Q10 - Richard: Because it fails to meet the fundamental

[mshinners]

Question Type:
ID the Disagreement

Stimulus Breakdown:
R: Abstract art isn't representational, so it will be seen as an aberration.

J: Abstract artists are representing purely formal features, so they're part of the mainstream.

Answer Anticipation:
Both speakers talk about abstract art and whether it's representational, so I expect the answer to turn on that.

Correct answer:
(E)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) Out of scope. R doesn't talk about the artists. J says they may reject literal representation, which makes this answer a little too extreme to commit him to.

(B) Half scope. R agrees with this, but J doesn't mention it. J only talks about what makes art mainstream, not what the fundamental requirement of it is.

(C) Half scope. J would agree with this, but R has no opinion.

(D) Half scope. R agrees with this, explicitly. J, however, has no opinion. This is tempting because J says that abstract art is part of the artistic mainstream. However, that's J's opinion, and this answer is about what the general consensus will be. It's possible J thinks abstract art is a part of the mainstream, but everyone else incorrectly assesses it, and so it will come to be viewed (incorrectly) as an aberration.

(E) Bingo. R says abstract art fails to represent, so he disagrees with this answer. J claims abstract art represents the purely formal features, so it's representational of those features. R disagrees; J agrees.

Takeaway/Pattern:
Be careful of the shift to perception in (D)! The "will be seen as" means that the answer is about general opinion, not the opinion of the speakers.

#officialexplanation

[kyuya]

Ah, if only they would disagree about what each others conclusions were, these questions would be so easy.

However, this is not the case. Often they disagree about some obscure fact that you can infer one person disagrees with and the other agrees with, or they may agree about the conclusion but differ on the reasoning for coming to the conclusion.

A good plan for these questions is to go to each answer choice and ask yourself, "what does person A think about this" -- if the answer is "who knows, they didn't mention it at all" then the answer is wrong. They cannot agree about something they don't even bring up. Most wrong answers are like this, they will have one person in the argument who has an opinion on something, while the other is simply unmentioned by speaker A or B.

Now, into the questions.

(A) Jung Su seems to think abstract art makers may reject literal representation -- but what does Richard think? We actually don't know. Richard states that abstract art fails to represent, but does this mean that makers of abstract art reject literal interpretation? Not necessarily. They could be fine with literal representations -- but richard is speaking about the art itself -- NOT the artists. This distinction is key. We don't know Richards view on Makers of abstract art at all -- he never mentions it! This answer choice hopes you don't read closely enough or conflate the two ideas.

(B) Jung Su never mentions the fundamental requirement, so we can reject this .

(C) Way off - Richard never ever mentions musicians

(D) This, like (A) requires you read carefully. As we can see from the conclusion of Jung -- he never actually addresses the conclusion of Richard head on. Although he thinks abstract art is part of the mainstream, he may actually believe it will be an abberation eventually. He is speaking in present tense, not past. On this basis, we can eliminate.

(E) Richard is blatant about this. abstract art is NOT representational! Jung Su's position is harder to see, but after the comma in the first sentence he reveals his position. Jung believes abstract art DOES represent -- just formal features, and they may reject literal representation.

Here is where the discrepancy between the two can be found, and our right answer is (E).

[ganbayou]

Can we have official explanation from mlsat teachers?
I was not sure between D and E, and I chose D twice when I did this question...
btw is the previous poster talking about future tense instead of past? I was confused.