Interested!

Taking the Feb LSAT, thinking of moving to April- would like to join!

1. Stimulus in my own words: It's hard to properly attribute old art to a particular artist. Especially old art pieces without a signature or those that may have fake signatures. Therefore, the way credit is traditionally given (whatever that method may be) has special weight because art historians presume historical continuity. This means that these disputed paintings, for whatever reason, have a history of being attributed to a specific person/group of persons. All of this is why it would be difficult for an art historian who argues for a deattribution to convince others if the historian can't persuasively argue for the art piece to be credited to a different, specific artist.

All this being said, the question stem is asking what most strongly supports the argument that the traditional method of attributing a disputed painting should NOT have special weight. I took this to mean that you need something that would give reason to doubt the historical continuity that historians are presuming to give credit to an artist for some artwork. This led me to choosing (A) because this would make someone doubtful of the historical continuity that art historians rely on in their traditional methods of making attributions for dispute artwork. If art dealers wanted to make more $$, and hence always attributed unsigned paintings (which would be classified as a disputed painting) to famous people instead of more lowkey artists.. why would you then rely on historical continuity as a way to properly give credit for an artwork? This answer choice removes the credibility of using historical continuity as a way to give proper credit.

2. I thought the conclusion was the last sentence because the prior sentences offer support for it. Art historian will have difficulty in convincing others for a deattribution of an art piece because of what's mentioned in the first two sentences. If you say the conclusion is the second sentence, then what's the purpose of the last sentence? It doesn't make sense to say that the traditional attribution of a disputed painting has special weight because an art historian will have difficulty arguing for a deattribution of an art piece. If anything, I would say the first portion of the second sentence is a sub-conclusion, whereas the last sentence is the main conclusion.

My thought process in choosing B went something like this: If the quality of books have declined in recent years, then book publishers wouldn't have as many books to choose that have "intrinsic merit". If there's less books out there with "intrinsic merit", of course you're going to have a decrease in the amount of those kinds of books being published.

Another way I came to B was that the author talks about what's going on NOWADAYS, so I automatically got rid of A, C, and D. Due to the time period (past, always) these choices refer to, none would explain the sudden change in the present. Then looking between B and E (as these refer to recent years, matching the premise!), E also wouldn't explain why there was a decrease in the amount of books with intrinsic merit being published. If anything, I thought that it strengthened the argument. If profits are decreasing, then book publishers would probably be more focused on money than quality of books (which is the conclusion of the argument).

Hope that helped!

No I definitely agree with you.. it would be more beneficial if he had taken more time to further explain why a certain answer choice is incorrect instead of saying "Who cares?!". Like that does nothing for me. I want to know why it doesn't matter..