#10 - To be great, an artwork must express a deep emotion

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Must Be True-SN. The correct answer choice is (D).

The stimulus can be diagrammed as follows (each statement is followed by its contrapositive):

• GA → AEEDeep AEEDeep → GA

• CE → AEE AEE → CE

The first arrangement could be stated as, “if a work of art is great, then it is a work of art expressing deep emotion.” The second arrangement could be stated as, “if the creator of a work of art is not capable of a certain emotion, then the work of art cannot express that emotion.”

Combining the first statement with the contrapositive of the second to arrive at:

• GA → CEDeep CEDeep → GA

If we are looking at a piece of great art, then, we can be certain that its creator has the ability to experience deep emotion. The contrapositive: an artist who cannot experience deep emotion cannot create great art.

The question that follows is a Must Be True question. The correct answer is the one that has to be true on the basis of the stimulus.

Answer choice (A): We cannot rule out such a possibility because the stimulus is concerned with the prerequisites of great art, while this answer choice discusses art more generally.

Answer choice (B): We can discard this choice based on the fact that the stimulus never used superlatives or dealt with matters of degree. The stimulus is concerned with thresholds – is a piece of art great or not? – since this choice cannot be confirmed by the stimulus, it cannot be the right answer to this Must Be True question.

Answer choice (C): This is not the correct answer choice. This would be an instance of a Mistaken Reversal. We know that a great work of art will be one that expresses an emotion, but do we really believe that every time someone puts paint to canvas while extremely happy (or extremely sad) a great work of art is going to emerge? Certainly not: the diagramming above will remind us that the starting point is “if a work of art is great….” An artist can be ecstatic and nevertheless turn out a mediocre piece. This answer choice could be false, so it is gone.

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice. Based on the contrapositive of our inference above, we can see that if a entity cannot experience deep emotion, then that entity cannot produce great works of art. This answer choice discusses computers that have no emotion at all, but any entity incapable of experiencing a single emotion would be incapable of experiencing the deep ones. This choice is confirmed by the facts of the stimulus, so it is the correct answer.

Answer choice (E): The claim here is basically that the products of great artists are limited to artworks that express deep emotion. This claim deviates significantly from the conditional statement in the first sentence, which only talks about great artworks, not great artists. Since the stimulus does not support this assertion, so this choice can be ruled out of contention.

[moshei24]

How would you diagram this: "Only artworks that succeed in expressing deep emotions are the products of great artists."

I feel that it's: Sufficient - Products of great artists; Necessary - the artworks succeed in expressing deep emotions

It's #16 in lesson two homework...

[moshei24]

Is it because in that answer choice it refers to artists and in the questions stem it's talking about the artist's art? In the online explanation it says because it's a mistaken reversal of the first statement, but that doesn't seem so. It seems that the answer choice is just too extreme because it refers to the artist instead of the artwork.

[Steve Stein]

On that one, the problem with answer chioce E, as you pointed out, is that the focus of the stimulus is on the greatness of an artwork, whereas this answer choice discusses greatness of an artist.

Let me know whether that one is clear--thanks!

~Steve

[ellenb]

dear Powerscore,

I just want to see why Answer E for this question is considered to be a mistaken reversal


Thanks

Ellen

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hi Ellen,

I'm not sure I would consider this answer choice a MR. If I were to diagram it, it would look like this:

Product of a great artist Express deep emotions

This claim deviates significantly from the conditional statement in the first sentence, which only talks about great artworks, not great artists:

Great artwork Express deep emotions

This difference is enough to render answer choice (E) incorrect.

Thanks!

[cphom]

Powerscore,

Can you explain why the second arrangement can be stated as "if the creator of the artwork is incapable of experiencing deep emotion, then the artwork cannot express that emotion"?

I can't tell why "the artwork cannot express that emotion" is considered the NC in the original sentence. I don't think I would have gotten there on my own.

Thank you!

[Robert Carroll]

phom,

A necessary condition is something that must occur if a sufficient condition occurs. So, in the sentence "But an artwork cannot express an emotion that the artwork's creator is incapable of experiencing," in order to discover the necessary condition, we need to find something that has to happen, if a certain condition is met. The word "cannot" indicates that something cannot be true; because, as the Opposition Construct on page 3 of lesson 2 indicates, "cannot be true" means the same thing as "must be false," whatever cannot be true here has to be false. So this is necessary:

"artwork cannot express a certain emotion"

What is sufficient to make this condition necessary? The stimulus isn't saying that artwork can never express any emotion, but a certain emotion under a certain condition: an emotion that the artwork's creator is incapable of experiencing. So:

an artwork's creator is incapable of experiencing an emotion that artwork cannot express that emotion

The key to identifying the necessary condition here is that "cannot" here means "cannot be true," which means the same as "must be false," so you know something that must happen. If something must happen, it's the necessary condition. The other condition in the sentence is the sufficient condition.

Robert

[Blueballoon5%]

I do not know how to translate this part of the stimulus, "But an artwork cannot express an emotion that the artwork's creator is incapable of experiencing," into a conditional statement.

The answer explanation says that the conditional statement is "if the creator of a work of art is not capable of a certain emotion, then the work of art cannot express that emotion."

I do not understand how the "creator is incapable of experiencing" is the sufficient condition. Where in the stimulus can I get to that connection (there appears to be no sufficient or necessary indicators).

[Lucas Moreau]

Hello, Blueballoon,

The phrase "an artwork cannot express" is where the conditional language comes from. To say that someone who is A cannot express B means that "if someone is A, that person cannot express B".

You could also rephrase the sentence into "An artwork cannot express an emotion if the author's creator is incapable of experiencing that emotion". Does that make more sense?

Hope that helps,
Lucas Moreau