Self-study
Conclusion There is a difference between beauty and truth. █████ ████ ██ █████ ████ ██ ███████████ ████ ███ ████ █████████ ██████ ██ ███ █████ ██ ███ ████ ██ █████ █████ ███ ████ █████████ ██████ ███ ███ ████ █████████ ███ ████ ██ ███ ████ █████████ ████████ ███ ███ █████ ███ █████
Argument Summary
The main conclusion is the very first sentence: beauty and truth are not the same thing. Everything after "after all" is support, since "after all" works the same way as "because."
The author reaches her conclusion through a contrapositive. She sets up a conditional: if beauty and truth were the same, then the most realistic pieces would be the best. She then tells us the "then" part of that conditional is false, because many of the most realistic artworks are not among the best. When the "then" part of a conditional is false, the "if" part has to be false too. So beauty and truth must be different.
Why does the author think equating beauty with truth would force the most realistic art to be the best? Because of the premise introduced by "since": the most realistic pieces are the most truthful. That premise supports the intermediate conclusion, not the main conclusion.
Here's the full structure:
Premise: The most realistic pieces are the most truthful.
Intermediate conclusion: If beauty = truth, then the most realistic = the best.
Premise: Many of the most realistic artworks are not among the best.
Main conclusion: Beauty ≠ truth.
Where the Gap Lives
When an argument has an intermediate conclusion, assumptions can live in either of the two jumps: from premises to the intermediate conclusion, or from the intermediate conclusion to the main conclusion. Both need to be checked.
The jump to the main conclusion is fine. The author is using a contrapositive: "if beauty = truth, then the most realistic = the best" combined with "the most realistic is not always the best" gives us "beauty ≠ truth." That move is logically valid.
The jump to the intermediate conclusion is where the gap lives. How does the premise "the most realistic = the most truthful" prove the intermediate conclusion "if beauty = truth, then the most realistic = the best"?
Here's a useful trick. The premise tells us "most realistic" and "most truthful" are the same, so let's use that to swap "most realistic" for "most truthful" in the intermediate conclusion:
If beauty = truth, then the most truthful = the best.
Now look at what's matched up and what isn't. "Truth" in the "if" part is tied to "most truthful" in the "then" part, so those concepts are linked. But beauty and best have no link anywhere in the argument. They're floating.
That's where the assumption hides. The author is implicitly connecting them. If beauty = truth (the hypothesis), then the most truthful art would also be the most beautiful. So the intermediate conclusion is really saying the most beautiful art is the best. The missing link is the most beautiful = the best.
Going into the answers, we want something connecting "most beautiful" to "best."
16.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ████████ ██ ███ █████████
a
The most beautiful ████████ ███ ███ ████ █████████
This is the missing link between "most beautiful" and "best." Without it, equating beauty with truth tells us only that the most truthful art is the most beautiful, but nothing about whether the most truthful art is the best.
Negate (A) to confirm: suppose the most beautiful artworks are not the best. Now, even granting "beauty = truth" (which would make the most truthful equal to the most beautiful), we can't conclude that the most truthful is the best. Since negating (A) breaks the argument, (A) is necessary.
b
If an artwork ████████ ████████████ █████████ ████ ██ ██ ███ ██ ███ █████████
Too extreme. The premise says the most realistic pieces are the most truthful, which is a claim about superlatives, not about every level of realism. A painting with some non-realistic parts can still be very truthful, just not the most truthful. The author never commits to the view that any non-realistic element makes a painting completely untruthful.
c
None of the ████ ████████ ███ ██████████
The stimulus says "many of the most realistic artworks are not among the best." "Many" is not "all." (C) says something much stronger: if it's among the best, it is not realistic. The argument still works even with plenty of realistic artworks being among the best, as long as some realistic pieces aren't. (C) goes further than what the stimulus requires.
d
Only the best ████████ ███ ██████████
This is the trap answer because it also connects beauty and best. But "Only the best artworks are beautiful" translates to "if beautiful, then best." Every beautiful artwork, even a mildly beautiful one, has to be among the best.
The author doesn't need that. Her argument operates at the extremes: "the most realistic," "the most truthful," "the best." She's making claims about the tops of scales, not about every level of beauty. All she needs is what (A) provides: the top of the beauty scale matches "the best." Mid-tier beauty can sit outside the "best" category without hurting the argument.
e
An artwork's beauty ██ ██████████ ██████████ ███ ███████ ██ ███ ██ ███████ ███
Subjectivity is a completely different topic. Whether beauty depends on the viewer has no connection to whether beauty equals truth, or to whether the most realistic art is the best.