Q4 - Art critic: Nowadays, museum visitors seldom pause

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Necessary Assumption

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: People are less willing to engage with art then they used to be.
Evidence: Nowadays, musuem visitors typically look at a work of art for less than a minute. They look quickly and maybe take a picture.

Answer Anticipation:
Missing Links? Potential Objections?
MISSING LINK: "how willing you are to engage with art" is related to "how long you pause to look at a work of art in a museum".
OBJECTIONS: What if we're less engaged with museum art, but more engaged with almost all other works of art? What if we plan to spend a lot of time later, looking at our photo of the work of art, lengthening how long we engage with that work of art?

Correct Answer:
C

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) The author never discussed HOW MANY pieces of art are looked at, and you don't have to assume "if people look at each work for shorter time, they must look at more pieces total".

(B) This is lost within the Premises. It's linking language from one premise detail to another. The author never says or assumes that taking pictures CAUSES (contributes) a faster path through the museum. The fact that "snapshot" only appears in "PERHAPS take a snapshot" should tell us that snapshot is a truly inessential detail overall.

(C) Is anyone talking about whether visitors ENJOY their experience? We're talking about HOW MUCH TIME people spend at each work and HOW WILLING TO ENGAGE people are.

(D) This is tempting, since one of our objections was "What if people look at the photo later, thus lengthening how long they engage with the art"? If we negated this, and it said "people who take pics of works FREQUENTLY look at the pics afterward", would it be a strong objection? Not really, since the people who take pics are potentially a really small fraction of the museum visitors in the first place, and the author is generalizing about PEOPLE, not just PEOPLE WHO TAKE PICS OF ART. Again, the fact that "PERHAPS a snapshot" is the only mention of snapshot should tell us that snapshot is not integral to the argument's core

(E) Yup. This gives us a Missing Link: the premise talked about HOW MUCH TIME people spend looking at each work. The conclusion talks about HOW WILLING TO ENGAGE with art people are. If one is an UNRELIABLE measure of the other, that badly weakens the argument.

Takeaway/Pattern: Early Necessary Assumption questions are often rewarding missing link assumptions. Pay attention to new wording in the conclusion. "How willing to engage with art" in the conclusion is a brand new idea we never specifically talked about in the evidence. What was the author equating with "willingness to engage"? How long we spend looking at a work of art.

#officialexplanation

[SaraK559]

Is the correct answer supposed to be E not C? The answer key says E and I think your explanation also is leaning towards E.

Thanks!

[PretzelL30]

Is the correct answer supposed to be E not C? The answer key says E and I think your explanation also is leaning towards E.

Thanks!

Yes! The correct answer choice is (E).
(C) is incorrect.