleasing? Sure, why not? The argument could still be valid. Since the negation of answer A doesn't really impact the quality of the argument, it is not a necessary assumption of the argument, and A is therefore not the correct answer.

Practice that negation technique, and it will almost never (maybe never?) let you down!

[MillsV]

Hi - I eliminated B because of the word "preschoolers".

I did this because there was a question on a different exam with a stimulus about rolling pins, and one of the answers was incorrect because it used the word "utensils" rather than rolling pins. Is using preschoolers ok in this situation because it falls under the umbrella of child?

Also I understand that D uses the word "better" instead of pleasing, but isn't it a commonsense assumption that pleasing and better mean something similar? Also, would answer D be correct if it didnt use the word "better"?

Thanks!

[Ari]

I see where B is the correct answer and I was drawn to it during the test, and when I went back to the questions I marked during the exam. However, both times I ended up picking E. In my head, it seems like if the preschoolers paintings and the abstract artist paintings have stylistic similarities, then it seems like a matter of opinion and not fact that one is better than the other. Can someone shed some light on why E is wrong?

I also have a question about D. The stimulus says, "But MOST participants in a psychological study..." so I definitely gave D a second look. Would it be wrong because "most" of the participants is already enough to cross the threshold/fulfill the requirement of the paintings being aesthetically pleasing? In other words, not every single participant has to rate the abstract paintings higher than the preschooler's paintings to qualify as aesthetically pleasing?

[Adam Tyson]

MillsV: the use of "preschoolers" in answer B should raise no concerns because that same word was used in the stimulus. The comparison was between abstract expressionist paintings and paintings done by preschoolers. Repeating that word in this answer makes it a better answer than if it had just said "child."

Ari: Try the Negation Technique on answer E. What if the paintings had MANY stylistic similarities? If that was true, and if despite those similarities the participants in the study felt that the abstract expressionist paintings were better, that would do nothing to hurt the argument that the abstract paintings were aesthetically pleasing. And it's okay that this is about opinions and not objective trust, because "aesthetically pleasing" is always a matter of opinion, isn't it?

Your analysis on answer D is good! Despite what the minority felt, or did not feel, the study still indicates that most of the participants consistently rated the abstract paintings as better.

The key to this argument is that the premises are about one thing being better than another, and the author leaping from that claim to a claim that the better thing is actually good. In order to conclude that the better thing is good you have to first assume that the worse thing isn't bad! Otherwise, they could both be bad, and one is just not as bad as the other.

[kupwarriors9]

Hi Adam, why isn't the logical negation of E ("there were few stylistic similarities between the abstract expressionist" ) change few to none? I thought I saw on pg. 381 of the LRB that the logical opposite of some is none. So, wouldn't few = some? Wouldn't 'many' be the polar opposite of some? Thanks.

MillsV: the use of "preschoolers" in answer B should raise no concerns because that same word was used in the stimulus. The comparison was between abstract expressionist paintings and paintings done by preschoolers. Repeating that word in this answer makes it a better answer than if it had just said "child."

Ari: Try the Negation Technique on answer E. What if the paintings had MANY stylistic similarities? If that was true, and if despite those similarities the participants in the study felt that the abstract expressionist paintings were better, that would do nothing to hurt the argument that the abstract paintings were aesthetically pleasing. And it's okay that this is about opinions and not objective trust, because "aesthetically pleasing" is always a matter of opinion, isn't it?

Your analysis on answer D is good! Despite what the minority felt, or did not feel, the study still indicates that most of the participants consistently rated the abstract paintings as better.

The key to this argument is that the premises are about one thing being better than another, and the author leaping from that claim to a claim that the better thing is actually good. In order to conclude that the better thing is good you have to first assume that the worse thing isn't bad! Otherwise, they could both be bad, and one is just not as bad as the other.

[Adam Tyson]

I think a better interpretation of "few" is "not many" or "a small amount", kupwarriors9. Yes, it does tend to indicate at least some in most cases, but that's not the same as saying that few and some are equivalent.

Try this analogy:

"At the grocery store today, few people were wearing masks."

Would it negate (disprove) that statement if we responded "actually, nobody was wearing one."?

Or, would a better negation be "Actually, a lot of people were wearing them."?

The latter makes more sense as a response, right?