Q25 - The judgement that an artist

[pkashani06]

I had it narrowed down to A and C and I ended up picking A, which is the correct answer. I still don't really understand this question, because diagramming it seems nearly impossible. How would you attack this problem/ones similar to this?

[giladedelman]

Thanks for posting! This is a difficult question, no doubt.

I agree with you that diagramming doesn't seem to be useful here, mainly because there's only one conditional statement, rather than a series that can be chained together. Oh, well! Diagramming is just one tool in our toolkit.

This is a "match the flaw" question, so it's important that we figure out what the original flaw is.

The argument is based on the premise that assessing an artist's works is the only way to judge that artist's greatness. From this, it concludes that an artist's greatness only tells us about the quality of his or her known works, and nothing about unknown or future works.

But wait a minute. Just because there's only one way to know whether an artist is great doesn't mean that we don't know anything else about great artists. I mean, once we know someone is a great artist, can't we say that he has the ability to make great art? And if he has that ability, couldn't we say that he's more likely than I am, say, to produce great works of art in the future?

Here's an analogy: the only way to determine whether someone has homunculitis is to conduct a DNA test. Does that mean that if we know someone has homunculitis, it only tells us about his DNA? No! We would know that he's going to develop the symptoms of the disease (e.g., Schwimmer's ear, whale pattern baldness, snack aches).

(A) matches this flaw. Just because observing symptoms is the only way to know whether someone has a cold doesn't mean that if someone has a cold, all we know is that he or she has displayed the symptoms. We might be able to make predictions based on other things we know about cold sufferers.

(B) is clearly not close. There's no "only criterion" aspect of it, nor does it have anything to do with what we do or don't know.

(C) is tempting, but again, it doesn't have anything to do with moving from "only way of knowing" to "not knowing anything else."

(D) is tempting because its conclusion is similar, but its premise is way off. Again, we're looking for a flaw that revolves around "way of knowing" versus "what else we might know."

(E) is way off. The original argument doesn't say we can never know if someone is a great artist, it says we can't make predictions on that basis.

Does that clear this one up for you at all? Again, difficult question, and a good example of the importance of working from wrong to right.

[pkashani06]

Great explanation. Thank you very much. I guess its problems like these when you can't necessarily use any of the "tools" that really get me...

[WaltGrace1983]

Thanks for the explanation Gilad! Helped out a lot! Thought I'd add a bit more flaw-specific analysis for my own benefit and maybe someone else will like it too.

(B) This is flawed for a different reason than the original argument. This is giving one piece of evidence and concluding something (these people "must" be physiologically different) that is simply unwarranted. We don't know that they "must" be physiologically different merely from the given information. Maybe they just eat incredibly well, exercise, drink water, etc...you know, all that stuff those doctors recommend.

(C) This is flawed for the same reason as (C) just because its strength. From the given premise, do we really know it's not at all possible? Maybe cold viruses can be very easily predicted using a certain test?

(D) Same as (B) and (C).

(E) I'd actually say this is a fairly decent argument but probably still flawed. The word "never" is troubling (see the previous wrong answers) and is probably unwarranted.

I have been really trying to not only understand parallel flaw questions specifically by learning how to attack them but also trying to understand the flaws behind every stimulus, right answer, and wrong answer choice. Hopefully that will make me better at picking apart future flaws I see!

Great explanation. Thank you very much. I guess its problems like these when you can't necessarily use any of the "tools" that really get me...

Also, I would always remember that you will ALWAYS have one "tool" to help you get through: your logical reasoning skills! Just because some questions might not be as conducive to certain little "tricks," don't let that discourage you!

[asafezrati]

WaltGrace1983, thanks for the tip, and also thank you Gilad for the explanation.

I also tried to deal with this question with diagramming. I missed the flaw regarding the future-works-prediction, and focused on the first half of the conclusion instead.

Here is what I saw:

Sentence 2 (premise):
Indicated as Great -> a Series of Great Works

Sentence 3 (conclusion):
1. ("just to say.. is just to summarize..") Indicated as Great -> a Series of Great Works
2. ("and the artist's greatness.. future works.") - which I didn't quite understand at the time, but found it in A.

I thought that the test makers intended to creat a Circular Reasoning Flaw, something I saw in A as well:

Sentence 1 (premise): Knowing Cold -> Observed Symptoms
Sentence 2 (conclusion):
1. Cold -> Displayed Symptoms
2. *The other issue with the future.*

For this reason, and the similarity (the second half of the conclusion) chose A.

Personally, I prefer your way of reaching the right answer, but I'm wondering whether the circular reasoning does exist, and my method was ok.

Thanks!

[LsatCrusher822]

I have a follow up question.

I do understand that for parallel flaw questions, the argument doesn't necessarily need to have the same conclusion as the original stimulus. For instance if the stimulus has a recommendation, the correct answer choice need not have a similar recommendation.

In this case, we have a situation where the conclusion has two parts:
a) just stop summarize sth...
b) no basis for prediction of future

Should we be on the lookout out for such duality in parallel flaws? In parallel reasoning this would no doubt be important, but I am not sure about parallel flaws. I guess if both parts off the conclusion have flaws in it, as it does here, it would matter but if one part of the conclusion doesn't then is it ok if the correct answer doesn't mirror the conclusion? Many thanks in advance!