Paul wrote:
The sculpture of the woman was carved during the early Greek period. The shape of the fingers, the style of hair, and the design of her sandals indicate the early period. The tilt of the chin and the closed eyes are frequently found in early Greek sculpture.
Which of the following is an asusmption upon which this argument is based?
A) the period of a work of art can be established with certainty
B) certain attributes of works of art are typical of specific periods
C) tilted chins and closed eyes always appear together in Greek sculpture
D) sculptures of women first appeared in the early Greek period
E) closed eyes are characteristic of early art
Anandnk, I'll make an attempt, at least of the way I would approach this problem:
The conclusion of this CR is stated in the first sentence, and then it goes on about why that conclusion was made. List of attributes. Now lets look at each one.
A) Certainty?? In case as we go on through answer choices we dont find a better one, we'll get back to this one.
B) This one is better than A, b/c...lets for a second assume that it (B)is not true, then, those attributes, nose, hair, etc could have been used during the Roman period, Baroque period, and so on, in which case the conclusion is weakened substantially. B is the best so far.
C) Always appear together?? HUH? Ok, even if it is true, this is only a fraction of the statement. We can't make a conclusion based just on those two attributes. Finally, even we could, it is still much weaker than B, which incorporates all of them.(attributes)
D) Sculputes of women OLNY appeared in early Greek period. But that's not what the statement says. It says, sculptures first appeared during the Greek period. That leaves an opening for those sculptures to have been created in other periods. NO GOOD! NOT a necessary assumption to make that conclusion.
E) Same as
C, only this one is even worse.
Now that leaves us with B only as the best choice. Hope that makes sense
Just wanted to add one more thing. To make a point of assumptions. Here is an example:
I believe that John will score above 700 on GMAT, since there isnt a single math question he doesnt know how to solve. In fact, he is a math Genius! Now, I think without having to list choices, that statement points to what assumption I had to make. One of them can be, you guessed it, John's verbal skills are at least fair!!
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The more I learn, the more I realize I know nothing!
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