Art historian: Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently : Critical Reasoning (CR)

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aragonn

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Re: Art historian: Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently [#permalink]

11 Aug 2018, 04:32

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Official Explanation

Premise #1 – Convincing forgeries tend to be painted in the last 25 years.

Premise #2 – A forger uses current aesthetic modes, or paints things in a way that is nice looking based on current standards.

Conclusion: Forgeries are identified as such roughly 25 years later since what is considered aesthetically pleasing shifts.

(A) If we negate (A), we get that a generation does not consist of exactly 25 years. Fine. Let’s say it consists of 26 years or 27 years. The argument still holds. Remember, the prompt only says “roughly every 25 years”.

(B) is tempting, but it doesn’t say anything about computers identifying the majority of forgeries. Computers are simply another option, not the one that has necessarily been the most commonly employed.

(C) is easy to negate since all we have to do is great rid of the “not”. In doing so, we have an answer choice that is consistent with the argument. Indeed, the argument says that what is aesthetically pleasing does change in the course of twenty-five years. Remember: the correct answer, when negated, will result in an answer choice that, if true, will make the conclusion totally fall apart.

(D) is saying that people might value forgeries for their own good. There is no mention about the use of aesthetic standards to identify forgeries.

(E) Negating (E), we get that those who expose the majority of forgeries are NOT guided by aesthetic considerations. The whole conclusion, however, is based on the fact that the majority of forgeries ARE identified via aesthetic considerations. Therefore (E) is correct.

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Re: Art historian: Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently [#permalink]

02 Jul 2015, 07:31

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Conclusion: "a majority" of forgeries is identified as such "roughly" twenty-five years after their creation.
Premise: Paintings by forgers appeal to the eye of contemporaries, but not to the eyes subsequent generation.
I got stuck between D and E.
Option D is wrong. If we see the conclusion it is saying that "a majority of art is identified....". So, there may be a few art pieces which are not identified as forgery. And if those few paintings could not be identified as forgery, then that means they are valued as an art because of their other merits. Option D states the opposite assumption.
Finally, option E - CORRECT.

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Re: Art historian: Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently [#permalink]

24 Jul 2017, 11:22

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Mahmud6 wrote:

Sorry, I may be layman in asking this question.

Who expose the majority of paintings as forgeries? Is it the person who makes forgeries or the person who identifies forgeries?

Dear Mahmud6

I'm happy to respond. :-)

My friend, I am going to start by recommending this blog article:
GMAT Critical Reasoning and Outside Knowledge
The logic of real business world has everything to do with GMAT CR arguments. The better you understand that logic, the better prepared you are for both the GMAT CR and for business school. The GMAT CR is based on this real world business logic precisely because it's so important to have a sense of that logic well before you apply to B-school.

Think about it. Why do people forge paintings? Of course, this is an illegal activity, and people do it because they are trying to gain money from their illegal action.

The forger is a kind of criminal who has make money from his crime. Why on earth would this criminal expose his own crime and put himself at risk? As soon as it becomes clear that the person who sold this one painting sold a forgery, everything else that one person sold falls under suspicion, and if a number of these start to be exposed as forgeries, chances are very good that there would be financial and legal action against that person.

If, on the other hand, I am a scholar of art, and I identify a forgery, I would have every reason in the world to make this discovery public. As soon as I discover that a crime has been committed, I would be motivated to alert authorities, so that justice could be served.

Does all this make sense?
Mike :-)

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Re: Art historian: Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently [#permalink]

23 Feb 2022, 09:04

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pratishtha1210 wrote:

I marked C because I thought if we negate it
what is deemed aesthetically pleasing does change in the course of twenty years

For one thing, I don't particularly like the word "pleasing" in option C, because the argument does not mention this word at all; the argument just mentions "modes of aesthetics".

Quote:

then if it does change then we will not be able to determine forgery because aesthetically pleasing was the reason at that time that appealed to the eye

Believe this is where the confusion is. The conclusion is: "a majority of forgeries is identified as such roughly twenty-five years after their creation".

The assumption is that our aesthetic sensibilities do change in the course of twenty-five years. Because if our aesthetic sensibilities do not change in the course of twenty-five years, then paintings that appealed to the eye 25 years back, would continue to appeal to the eyes even now. Hence, in that case, forgeries would not be identified twenty-five years after their creation..

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Re: Art historian: Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently [#permalink]

06 Jul 2015, 12:34

Having Hard times cracking these CR questions
Eliminated other options and was left with Option E

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Re: Art historian: Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently [#permalink]

07 Jul 2015, 03:47

OptimusPrepJanielle wrote:

Art historian: Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently painted. While such a phenomenon may sound counterintuitive, a forger is able to exploit current modes of aesthetics to create paintings that appeal to the eye of his or her contemporaries. This very quality, however, is what makes those paintings seem amateurish to subsequent generations. As a result, a majority of forgeries is identified as such roughly twenty-five years after their creation.

The conclusion is that most forgeries are detected years after their creation. This occurs because they go unidentified during the time they're created due to an aesthetic technique of the forger that matches the current tastes of the buyers (of that generation).

Which of the following is an assumption upon which the argument rests?

A) A generation consists of exactly twenty-five years. The argument isn't dependent on the definition of a generation.
B) Computer analysis, which does not rely on current aesthetic trends, can often determine with a high degree of accuracy the legitimacy of a painting.Computer analysis is out of scope.
C) What is deemed aesthetically pleasing does not change in the course of twenty-five years. The forger adapts his or her aesthetic technique precisely because it changes.
D) A piece of art determined to be a forgery does not, after a period of twenty-five years, become valued for its own intrinsic merits.The reason for the value of an art piece is not relevant.
E) Those who expose the majority of paintings as forgeries are guided by aesthetic considerations.
Without this assumption the aesthetic technique mentioned isn't relevant to identification of forgeries.

OptimusPrepJanielle - Thank you very much for the wonderful explanation!
I was lost and could not find the conclusion during the test. 1.30mins was perhaps too short to locate it then.
I was busy looking for traditional markers like "therefore", "as a result", "in conclusion", etc to locate the conclusion which unfortunately was not present in this argument.

I guess the takeaway here is to take the whole argument and re-word/ re-phrase the conclusion rather than looking for markers.

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Re: Art historian: Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently [#permalink]

12 Oct 2015, 12:00

Art historian: Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently painted. While such a phenomenon may sound counterintuitive, a forger is able to exploit current modes of aesthetics to create paintings that appeal to the eye of his or her contemporaries. This very quality, however, is what makes those paintings seem amateurish to subsequent generations. As a result, a majority of forgeries is identified as such roughly twenty-five years after their creation.

Which of the following is an assumption upon which the argument rests?

(A) A generation consists of exactly twenty-five years.

(B) Computer analysis, which does not rely on current aesthetic trends, can often determine with a high degree of accuracy the legitimacy of a painting.

(C) What is deemed aesthetically pleasing does not change in the course of twenty-five years.

(D)A piece of art determined to be a forgery does not, after a period of twenty-five years, become valued for its own intrinsic merits.

(E) Those who expose the majority of paintings as forgeries are guided by aesthetic considerations.

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Re: Art historian: Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently [#permalink]

13 Oct 2015, 15:08

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tuanquang269 wrote:

Art historian: Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently painted. While such a phenomenon may sound counterintuitive, a forger is able to exploit current modes of aesthetics to create paintings that appeal to the eye of his or her contemporaries. This very quality, however, is what makes those paintings seem amateurish to subsequent generations. As a result, a majority of forgeries is identified as such roughly twenty-five years after their creation.

Which of the following is an assumption upon which the argument rests?

(A) A generation consists of exactly twenty-five years.

(B) Computer analysis, which does not rely on current aesthetic trends, can often determine with a high degree of accuracy the legitimacy of a painting.

(C) What is deemed aesthetically pleasing does not change in the course of twenty-five years.

(D)A piece of art determined to be a forgery does not, after a period of twenty-five years, become valued for its own intrinsic merits.

(E) Those who expose the majority of paintings as forgeries are guided by aesthetic considerations.

Topics merged. tuanquang269, please search for a question before you post it to a new thread.
Thanks,
Mike :-)

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Re: Art historian: Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently [#permalink]

23 Jul 2017, 03:39

OptimusPrepJanielle wrote:

Art historian: Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently painted. While such a phenomenon may sound counterintuitive, a forger is able to exploit current modes of aesthetics to create paintings that appeal to the eye of his or her contemporaries. This very quality, however, is what makes those paintings seem amateurish to subsequent generations. As a result, a majority of forgeries is identified as such roughly twenty-five years after their creation.

The conclusion is that most forgeries are detected years after their creation. This occurs because they go unidentified during the time they're created due to an aesthetic technique of the forger that matches the current tastes of the buyers (of that generation).

Which of the following is an assumption upon which the argument rests?

A) A generation consists of exactly twenty-five years. The argument isn't dependent on the definition of a generation.
B) Computer analysis, which does not rely on current aesthetic trends, can often determine with a high degree of accuracy the legitimacy of a painting.Computer analysis is out of scope.
C) What is deemed aesthetically pleasing does not change in the course of twenty-five years. The forger adapts his or her aesthetic technique precisely because it changes.
D) A piece of art determined to be a forgery does not, after a period of twenty-five years, become valued for its own intrinsic merits.The reason for the value of an art piece is not relevant.
E) Those who expose the majority of paintings as forgeries are guided by aesthetic considerations.
Without this assumption the aesthetic technique mentioned isn't relevant to identification of forgeries.

Sorry, I may be layman in asking this question.

Who expose the majority of paintings as forgeries? Is it the person who makes forgeries or the person who identifies forgeries?

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Re: Art historian: Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently [#permalink]

15 Jan 2018, 02:40

hello, I need help.
I do not understand the word "the course of sth" in C, since i am an international student.

Also, I thought an assumption makes the conclusion,not the premise, hold true. How can E be the answer?
Here is my thought: perhaps, the main idea of the argument is that people use the aesthetic technique to find the forgeries; then, E should be the answer.
Thanks.

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Re: Art historian: Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently [#permalink]

16 Jan 2018, 14:35

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chesstitans wrote:

hello, I need help.
I do not understand the word "the course of sth" in C, since i am an international student.

Also, I thought an assumption makes the conclusion,not the premise, hold true. How can E be the answer?
Here is my thought: perhaps, the main idea of the argument is that people use the aesthetic technique to find the forgeries; then, E should be the answer.
Thanks.

Dear chesstitans,

I'm happy to respond.

My friend, this is exactly the sort of information you would learn if you were to develop a rigorous habit of reading, as I know I have recommended to you before.
How to Improve Your GMAT Verbal Score

Like many of the English words from the more Germanic, Anglo-Saxon side of the language, the word "course" has a multiplicity of meanings. One is the path traced by flowing water--for example, the course of a stream or a river. It is also used metaphorically for any kind of flow--for example, an academic course could be conceived as a metaphorical "river" of information that pours toward the students.

We speak of the "course of events" when we are referring to time as a metaphorical flow. For example, the US Declaration of Independence has the famous beginning: "When in the Course of human events, . . ." (BTW, the first two paragraphs of that document are excellent reading practice for non-native speakers.) Similarly, we can discuss the flow of time in much more specific periods--
during the course of the last two months
during the course of her employment at Company X
during the course of Johann Sebastian Bach's life
during the course of the Pleistocene
That is the sense being used here.

Does this make sense?
Mike

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Re: Art historian: Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently [#permalink]

26 Oct 2019, 01:05

VeritasKarishma jennpt GMATNinja nightblade354 can you please explain why C is wrong?

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Re: Art historian: Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently [#permalink]

19 Jun 2020, 13:56

Confused about this one. I chose C because I couldn't zero down on what the author's argument is. I interpreted the main argument to be this statement: "This very quality, however, is what makes those paintings seem amateurish to subsequent generations. " Based on that, I chose C as the assumption.

What is the best way to separate the main argument from fluff?

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Re: Art historian: Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently [#permalink]

13 Nov 2020, 00:29

Patronus wrote:

Art historian: Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently painted. While such a phenomenon may sound counterintuitive, a forger is able to exploit current modes of aesthetics to create paintings that appeal to the eye of his or her contemporaries. This very quality, however, is what makes those paintings seem amateurish to subsequent generations. As a result, a majority of forgeries is identified as such roughly twenty-five years after their creation.

Which of the following is an assumption upon which the argument rests?

A) A generation consists of exactly twenty-five years.
B) Computer analysis, which does not rely on currentaesthetic trends, can often determine with a high degree of accuracy the legitimacy of a painting.
C) What is deemed aesthetically pleasing does not change in the course of twenty-five years.
D) A piece of art determined to be a forgery does not, after a period of twenty-five years, become valued for its own intrinsic merits.
E) Those who expose the majority of paintings as forgeries are guided by aesthetic considerations.

Please can someone explain the conclusion first of all, and then why is OA correct? Thankyou.

I think C is wrong because the premise already states that this very quality will be amateurish implying bad for subsequent generations. Hence, it is against the premise, which can't be. Premises stay true. Correct me, if I am wrong.

Cheers
Rudolf

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Re: Art historian: Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently [#permalink]

17 Nov 2020, 03:06

Art historian: Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently painted. While such a phenomenon may sound counterintuitive, a forger is able to exploit current modes of aesthetics to create paintings that appeal to the eye of his or her contemporaries. This very quality, however, is what makes those paintings seem amateurish to subsequent generations. As a result, a majority of forgeries is identified as such roughly twenty-five years after their creation.

Conclusion - Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently painted
Premise - Forger utilises current aesthetics that appeal to the eye of contemporaries
Reasoning - The aesthetics change for subsequent generations

Pre-thinking
1. 25 years is one generation, so one generation doesn't last longer
2. Aesthetics change from generation to generation
3. No other method to identify other than aesthetics

A) A generation consists of exactly twenty-five years. -- If it consists of 26 or 24 years then the conclusion doesn't break down. Eliminate.

B) Computer analysis, which does not rely on current aesthetic trends, can often determine with a high degree of accuracy the legitimacy of a painting. -- well even if computer analysis cannot determine, our conclusion still remains valid.

C) What is deemed aesthetically pleasing does not change in the course of twenty-five years. -- If what is deemed aesthetically pleasing changes in the course of 25 years, then our argument is strengthened. Eliminate.

D) A piece of art determined to be a forgery does not, after a period of twenty-five years, become valued for its own intrinsic merits. -- Irrelevant to the argument of determining a forgery.

E) Those who expose the majority of paintings as forgeries are guided by aesthetic considerations. -- Correct. If they aren't guided by aesthetics then they're employing some other technique to expose forgery and as such the conclusion does not hold since then the success of forgery doesnt have anything to do with the time period.

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Re: Art historian: Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently [#permalink]

23 Feb 2022, 06:07

Art historian: Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently painted. While such a phenomenon may sound counterintuitive, a forger is able to exploit current modes of aesthetics to create paintings that appeal to the eye of his or her contemporaries. This very quality, however, is what makes those paintings seem amateurish to subsequent generations. As a result, a majority of forgeries is identified as such roughly twenty-five years after their creation.

Which of the following is an assumption upon which the argument rests?

A) A generation consists of exactly twenty-five years.
B) Computer analysis, which does not rely on current aesthetic trends, can often determine with a high degree of accuracy the legitimacy of a painting.
C) What is deemed aesthetically pleasing does not change in the course of twenty-five years.
D) A piece of art determined to be a forgery does not, after a period of twenty-five years, become valued for its own intrinsic merits.
E) Those who expose the majority of paintings as forgeries are guided by aesthetic considerations.

hi mikemcgarry EducationAisle

Can you please explain why C is wrong and E is right?
I read all the threads and could not get in detail explanation for that

I marked C because I thought if we negate it
what is deemed aesthetically pleasing does change in the course of twenty years
then if it does change then we will not be able to determine forgery because aesthetically pleasing was the reason at that time that appealed to the eye

Whereas E says on negation Those who expose the majority of paintings as forgeries are not guided by aesthetic considerations.
I am not able to get a hang of it that how it is a assumption or what it means exactly

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Re: Art historian: Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently [#permalink]

22 Oct 2023, 14:48

Tricky question with information spread out rather than near the conclusion or premise-
However one you get to know what the argument says it is quite obvious.
Argument- Exploiting certain techniques to get that aesthetic appeal in the forged painting helps it getting caught as with time those aesthetics look less impressive.
E) clearly is correct as it says the person catching them must be looking for aesthetics - if this is not assumed they will not catch it and the argument is not valid.
Love the question , don't know if it's GMAT like but a great question nonetheless.

gmatclubot

Re: Art historian: Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently [#permalink]

22 Oct 2023, 14:48

GMAT Critical Reasoning (CR) Questions

Art historian: Successful forgeries tend to be those most recently