Q17 - G: The group of works

[adarsh.murthy]

I understand how B could potentially strengthen the conclusion about bias. But it comes with lots of assumptions. The higher fees for paintings and sculptures might also be due to extra care in handling that might be needed to erect them or even more space that they might need to be exhibited in the Arts show. The lesser fees for photographs might not necessarily be a bias. Can anyone please help!?
Thanks!

[timmydoeslsat]

I understand how B could potentially strengthen the conclusion about bias. But it comes with lots of assumptions. The higher fees for paintings and sculptures might also be due to extra care in handling that might be needed to erect them or even more space that they might need to be exhibited in the Arts show. The lesser fees for photographs might not necessarily be a bias. Can anyone please help!?
Thanks!

I can tell you have really thought about this one. This is good.

Be careful about attaching unwarranted assumptions. I believe that we need to stick as closely to the text as possible. We are told in answer choice B that "The fee for entering photographs in the Metropolitan Art Show was $25 per work submitted, while the fee for each painting or sculpture submitted was $75."

This shows that the different art mediums are being treated in an uneven manner. This helps to strengthen this idea.

A) Does not support bias in favor of photographers. It shows what can happen if bias occurs, but we do not know that the photographs are in this discussion.

C) 4 members: 1 photographer, 1 sculptor, 1 painter, and 1 jack of all trades that is the least known. This might be the worst answer choice I have come across in my time with the LSAT.

D) Reviews done by major newspapers and magazines tended to give more coverage to photographs. No problem there. We want to know if the exhibition is biased in favor of photographers. You would actually expect more coverage to the photographs since there is more of them!

E) In other years, it was the reverse! The photographs were at the bottom of the barrel. This does not give us justification to conclude bias in the past. It especially does not give us justification to use that to make a determination about this year's art show.

[noah]

Good explanation, Tim. (I stole a few lines from you!)

Here's how I would approach the stimulus:

We can ignore H's statements for this question. The conclusion of G's argument is that the current batch of art in the Art Show reveals a bias towards photographers. Why? Because there are more photographs shown than other types of art. And, there was an equal number of photographers and other types of artists.

What's the gap? Well, maybe there were equal numbers of artists, but everyone but the photographer's submitted terrible art. Or, maybe it's not a bias, but the photographers submitted more works (be careful, the stimulus says artists can submit art in only one medium, but it doesn't say how many pieces of art within that medium).

(B) seems a bit off because it introduces the issue of a fee. Does that have something to do with a bias? Since the fee is lower for photographers, it is an example of a bias towards them. What is particularly tricky is that you might be thinking "the fee might not be intended to bias the selection," but beware - we're not discussing intentional bias. An unintentional bias is still a bias!

(A) is out of scope. It shows what can happen after a show, but we do not know that the photographs are in this discussion.

(C) is silly. What does this rather evenly distributed membership show about bias?

(D) is tempting if you thought that somehow the selection would take into account the reviews. However, it's just as likely, and frankly more likely, that the reviews were based on the selection. Thus, you would actually expect more coverage to the photographs since there is more of them!

(E) tells us that the show leaned towards other mediums in previous years. If anything, this tells us the show is not biased!

[dean.won]

I chose B for the reasons outlined above BUT....

isnt B a bias towards the submission and not the exhibition of art work??

[noah]

I chose B for the reasons outlined above BUT....

isnt B a bias towards the submission and not the exhibition of art work??

Probably, but G's statements include a discussion of the submission of art, so I think it's fair game.

[WaltGrace1983]

There is ample evaluations of this question but writing my own up here makes me really think critically about the argument, knowing that people may read it so I am going to do my own write-up on this as I switched my answer from (E) to (B). I do, however, think that there is some interesting turns that this argument could have taken and would like to elucidate some more thoughts.

Author G:

Equal #s of photographers, sculptors, and painters submitted works that met the criteria
+
More photos were exhibited than any other form of art
+
Each artist could submit work in one medium only
→
There was a bias in favor of photographers

Author H:

All - and only those - works that met criteria were exhibited
→
Allegations of bias are doubtful

Let's be honest. We were all probably thinking that there was going to be some answer choice saying, "All works were of about equal artistic merit" or something like that. There seems to be this gap between having more art selected and there being a bias. However, I think H's argument is incredibly important:

Exhibited ←→ Met Traditional Criteria

I think I have the tendency to gloss over the other arguments in these stimuli with two competing arguments; not good. Yet we must understand how important H's argument is. He is saying that EVERYONE who met the criteria got exhibited and EVERYONE who got exhibited met the criteria. This is HUGE. Why? Because it shows that there cannot really be a flaw in the argument about the quality! It is not like there was a chance that a qualified piece didn't get selected! According to the stimulus, EVERY qualified piece got accepted regardless. Hmmm.....

Also, here is some food for thought. Noah touched on this above. Keep in mind that each artist could submit work "in one medium". This is not to say that each artist could only submit one work. A photographer can submit 100 photos if he/she wanted to. Therefore, we could also look for something that talks about the number of works submitted. Maybe every photographer submitted 150 works and every sculptor submitted two. Wouldn't it make sense that there would be more photos then? Yep. I don't know how this can be phrased for a strengthener yet it is something to keep in mind.

Now onto the answer choices.

(A) This says IF ___________ happened. The problem? We don't know if any artist "had one of his or her works exhibited in the Metro Art Show." In addition, who cares about getting commissions and selling works. This bears no relevance to the conclusion at all.

(B) This definitely shows a bit of a bias. Why is that photographers catch a break in the fee? By charging less, it seems that the art show wants to make it easier for photographers to submit their stuff and more stuff would arguably lead to more selection of photos. This isn't perfect but I am going to keep it for now.

(C) This answer choice is the exact opposite of what we want. This is a very unbiased selection committee.

(D) This seems okay but the problem is that this has nothing to do with actually being exhibited. The argument seems to be about the market share of photos in comparison to other works. The answer choice would thus seemingly have to do with the actual Art Show and the people that run it. This is just talking about what happens after the fact. It isn't too relevant. So what if it was more covered? That's okay! There were more photos!

(E) This might actually weaken the conclusion. If more paintings and sculptures were selected then maybe this year was just a fluke. Also, what happened last year is not nearly as relevant.


Overall, (B) is the best answer. It is talking about the here and now, the selection process, and gives ample evidence that there is a bias - if there wasn't then why wouldn't the fee be the same?

[Jmaksimiuk]

I have an issue with B. How can we allege that there was a bias in the entry fee if equal numbers of artists submitted artwork?? Since the numbers are equal, can't we assume that the entry fee didn't really deter painters and sculptors from submitting works and thus didn't really influence the amount of works exhibited? I guess one could say that more painters and sculptors might have submitted works if their fee was lower, but since the overall submissions were equal for all three types of artists, isn't that a weak argument?

Any answers would be appreciated.

[mwalton444]

I agree with Jmaksimiuk. I had the exact same thought process while taking this test. I chose D because I felt confident in eliminating everything else. If there were an equal number of entries, how can we conclude that the increased price had any impact on (or deterred them in any way) the painters and sculptures art getting exhibited?

[MMeissner947]

This is so annoying so I will say this: In an alternate universe, if I had chose answer choice B, one of these instructor persons would have said, you cannot just assume admission price suggests bias, different art forms can reasonably be subjected to differing costs to exhibit, or a million other reasons, so no its not bias." I swear some of these questions may claim to have clear cut winner answers, but massive groups of people dont have the same "common" sense as everyone else, and so what seems to be obvious to the( Im sure very diverse... test writers) is not something that people take for granted, and then we are forced to ask ourselves, "hmm, is that an unwarranted assumption" and then go back and forth in our head imagining an instructor saying yeah you can't assume that, or you can reasonably assume this.

[ohthatpatrick]

In response to the last couple posters .... it's not true to say there were an equal number of ENTRIES from each art field. There were an equal number of ENTRANTS, i.e. artists.

But photographers were allowed to submit more than one photo. Sculptors could submit more than one sculpture. Etc.

Since the submission fee was 1/3 as much for photos, 1 photographer could submit 3 pieces for the same price that a painter could submit 1 piece.

This is likely why there ended up being more photos exhibited in the end. If there were 3 times as many photographs entered into the festival as there were sculptures or paintings, one would not be surprised to see more photos exhibited than paintings/sculptures.

============

For the most recent poster, I'm certainly not here to defend all "instructor types", but remember our goal is to try to explain why we think that LSAT picks a certain answer as the credited response.

LSAT is not a 100% consistent test. It often evinces very strong tendencies for a long time (so we start teaching those to people) and then when it seems to break one of those tendencies it seems to us (and students) like they've broken some sacrosanct "law", which never existed in the first place.

You will also FEEL like you're getting inconsistent advice if you're not keeping track of which question types deserve which advice.

Strengthen/Weaken correct answers are famously loose / weak / easy to debate, much of the time.

We would definitely argue that "different submission price" does not PROVE bias.
But we would say that it SUGGESTS bias, and if it moves the needle at all, then it Strengthens somewhat.

The key idea is always, "Did you find a BETTER answer?"

[JungY774]

In response to the last couple posters .... it's not true to say there were an equal number of ENTRIES from each art field. There were an equal number of ENTRANTS, i.e. artists.

But photographers were allowed to submit more than one photo. Sculptors could submit more than one sculpture. Etc.

Since the submission fee was 1/3 as much for photos, 1 photographer could submit 3 pieces for the same price that a painter could submit 1 piece.

This is likely why there ended up being more photos exhibited in the end. If there were 3 times as many photographs entered into the festival as there were sculptures or paintings, one would not be surprised to see more photos exhibited than paintings/sculptures.

============

For the most recent poster, I'm certainly not here to defend all "instructor types", but remember our goal is to try to explain why we think that LSAT picks a certain answer as the credited response.

LSAT is not a 100% consistent test. It often evinces very strong tendencies for a long time (so we start teaching those to people) and then when it seems to break one of those tendencies it seems to us (and students) like they've broken some sacrosanct "law", which never existed in the first place.

You will also FEEL like you're getting inconsistent advice if you're not keeping track of which question types deserve which advice.

Strengthen/Weaken correct answers are famously loose / weak / easy to debate, much of the time.

We would definitely argue that "different submission price" does not PROVE bias.
But we would say that it SUGGESTS bias, and if it moves the needle at all, then it Strengthens somewhat.

The key idea is always, "Did you find a BETTER answer?"

hi Patrick,

first of all thank you for your helps and supports on this web, it has been extremely helpful to understand weird Qs by reading your explanations.

btw, regarding this particular question, the reason I ruled out choice B was because the stiml. mentioned “each artist was allowed to submit work in one medium only”. If one artist can sumbit only one work, it seems like it contractict with your explaination. Can you possiblely help me with this issue?

Thank you.