Q25

[logicfiend]

Wow did I have trouble with this question. I stared at it after a timed section for about 30 minutes trying to figure out where there was support for it.

I did choose (C) during timed practice because it sounded the most nuanced, but I'm still really uneasy about the reasoning for why the other answers are wrong. Really, this entire question I'm unsure about. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks!

Q is asking what the author implies about artistic merit of fakes? Where can we find support for this in the passage? I thought L18-20, as an example: "No doubt many of the sculptures NOW EXHIBITED as 'Roman copies' were originally passed off as Greek."

I interpreted this line as saying, well the reason we're exhibiting these sculptures is because we must believe they have some artistic merit. But wait, they're "Roman copies?" They're not originals? But we're still exhibiting them, so that must mean we believe the fakes have some artistic merit apart from their originals.

(C) would some this up well: Regardless of how the "Roman copies" were produced, they may or may not have artistic merit independently from the originals of which they are copies. (how does that sound?)

A) Nothing in the passage suggests that the production of a fake will affect its artistic merit.

B) "Only if" is pretty extreme here, especially when there is no support for the statement in the passage. And the passage doesn't say anything about a fake succeeding in deception, only talks about the the motives of a creator intending to deceive (L1-3).

D) Accomplished artist? Hmm, don't see anything about that in the passage. We do know that if you're an accomplished artist like Michelangelo your work may be the object of imitators, but nothing about the merit of those imitations. (L31-36)

E) This one I had some trouble eliminating. However, there's actually nothing in the passage to suggest that the merit of a fake is dependent on the original work. It would seem like a logical interpretation of the passage; why imitate an original if this original doesn't have artistic merit? But this would not mean that the fake would automatically have merit as well. What if it's a bad imitation? Regardless, this line of interpretation would take you away from the passage. (Any help here?)

[christine.defenbaugh]

Thanks for posting, logicfiend!

I think you have two main issues that are preventing you from feeling confident about the answer to this question. First, you did not find the best/most direct support for the question! We'll tackle that in a moment. But on a conceptual level, it sounds like you wanted to find specific textual support that would DISPROVE the other answers - and that's not always (or even often) how it works for an inference question!

What makes a wrong answer wrong is that there just isn't any support for it! You get down to this in your analysis of the wrong answers, but I think you're still uneasy eliminating them without ANTI-PROOF. You want to get comfortable with eliminating something just because it has ZERO proof! Your analysis of the incorrect answers is spot on - and that's all you need to take them out of the running.

Now, let's take a look at the support you went for, lines 18-20. You are working way too hard to make this fit! Are these Roman copies now exhibited because they have actual artistic merit? I have no idea, and neither do you! Maybe they are exhibited just to show the fact that the Romans did a bunch of Greek copying. We don't know, the author doesn't tell us, and we don't care.

So where's the support? Let's start from scratch.

Let the question stem direct the research
When faced with an inference question, I want to target anything in the question stem itself that can tell me where to go hunting in the passage. The thing I'm looking for here is "artistic merit". I need a location where the author directly mentions or very, very strongly implies something about artistic merit.

Find DIRECT support
The ONLY location where the word "merit" is used is in the second sentence of the first paragraph, lines 2-3. "The motives of its creator are decisive, and the merit of the object itself is a separate issue." Right from the beginning, the author is telling us that we are not going to be discussing artistic merit at all. It is, fundamentally "a separate issue."

Use the Passage Map to help direct you
The Passage Map further cements this as the only possible location for any information about "merit". Paragraph 2 is all about how faking tracks with art collection itself, and lists a number of examples. (No mention of the merits of the fakes.) Paragraph 3 is all about the definition of authenticity, and again, no mention of the artistic merit of anything.

The citation must give positive support for the answer
ALL of the incorrect answers purport to conclude something about when a fake has merit, or when it doesn't! Only (C) says, essentially, that fakes might or might not have merit. That matches that second sentence - we have no idea whether fakes have merit!

Unsupported answers are just as wrong as contradicted ones!
Any answer that seemed to know something about whether fakes have artistic merit, or which fakes have artistic merit, would be going much further than the passage itself.

Let's take a quick spin through the incorrect answers, and affirm what you've done above:

(A) Passage never said fakes CAN'T have artistic merit. It said "artistic merit" was a separate issue from fakeness.
(B) Passage never limited artistic merit to successful fakes. It said "artistic merit" was a separate issue from fakeness.
(D) Passage never discussed the fake-creator's artistic accomplishments in relation to artistic merit.
(E) Passage never mentioned how the merit of the original would impact the artistic merit of the fake.

Two major things you should put in your pocket for RC:

1) Look for DIRECT support - as direct as possible. Don't build elaborate interpretation bridges to force an unrelated quote to act as support.

2) If a passage simply does not mention (or STRONGLY imply) something, then there is no support and it can be eliminated! You may not always find something that directly contradicts an incorrect answer. Lack of any support is just as valid a reason to eliminate.

Please let me know if this helps clear things up a bit!