Q9 - The Board of Trustees of Federici

[shaynfernandez]

I understand answer B is correct in light of all the other weak answer choices. But I don't understand how the answer destroys the conclusion when it's negated.

"SOME or NOT all off the paintings that the board of trustees sells will be among those that the curator recommends selling"

Though I could see this destroying the argument.

"all of the paintings that the board of trustees sells will NOT be among those that the curator recommends selling"

but we are told to negate the modifiers opposed to the central verbs.

[maryadkins]

"SOME or NOT all off the paintings that the board of trustees sells will be among those that the curator recommends selling"

You were correct with this version. And actually, it does destroy the argument!

Think about it:

If not all of the paintings to be sold are the ones the curator recommends--i.e., not the ones that are inferior and "add nothing"--then that means some of the ones sold will be the others. What do we know about the others? Well, nothing--they could definitely be ones that DO add quality, that aren't "inferior" (I love that Cezanne counts as "inferior" in this question), and that will create a loss to the museum. That means the whole basis for this argument--that the selling won't reduce the quality--crumbles.

I hope this helps clarify. Please let me know if not.

[ptraye]

i was down to B and C on this answer, and I chose C. after reviewing the choices, it's obvious that C is incorrect.

i could have chosen B by correctly choosing that A, C, D and E were incorrect, but still I am not sure why B is correct in and of itself.

why does the curator's opinion about inferior work matter so much in this argument? is the curator's definition of inferior the only one that matters here?

also, with negating the assumption, like the person who commented above, i don't understand why it destroys the argument.

[ptraye]

also, with the conclusion, "the board's action will not detract from the quality of the museum's collection," isn't there an assumption there that the board will follow the curator's advice?

[maryadkins]

The curator's opinion matters because the argument is based on it.

The core is:

Curator says should be sold b/c are inferior and don't add anything

-->

If we sell some paintings it won't reduce quality of collection

Since the conclusion is based on the curator's opinion, we have to take it seriously. It's the only reason we're even given for the conclusion.

If it's not true that the works being sold are the one the curator says are fine to sell, the conclusion would fall apart because the WHOLE argument is hinging on this one point. There is no other reason offered.

Does this help clarify?

[maryadkins]

also, with the conclusion, "the board's action will not detract from the quality of the museum's collection," isn't there an assumption there that the board will follow the curator's advice?

Yes!

[nflamel69]

would it also be a necessary assumption that the curator's judgment is accurate in terms of the worth of these paintings?

[sodomojo]

"SOME or NOT all off the paintings that the board of trustees sells will be among those that the curator recommends selling"

You were correct with this version. And actually, it does destroy the argument!

Think about it:

If not all of the paintings to be sold are the ones the curator recommends--i.e., not the ones that are inferior and "add nothing"--then that means some of the ones sold will be the others. What do we know about the others? Well, nothing--they could definitely be ones that DO add quality, that aren't "inferior" (I love that Cezanne counts as "inferior" in this question), and that will create a loss to the museum. That means the whole basis for this argument--that the selling won't reduce the quality--crumbles.

I'm having a hard time seeing why this is a necessary assumption - seems too strong to me.

How is it necessary that "all" of the paintings must be among those that the curator recommends?

Maybe there are some other works among the Museum's collection that were not recommended by the curator for selling, yet are also of inferior quality and add nothing to the overall quality either. The board of trustees could sell these works and the conclusion would still hold.

[JerryG500]

"SOME or NOT all off the paintings that the board of trustees sells will be among those that the curator recommends selling"

You were correct with this version. And actually, it does destroy the argument!

Think about it:

If not all of the paintings to be sold are the ones the curator recommends--i.e., not the ones that are inferior and "add nothing"--then that means some of the ones sold will be the others. What do we know about the others? Well, nothing--they could definitely be ones that DO add quality, that aren't "inferior" (I love that Cezanne counts as "inferior" in this question), and that will create a loss to the museum. That means the whole basis for this argument--that the selling won't reduce the quality--crumbles.

I hope this helps clarify. Please let me know if not.

Hi there,

I have a concern here in your analysis "What do we know about the others? Well, nothing--they could definitely be ones that DO add quality, that aren't "inferior" and that will create a loss to the museum."
But they could definitely be the inferior ones too so that would not hurt the conclusion. So after negating (B), it is possible to hurt the conclusion, but not for sure to hurt the conclusion. I think after negating an assumption it should totally destroy the conclusion. Am I correct?

Thanks
Jerry

[MeenaV936]

Why is A wrong? I chose A because if art speculators can't tell the difference between inferior Renoir paintings and masterpiece ones, then they will pay a high price for the inferior ones because they will think it is a masterpiece one. If they pay a high price, then the museum can raise funds for renovation.

[ohthatpatrick]

Be careful with the approach you're using for Necessary Assumption.

You said:
"I picked (A), because if (A) is true, then such-and-such"

That's never how we think about Necessary Assumption. You're applying the mindset we use for Strengthen questions, which ask "Which answer, if true, most supports".

On Necessary Assumption you can ask yourself any / all of the following questions:
- Was the author clearly thinking this? Can I derive this idea from her statements?
- If this weren't true, would it be bad for the argument?

STRENGTHEN:
if this answer were true, would it help?
vs.
NEC ASSUMP:
if this answer weren't true, would it hurt?

Can we derive from the author's paragraph that she was clearly thinking that art speculators are unable to tell a crappy Renoir from a masterpiece?

No, I don't think we can derive that. I think we can derive from the author's words that she believes "at least someone would be willing to buy these inferior Renoir's and Cezanne's". But she doesn't have to think that these potential buyers are art speculators. And she doesn't have to think that they're unaware they're buying an inferior Renoir. Lots of art collectors badly want to own an item from famous artists, even if it's one of their crappier items.

If we negate (A), does it hurt the argument?
If art speculators ARE able to distinguish between an inferior Renoir and a great one, does that hurt the argument? No, for the reasons we just talked about. As long as someone is willing to buy these paintings, the author's argument works. And someone might be willing to buy an inferior Renoir (they probably wouldn't have the budget to afford a Renoir masterpiece, so this would be their best chance of owning a Renoir.)

In order to hurt the argument, we have to go against the Conclusion:
we need an answer where, if we negated it, we could argue that "The board's action would detract from the quality of the museum's collection."

At best, negating (A) would allow us to argue that "no one is gonna by these inferior Renoir's".

But that's not a way to argue that "the action would detract from the quality of the collection". If we can't sell these paintings, then the collection would just remain the same as always. We can only detract from the quality if we actually do sell some paintings.

When we negate (B), it says "some of the paintings the board will sell are not part of the crappy ones the curator would like to get rid of". This creates the possibility that the board will sell a masterpiece, not an inferior painting. This allows us to argue that the board's action COULD detract from the quality of the museum's overall collection.

Hope this helps.