Q16 - A popular complaint about abstract expressionist paint

[Laura Damone]

Question Type:
Necessary Assumption

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Abstract expressionist paintings are aesthetically pleasing. Premises: Most participants in a study rated abstract expressionist paintings as aesthetically better than the preschooler's painting they were shown at the same time. The common complaint about abstract expressionist art, that a child could paint it, implies that the stylistic similarities between those paintings and children's paintings proves that they are no more aesthetically pleasing than children's paintings. Intermediate conclusion: The study results refutes the complaint.

Answer Anticipation:
This argument smells an awful lot like a Relative vs. Absolute flaw. Does the study indicate that abstract impressionist paintings are more aesthetically pleasing than the kiddie paintings? Sure. But does that mean that they are aesthetically pleasing on the whole? Not really. There also seems to be a sampling issue here. This study showed pairs of paintings and for each pair, there was a vote. But what paintings were they shown? Perhaps they were shown great examples of abstract expressionist art and ugly kiddie drawings. Since there is no clear term shift in this argument that a bridge assumption might help us correct, expect a defender assumption that mitigates one of those two flaws.

Correct answer:
B

Answer choice analysis:
(A) Ranking language is a red flag in Necessary Assumption answers because it tends to introduce and irrelevant comparison, so beware the "better than" in choice A. What if we negated this answer. Would that mess up the argument? Nope, because even if people aren't better judges when comparing, they can still be good enough judges for their judgments to reflect reality.

(B) This is our Defender, defending against the possibility that the kiddie works were totally ugly. If we negate this answer and say that most of the kiddie works were aesthetically displeasing, the study which ranked the expressionist paintings as consistently better wouldn't mean much. It could reflect the ugliness of the kiddie paintings as much or more than the aesthetics of the expressionist works.

(C) "Each" is a red flag right off the bat. Remember, when you negate an answer choice about totality, show a single non-conforming case. If that's not enough to bust the argument, move on. In this case, labeling seems like it would create a barrier to objectivity, so we don't want to assume that each painting was labeled. If anything, we'd want to assume that they weren't.

(D) Would this strengthen the argument? Sure. But is it necessary? Nope. Consider the negation by looking at a single outlier: If one participant who didn't consistently rate the expressionist paintings as better also didn't rate them better more often than not, that doesn't destroy the argument.

(E) Are stylistic similarities relevant? Not really. They're presence or absence wouldn't impact this conclusion.

Takeaway/Pattern:
When there's not a clear term shift in a Necessary Assumption question, predict a Defender Assumption. When there are familiar flawed methods at play in an argument, predict that they will tie into the right answer in some way. If they're there, they're probably there for a reason. When using the negation technique to assess answer choices that express totality, negate by showing a single non-conforming case (C and D). And beware the irrelevant comparison (A and E)!

#officialexplanation

[LenaC504]

A quick question about answer choice E:

The stimulus states that critics view the abstract expressionist paintings with "stylistic similarities to young children's paintings" as no more aesthetically pleasing than inexpert works. To refute this claim, doesn't the author need to base their comparison between expressionist paintings and young children's paintings that share stylistic similarities? Thus, the negation of E would destroy the argument: "There were NO stylistic similarities between the abstract expressionist paintings that participants were shown and the preschoolers' paintings with which they were paired." This would imply that the author missed critic's point regarding this type of abstract expressionist art with stylistic similarities specifically.

Can anyone help clarify how to eliminate this answer choice?

Thank you!

[smiller]

Thus, the negation of E would destroy the argument: "There were NO stylistic similarities between the abstract expressionist paintings that participants were shown and the preschoolers' paintings with which they were paired."

Answer choice (E) is tricky, because for LSAT purposes the phrase "a few" means "some," which means an unknown quantity greater than zero. If choice (E) stated that there were "a few stylistic similarities," your negation would be correct.

However, choice (E) states that there were "few," not "a few." Without the "a," the word "few" doesn't just signify that similarities existed. It means "not a large number." So choice (E) is stating that there not a large number of stylistic similarities between the abstract expressionist paintings and the preschooler's paintings used in the study. This would seem to weaken the argument. It's the opposite of what we're looking for!

The correct negation of (E) would be "there were a large number of stylistic similarities..." That would strengthen the argument, which is exactly the opposite of what we want when we negate a Necessary Assumption answer choice and plug it into the argument.